July 7, 2017

Who is the West, and who is their threat?

To summarize before going into detail, making Russia into the threatening Other in a conflict between East vs. West assumes that the threat to the West comes from within Europe itself. Within that geographical scope, it draws the wrong dividing line, lumping Slavic countries like Poland in with Celtic and Germanic countries like Germany, France, and Britain.

The true threat to the West these days comes from outside of Europe, within the Muslim world, in particular Saudi Arabia and Turkey (not Syria or Iran). This draws a correct dividing line that puts Poland and, crucially, Russia in the same boat as Germany and France.

This proper assessment will run afoul of the Pentagon that controls GOP foreign policy, as they base their attempt to control the Middle East on an alliance with Turkey and Saudi Arabia. By enabling Saudi Arabia's jihadism and Turkey's use of Muslim mass migration to cause demographic replacement of Westerners, the current brass at the Pentagon are among the greatest threats to Western civilization.

* * *

The main theme in Trump's speech in Warsaw was the nature of Western civilization and its defense from various threats against it. In the abstract, that kind of speech is a welcome relief from the typical left-liberal wailings about "boo America, Europe is so much better," and then "boo Europe, Asia is so much better". If you didn't read past the headline -- "Trump defends Western civilization" -- how could you not love it?

But "the West" is such a shape-shifting concept that we have to take a look into the details of who and what is included in that group, and which threats endanger it. If "we" are going to sacrifice for the defense of "the West," we had better be sure that it's "the West" that we have in mind that we're fighting for. Otherwise we are bound to get hoodwinked by the usual parasites that infest our government, as well as by foreigners seeking to draw us into their regional grudges and vendettas.

The context for the speech is an upcoming meeting with Russia, where Trump is expected to "stand up to Putin" while promoting cohesion among NATO. "Expected" by the Pentagon boarding party that controls foreign policy when a Republican is in the White House, even if the occupant ran on a platform of "getting along with Russia" and "NATO is obsolete" regarding current-day threats like radical Islamic terrorism.

Speechwriter Stephen Miller, although a hardline nationalist, has even less leverage against the Pentagon than does the President himself, so his primary task was to promote their failed vision and rhetoric about the Cold War that never ended. "America-first" becomes "NATO-first," where NATO increasingly refers to all of Europe aside from Russia, with Turkey thrown in for good measure. Miller slipped as many dogwhistles to the America-first nationalists as he could get past the imperial Pentagon censors, but by and large this is a speech that Reagan could have read 30 years ago -- or rather, Mike Pence doing his Reagan impersonation in the current year.

Most of the discussion about who threatens the West, with Poland as an exemplar victim, is about Russia -- from the partitions of Poland around 200 years ago, to the aftermath of WWI, the occupation by the Soviets during WWII, incorporation into the Warsaw Pact bloc, and through today when Russia is holding them captive by supplying most of their energy needs. The Germans make an appearance during WWII.

The problem is that in these conflicts, Russia has not threatened Western Europe or its off-shoots. The most you could say is that Russia does supply a large share of energy to the rest of Europe, but that is hardly military conquest or cultural erasure. Rather, these conflicts are mostly in-fighting among various Slavic groups. If Russia is selected as the antagonistic Other, that limits the scope of the West to non-Russian Europe.

But that gives the wrong civilizational divide within Europe, since East and West boils down to a deep ethnic split between Balto-Slavic in the East and Celto-Germanic in the West. (Italic, to the extent it joins either side, has gone with the Celto-Germanic.)

The Slavs have never come close to conquering a Western European nation, militarily or culturally, which is a good predictor that they never will, whether those Slavs are Russian, Polish, or whoever else. Western Europe has been controlled for too long by people descended from ancient Italic, Celtic, and Germanic migrations. The (Balto-)Slavic migration was the last of the major movements within Europe, lasting into the second millennium.

On the other hand, Russia has had a long history of jockeying for regional status with Poland and Lithuania (centuries ago, Lithuania was a much larger and more powerful nation). When you hear about the "partitions of Poland," you are hearing about Balto-Slavic in-fighting. The Russian partition did not include any piece of Poland, but rather the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which lies today in Belarus and Ukraine and Lithuania. The partitions of actual Poland came from the Prussians and the Austrians -- the latter two being Slavs who had been culturally Germanicized (with some Baltic remnants in the Prussians).

As the Soviets expanded westward, they were stopped after getting eastern Germany. Doesn't that mean they had a piece of the West? No: eastern Germany is Slavic, but like the Prussians and Austrians, culturally Germanicized.

Note, then, that the only evidence of the East or the West culturally assimilating the other is the West converting the East -- the Poles adopting Western Christianity, the residents of Berlin and Vienna speaking a Germanic language, and courtly customs traveling from Paris to Prague and even Petersburg. That asymmetry may reflect the deeper roots of the Italo-Celto-Germanic civilizations, compared to the much younger Balto-Slavic ones.

* * *

If Russia is not a civilizational threat to the West, but only to other smaller Slavic groups of the East, then who is? Today it is obviously (some subset of) the Muslim world.

In Trump's speech, there was only a line or two about Islamic terrorism, and even then the enemies were made out to be Syria and Iran -- who have never attacked the West -- and the earnest helper in the fight against Islamic extremism is supposed to be Saudi Arabia, the number one state sponsor of jihadism, which has in fact inflicted massive damage against the West, with the September 11th attacks. Syria and Iran do not proselytize into Western regions, whereas Saudi Arabia props up radical Islamist mosques throughout the Western world. It is the Saudis, not the Iranians, who are radicalizing Muslims already residing in the West to destroy it from within.

This censorship of which Middle Eastern countries threaten us stems from the Pentagon relying on Saudi Arabia as its oldest ally in the region, and being opposed to an independent Iran for just as long. The military brass is not about to remind Americans or Westerners who is responsible for all that Islamic terrorism and radicalization -- or else their whole plan in the Middle East would be revealed to be built on a foundation of support for regimes that actively threaten the West through international jihadism, not just the bluster you hear from Syria or Iran.

Posing the spread of Muslims as a civilizational threat to the West would have been far more appropriate for the setting in Poland -- all of Europe is threatened by these migrations, and by jihadism. But that would put Russia in the same group as Germany, France, Britain, and America. And the main goal of Establishment propaganda about Western Civ is to pose a distinction against Russia, so that is not allowed to make it into the speech.

In fact, Eastern Europe has always faced far greater threats than the West from foreign invaders -- the Scythians, the Huns, the Mongols, and the Turks. Facing potential hordes of Muslims streaming into Europe today, the Poles would surely resonate more with those historical examples of foreign threats to their way of life and values -- not from Russia.

But bringing up any of those more relevant examples would be racist or Islamophobic, so the Pentagon censors will not allow it -- especially since the most recent foreign menace was not only Muslim but from Turkey, one of our NATO allies who therefore cannot be criticized (even as their leader attempts to revive the Ottoman Empire, and who threatens Europe with allowing millions of Muslim migrants to cross from his country into the EU).

The comparison to today is even more ominous, since culturally alien invaders have never controlled Western Europe, but are now being invited into the West by the millions. Before now, the Scythians, Huns, and Turks only managed to control the southern half of the East, and the Mongols got even less than that. North African Muslims took over much of Iberia, but were beaten and never tried to come back once they crossed the Pyrenees into Gaul / France. They never took over the Celtic and Germanic lands, or Italy.

Sidebar: I don't think the Slavs were responsible for "beating back" the invaders who would have otherwise stormed all the way across Germany, France, and Britain. There were no settled Slavic groups during the invasions of the Scythians and the Huns, yet these invaders still could not control Western Europe, and remained confined to the southern part of the East. Perhaps it's the more hilly and mountainous terrain in the West that makes it hard for horse-riding nomads to blaze clear through like they can do in the Great European Plain of the East.

At any rate, the Slavs have had a hell of a lot of experience with invaders from alien civilizations over the past 1000 years, so they would be ideal allies and tutors for how to deal with today's Muslim hordes pouring into the West. The fact that Eastern Europe has sealed its borders to immigration from the Muslim world means that's one of the easiest things we can do pre-emptively.

* * *

However, the movement to defend Western civilization is going to slam into the obstacle of the globalist imperial leaders at the Pentagon: learning from and partnering with Eastern Europe, vis-a-vis the Muslim Question, would mean including Russia on our side, taking a stance against Saudi Arabia, and even lumping in Turkey with the Other.

All three are non-starters for the managers of a crumbling empire that is founded on antagonism toward Russia, military alliance with Turkey, and unflinching support for Saudi Arabia -- to such a degree that the Saudis can crash a hijacked plane into the very Pentagon building itself, and get off 100% scot free. No other country enjoys that level of support.

Defending Western civilization not only requires a re-orientation toward (parts of) the Muslim world rather than Russia, but also toward the power groups within our own nation that are deeply tied to the forces that threaten our civilization, above all in the jihadism and radical Islam that is pumped out into the world by the Pentagon's closest ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, but also by the millions of Muslim migrants that NATO member Turkey unleashes upon Europe.

7 comments:

  1. The Polish elites want to expand into the old Soviet sphere, and become the new superpower in Eastern Europe. George Friedman, of Stratfor, believes that Poland will eventually become the dominant country in Europe-Russia.

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  2. That's why we have to read beyond the headlines and sound bites. Those are vague and abstract enough that anyone can fill in their own meaning, to rationalize their own worldview.

    What really matters is what the rhetoric is being used to advance in real-world policy plans. And those concrete details are in fact plentiful in the speech, you just have to read it in full, rather than hear "Trump defends Western civ" and declare victory.

    Sure, defending Western civ makes the Left paint themselves into a corner as they decry the idea even in abstract terms (no longer bothering with arguments like "gay marriage is a uniquely Western value"). But the Left alienating the people over multiculturalism -- so what else is new?

    We could've said the same about the "War on Terrorism" rhetoric during the Bush years -- how could you come out against combating terrorism? Checkmate liberals!

    Then wait a few years, and the conservatives get wiped out of both houses of Congress and the White House, losing deep red states like Indiana no less.

    It's because the "War on Terrorism" rhetoric was a red herring meant to give normal Americans a feeling of security and patriotism, while hoodwinking them into a war against Iraq, which had no role in the September 11th attacks, and which we had no chance of obtaining as a client state or a source of spoils.

    The Pentagon and Deep State are pursuing the same basic strategy, only changing the red herring to "defending Western civ" (which was already there in the War on Terrorism rhetoric) and "who cares how other people live their lives, if they want to ally with us?"

    Contradictory: are we going to defend Western civ by tying ourselves to Saudi Arabia or Turkey, which could not be more hostile toward Western civ?

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  3. Aside from further embroiling ourselves in the black hole of the Middle East, we're going to drag ourselves into factional conflicts among the Balto-Slavs -- Poland, Ukraine, Baltics, vs. Russia.

    That is not what normal Americans think of when they cheer on sound bites like "defending Western civilization," so they will once again feel betrayed when the outcome is the opposite of what they'd been expecting. They thought it meant closing the borders, deporting illegals, halting refugees (especially from Muslim countries), and the like.

    But when it turns out to be continued H-1B visas, continued Muslim refugee flows, less deportation than under Obama, and using our military not to advance our own interests but instead to advance our so-called allies -- then the American people will really get turned off to Republican politics.

    It will be a worse backlash than after Bush, because Trump ran so strongly against the GOP orthodoxy and practice. They'll conclude that if even *he* gets blocked by the blob, then nobody has a chance of beating the bastards.

    Endorphin rushes only last so long, memories of disappointment or betrayal last forever.

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  4. Reminder that only upper-middle-class people place high importance on cultural values topics like "Western civ, good or bad?"

    Working-class whites, while being on the pro-Western civ side, do not really pay much attention to that debate, and are more concerned with concrete material topics like employment, income, cost-of-living, and threats to the West who live in the same town as they do -- not on the other side of the world, if they cannot reach us here, or if we are not sent over there.

    Timely study suggesting that Trump got a big enough boost to win in WI, MI, and PA due to disillusionment with war hawk-ism, in places that had higher casualty rates from the War on Terror (controlling for other demo variables):

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2989040

    If the rank-and-file get sold another bill of goods about "defending Western civ" that turns out to be propping up Poland / Ukraine against Russia, or Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they're going to view the two parties as no different on wasteful pointless wars, rather than seeing the Democrats as the war hawk party as they did in 2016.

    The GOP would still have the trade / industrialization platform to keep these white working-class voters on board, but perhaps not in large enough numbers to win decisively. (I'm talking in 2024.)

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  5. It's fine to target the upper-middle class with cultural values topics like defending Western civ, in order to shame them into being better stewards of the culture that produced all the good stuff and good institutions that we enjoy.

    But upper-middle class people are ignorant of global affairs, while being highly confident in their knowledge of things that just aren't so. I.e., Russia and Iran being greater threats to the West than Central Americans and Turks.

    Their focus and energies can be easily misdirected towards whatever the Establishment wants -- look how eagerly they jumped on board the War on Terror.

    Any attempt to make the upper-middle class into better stewards must make it clear who the real threats are, and thereby turn elite against elite -- some engineer or accountant against the managers of the Pentagon or Wall Street.

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  6. "
    It's because the "War on Terrorism" rhetoric was a red herring meant to give normal Americans a feeling of security and patriotism, while hoodwinking them into a war against Iraq, which had no role in the September 11th attacks, and which we had no chance of obtaining as a client state or a source of spoils."

    also, they were probably made naive by the 90s cocooning - thinking Americans would be greeted as liberators. Decision-makers were also effected by the cocooning - remember in '91, after 30 years of the crime rate rising, and in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the elder Bush, James Baker, and Cheney decided not to occupy the country, arguing in a PBS interview that "we would still be there"(interview was in late 90s).

    Friedman is an interesting writer in that he outlines the way the elites think. He argues, as you do, that the U.S. wants to prop up Poland against Russia - and eventually try to collapse the Russian government and turn it into the "Wild West", wide open for corporate development. He says the ultimate plans are to fight another war against Japan, to truly get control of global trading. If you get the chance, you might want to check out his book "The Next 100 Years".

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  7. America is going to collapse at some point, absent withdrawal from stupid escalating spats with countries. I think that without nukes and ICBMs, we would've long ago actively invaded much of the East, and we would've failed to capture much secure territory. Hastening our demise. We couldn't even capture all of Korea; how much else could we get if we tried to get much more?

    Also, remember opposition towards the Irag war? The sad thing is that anti-war movement regarding Russia is going to have to come from young generations and probably the right, since the Left and the neo-cons have masterfully painted Russia as the reason Trump was elected. And every liberal thought that there was no way Trump could win. Back with Iraq, it's not like everyone was utterly convinced that there was no way Saddam couldn't be responsible for 9/11 and other bad stuff. To put things in perspective, back in the oughts guys like Phil Donahue and Pat Buchanan had reservations even before the war started. Right now, no liberal over 45 would have any problem whatsoever with starting a full blown war with Russia.

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