Hello Fellow Patriots:
Our subject commences long ago when the geopolitical world had its biggest changeover with the rise of European Colonization. From Robert Longley:
“Colonialism is the practice of one country taking full or partial political control of another country and occupying it with settlers for purposes of profiting from its resources and economy. Since both practices involve the political and economic control of a dominant country over a vulnerable territory, colonialism can be hard to distinguish from imperialism. From ancient times to the beginning of the 20th century, powerful countries openly scrambled to expand their influence through colonialism. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, European powers had colonized countries on virtually every continent.” https://www.thoughtco.com/colonialism-definition-and-examples-5112779
the following is the complete list of 20th-century colonizers:
Austria, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Turkey, Japan, Russia, France, Soviet Union, Great Britain.
Conspicuously absent from this list is the United States, which will surprise many people who believe they ‘knew for sure that the United States was and is the world’s worst exploiter. Fortunately, just not true. The United States was a major force after 1900 in seeking the dismantlement of colonial countries. Today, colonialism has fallen into disfavor with the lone exception of Russia and new entrants…China. China, with its Belt and Road Initiative, is a subject we’ve talked about in the past and will be revisited again in the future. Today, let’s specifically focus on Russia. Did you know, that under President Putin’s reign (and I use reign instead of leadership quite specifically) Russia has attacked or subjugated multiple nations:
- Ukraine in 2014-taking the Crimea with the death of at least 13,000
- The 2014 Invasion of Moldovahttps://euromaidanpress.com/2017/05/04/moldovas-court-ruled-that-russias-14th-army-unconstitutionally-occupies-moldovan-territory/
- The internal breakaway Republic of Chechnya in 1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War
- Georgia in 2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
- Afghanistan in 1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
- Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2018 https://www.csce.gov/international-impact/publications/russian-occupation-south-ossetia-and-abkhazia
And today, the wolf is back again, looking at the biggest prize yet…the balance of Ukraine. Why should we care?
First, we must understand the motives and endgames that Russia and Putin pursue that are distinctly different from other Western nations. Second, we need to understand how war is fought today vs. how it used to be fought. We’ll examine America’s role in the world and lastly, we’ll try and project what will be playing out on the world stage over the next few weeks, months, and years.
Understanding this puzzle with many moving pieces can be tough, there is no making this simple. Without this understanding of history, we become pawns, easily manipulated by coordinated disinformation campaigns delivering anti-American concepts that we discuss all the time. With our enemies seeking the economic and social destruction of the United States, what we see at present is a clear and present danger overlayed against a domestic society weary of wars, commitments, and distrustful of how much longer we can maintain our ‘superior’ world view.
Putin is not pursuing a classic colonial power strategy. Instead, Russia is pursuing a Stalinist or Hitler-like strategy. He seeks domination of those nations he targets to both protect the homeland, but more telling, Putin seeks to conduct asymmetric war that goes beyond having nuclear weapons and allows him to leverage the relatively small size and industrial might of Russia. Did you know that Russia has only 146 million people? The United States at 345 million and European Union at 447 million people normally would allow little space for an ascendant Russia. Russia has developed a plan to both increase its population through the invasion of other countries and use other tools at its disposal to essentially blackmail its neighbors into quiescence. While Putin has not been known to play chess competitively, a highly placed individual once stated “But, on the chessboard of the world he is a Grand Master compared to the “casual” players who lead western democracies.” Putin is a narcissist and believes he is destined to resurrect the old Soviet Union and then confront the west. Chillingly, Putin may very well be a sociopath. https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/archive/7240-putin-the-sociopath Combine his iron fist control of Russia with his history of words and actions, his own view of Manifest Destiny for his dreams of a revived Russian empire and you may very well be observing the next Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
One last point on this subject. Most people don’t know/remember that Hitler and Stalin had a non-aggression pact at the beginning of the Second World War that allowed Hitler to fight a single front war against Europe. When things went badly against Hitler, Stalin turned on him and became our “ally.” Putin is likely playing the same set of cards today, teaming up with China against the West. The United States is incapable of fighting a two-front war today against Russia and China without the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This is how dangerous these times are.
War is fought differently today. But only on the western side of the coin. Putin has no compunction against killing civilians or causing massive collateral damage. He fully embraces the classic missive that war is about killing people and breaking things. In the West, war is highly nuanced and political. Because war is dynamic, we have ‘standard’ ways of fighting that might be akin to tit for tat, what we call proportionality. This alone has kept us from winning wars for the last 75 years.
Fighting wars is anathema to civilized societies. Unfortunately, the other side takes advantage of our ‘perceived weakness’ and floods us with messaging and images that only demoralize us further and undermine our will to engage, fight and win. Putin understands that and uses Agents of Disinformation to influence our domestic communications. This extends not only to our population in general but to our political and military leaders. Once again, Wokeness (viewing everything through the prism of racial and social justice) permeates our Fortune 1000, government and the military, continuously sapping our will and confidence. Disinformation campaigns are a form of war by other means. A quiet ware that we have been fighting for a generation. https://www.state.gov/russias-pillars-of-disinformation-and-propaganda-report/ How is it possible that we could be at war for so long and virtually the entire country is unaware? Thank our both Woke and super liberal media for being complicit in having become agents of disinformation for our enemies and anti-patriotic as never before.
I could not conclude this section without discussing why wars are inevitable. The two strongest kids on the block always fight. It’s in our DNA. We don’t necessarily fight for territorial gain, but we generally fight on principle. Russia will fight to dominate. Once the fight is underway, hopefully, our DNA should kick in and the fight will be on a more equal footing. Because we are the good guys (and we are) our inherent creativity and self-serving interests will allow, over time, for us to win wars. But, only (1.) if the gloves come off and (2.) there is sufficient time for us to ramp up. Time is vital because we don’t historically react promptly to threats of war. The other side will be ramping up (Ukraine is a great example) while we look for every off-ramp, we can find attempting to avoid conflict. Only at the last moment or when we are likely under attack will we declare a state of emergency and come together as a nation. There may not be sufficient time to react. You can be sure Putin has factored this in.
Reasons in favor of global engagement include a deep concern for what happens in the Ukraine:
I’m always amazed when I hear about some plane crash in a distant or remote country where almost always there will be Americans aboard. We are everywhere and there in every capacity. Our missionaries, business people, tourists,and government functionaries permeate the earth. American influence, from entertainment to financial, social constructs, military, political and more are willingly embraced by the majority of the world. We are investors, farmers, first responders, teachers, protectors, and more to the entire world. I bristle when I hear people make the naïve statement that we can’t or shouldn’t be the “Policemen of the World.” We are invested, both financially, politically, and socially, everywhere. Everything that happens in the world affects us to one degree or another.
One more thing to understand and process. If we retreat from world leadership, we essentially become isolationist by default. You already know that I am very mistrustful of globalism in general. You would think then that I might favor going it alone. Unfortunately, a highly industrialized society such as ours can no longer do that. You can’t be isolationists and access world markets to the degree we must. More so, there are an incredible number of commodities, components, and other things we need that are not available in abundance here. As the country moves to ever more advanced technologies like fuel cells, batteries, and wind-produced power; just to name just a few, often these items are in the hands of other countries that can and do restrict our access. These are challenges that require leadership and sometimes power projection to ensure access to strategic materials. Isolationism may preclude our country from obtaining those essential materials and denial of access to our products and services.
With over 9 million of us permanent ex-pats https://www.schroders.com/en/us/wealth-management/insights/talking-points/just-how-many-american-citizens-are-living-outside-the-us/and another 15 million regularly traveling throughout the world, how can we not be engaged? Overwhelming, we do good all over the world. American culture and values have a tremendous effect on the rest of the world. This is a story that is not told enough. We are a force for good 10-1. At the end of the Second World War, we were the lone superpower. Now, there are three with China and Russia seeking not just a seat at the table, but nothing less than changing that dynamic and seeing our country completely knocked off its perch. Do you want to see China and Russia calling the shots around the world with us relegated to a supporting role? I hope we’re not that foolish. For better or worse, we have become the connective tissue that not only stabilizes the entire world but fends off those that have expansionist designs. Putin is cut from that same cloth, my friends. We dare not disengage from the rest of the world. Trouble and evil will eventually find us. History makes that lesson plan.
We are perennially late to the party. Because we are a benevolent and pluralistic nation, we don’t staff up a war room to come up with our next evil genius move. Putin does. Putin war games scenarios to destabilize us and to gain tactical and strategic advantage. Russians have always been among the best mathematicians in the world. Now, their cyber warriors carry out mayhem all around the world and even here. Last year Russia shut down the Colonial Pipeline in an overt ransom demand. https://today.law.harvard.edu/is-the-u-s-in-a-cyber-war/ The year before, they shut off the water supply for a small American town. There are dozens of such attacks that have as their goal, the knowledge that they can both penetrate our systems at will and cause massive disruption.
From the New York Times: “Cyberweapons have changed international relations more profoundly than any advance since the advent of the atomic bomb. In some ways, they are even more profoundly destabilizing — they are cheap, easily distributed, and can be deployed without consequences to the attacker. Dealing with their proliferation is radically changing the nature of state relations, as Israel long ago discovered and the rest of the world is now also beginning to understand.”
Another example: Russians have shot down their own satellites as a proxy for shooting down US satellites. They want to make sure they can retard our ability to communicate and can disrupt our command and control. This does not get the attention of the American people but it’s evidence of Russia settling on what tactics it will employ when and if they take us on. Nuclear is effectively off the table so newer methods of accomplishing their goals are imperative to guarantee their war aims. Is our country prepared to face these challenges? I am very worried that we are not up to the challenge. The recent emphasis on Woke military culture coupled with commanders without successful warfighting experience and whose greatest accomplishment is gaming how best to climb the military ladder are not what we need. For damn sure, we don’t need any more bureaucrats. We need doers, tacticians, and the best spearchucker’s we can muster. No more social experiments with our military men and women!
Time to prognosticate. Let me try and be Putin for a moment. I’m fixated on restoring the old Soviet Union’s Warsaw Block but not the communist form of government. I admire how Hitler unified his people and damn near pulled off capturing and holding nearly all of Europe. But he was stupid and bit off more than he could chew. Continuing with if I were Putin…. I’d make a partnership with China and divide up the world and split said world geopolitically and economically. I’d sew uncertainty, fear, and division throughout my enemy’s world. I’d field new kinds of wonder weapons that intimidate my enemies and lower their morale. I’d get in their heads and keep them two steps behind my actions. I’d support subversive elements among them, the creation of fake news, and even faker issues that would see my enemies chasing shadows. Then, when they are their most vulnerable, I’d take maximum advantage of the situation before offering an olive branch that only solidifies my gains. History teaches they’ll likely take it.
I hope that my very dark and dystopian treatise scares the heck out of you, it does me. Our recent intelligence failures, despite spending $80 billion a year, would seem to point to a systemic problem; likely poor leadership at the top and excessive political influence. I can’t tell you how far we have fallen since the storied early years of the CIA and other intelligence agencies. (We now have 16 separate intelligence services) With a divided Congress, there is a distinct lack of focus on this critical investment in our safety and security.
The country’s strategic interest is often not fully understood because to a degree, it is a moving target. Nonetheless, we must do better than we have done in the past. It is imperative but gets short shrift too often. With confidence in our intelligence services restored once again, better strategic decisions can be made and acted upon. Without good intelligence, we will continually walk through the wrong door over and over again. More importantly, we will not walk through the door that is essential to keeping faith with our people and warfighters. It is our choice and responsibility to get this right. What happens in Ukraine will be keeping a lot of people up at night for some time to come.
God Bless America
Allan J. Feifer
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Allan J. Feifer , A lifelong Republican, Allan has always been conservative in his views. A author of conservative book named unconventional warfare book and a patriot. A famous USA writer and a great thinker of capitalism in america today.
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