The main threat to American safety comes not from abroad, but from Washington

Predictably, in order to avoid catastrophe, the government insists Americans must sacrifice more of their money and more of their liberties.

The American public must be informed, explains the Commission on the National Defense Strategy in a new report. Despite war propaganda daily flooding Washington, the CNDS complained that people “have been inadequately informed by government leaders of the threats to U.S. interests—including to people’s everyday lives—and what will be required to restore American global power and leadership.”

In the Commission’s view, the United States is at great risk. Threats are multiplying around the globe. Only great effort can save the country. Americans must turn over more of their money and sacrifice more of their liberties. They must be scared into compliance.

In fact, this is nonsense. For decades the United States has been the most secure great power ever. The U.S. has dominated its continent and entire hemisphere since the mid-19th century. Surrounded by deep waters east and west and weak neighbors north and south, America is largely invulnerable to attack.

Which enabled it to become the most dominant great power ever. With middling effort at home, the U.S. turned into the decisive power abroad. World War II left America as the globe’s most powerful nation, with half the world’s economic production as a foundation for the world’s most sophisticated military. Almost all of its allies remain dependent on US money and production. Today’s world is becoming multipolar, but military threats against the continental US remain minimal, other than assorted nuclear arsenals, most importantly Russia’s.

With Americans living in an extraordinary security cocoon, the 9/11 attacks came as a shock. Of America’s many conflicts, only the Civil War occurred at home. And it ended 159 years ago. Compare the U.S. to the other major powers. Russia, Germany, China, France, Japan, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, South and North Korea, and so many other nations have been attacked, invaded, occupied—often repeatedly, and sometimes by the U.S.

The fact that Washington almost always fights overseas demonstrates that U.S. policy is usually offensive. Most of what America does militarily has little to do with its own security. Wars of choice have been constant, which explains President Joe Biden proudly informing journalist George Stephanopoulos that “I’m running the world.” (Or at least purporting to.)

Yet the Commission is worried, declaring, “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war.” Worse, apparently, than during the Cold War and Korean War. China is “the pacing and global threat.” Russia is the “chronic and reconstituting threat.” Iran, North Korea, and terrorism constitute “an axis of growing malign partnerships.”

Indeed, warned the CNDS,

There is a high probability that the next war would be fought across multiple theaters, would involve multiple adversaries, and likely would not be concluded quickly. Both China and Russia independently have global reach and have committed to a ‘no-limits friendship,’ with additional partnerships developing with North Korea and Iran, as described previously. As U.S. adversaries are cooperating more closely together than before, the United States and its allies must be prepared to confront an axis of multiple adversaries.

Hence America faces an emergency. What to do? Mobilize the public! Spend more money on the military! Station more troops overseas! More of everything is required. We must even be prepared, apparently, to invade China and Russia: “Landpower remains central to American security, no matter the adversary or theater. In large-scale operations, the Army remains critical to dominating adversaries.”

Yet there is a lot less to this seemingly daunting threat list than initially meets the eye. Terrorism is only a minor national problem (individual victims understandably feel differently). It is best addressed by doing less overseas, especially the bombing missions, foreign occupations, and miscellaneous interventions that trigger foreign hostility and vengeful attacks.

Iran and North Korea are nasty regimes but have no intrinsic interest in tangling with America. For instance, if Washington were not in the Middle East backing both Israel and the Sunni Gulf monarchies, the Iranian ayatollahs would pay the U.S. little mind. Today the Biden administration is preparing for war with Iran, not to defend America but Israel—a regional superpower, with conventional superiority, nuclear weapons, and security relations with leading Arab states. Pyongyang directs abundant threats against the U.S. because the U.S. is there, on and around the peninsula threatening the North day and night. If Washington left the Republic of Korea, vastly more powerful than the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to defend itself, America would hear little more from DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. The U.S. should ignore rather than confront Tehran and Pyongyang.

Russia is no threat to America. Moscow has no territorial conflicts or inevitable disputes with the U.S. In fact, the two governments have cooperated against Islamic terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Russia is authoritarian, but neither ideological nor evangelistic. Vladimir Putin has been in power for more than a quarter century and originally demonstrated no animus to America. Putin’s attitude changed after the allies did their best to antagonize all Russians with an aggressive, even recklessforeign policy.

As for territorial conquest, Putin, though a criminal aggressor, is no Hitler. In 2008, he promoted preexisting separatism in South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgia, which he attacked after it fired on Russian troops. He invaded Ukraine after years of warnings against bringing Kiev into NATO—which the allies did indirectly by bringing NATO into Ukraine. Putin’s government is challenging the Biden administration elsewhere in retaliation for Washington helping to kill thousands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine. The U.S. could defuse today’s Russian threats by adopting the “humble foreign policy” that candidate George W. Bush once promoted and stopping attempts to dominate everywhere up to Russia’s border. As for Europe’s security, why cannot a continent with ten times the GDP and three times the population of Russia protect itself?

Finally, there is the People’s Republic of China. Even if it is the “pacing” challenge, as the Commission claimed, Beijing is not a serious military threat to America. The Chinese Communist Party is Leninist, determined to hold on to power, rather than Marxist, determined to revolutionize the world. Nevertheless, Beijing has become an important geopolitical rival. It possesses a large and sophisticated economy and is the world’s greatest trading nation. Its armed forces are ranked third in the world, amid an ongoing nuclear buildup. Required is a nuanced and multinational response.

The primary bilateral battleground is economic, not military. Although Chinese military power is expanding, that doesn’t mean the threat is significant, at least in the sense of putting America’s people, territories, independence, and liberties at risk. Beijing has neither the desire nor the ability to attack the United States, conquer its Pacific possessions, exclude it from global markets, or otherwise turn America into a tributary state.

There is a military issue, but it involves U.S. influence in East Asia. Members of the Washington Blob, like Biden, continue to believe that they are entitled by birth to “run the world.” As such, their objective is not to defend America from attack by China, but to coerce China, along with any other nation so ill-mannered as to reject U.S. hegemony.

Beijing seeks what America has, dominance in its own region. If the U.S. refuses to accommodate a more powerful PRC, military friction is inevitable and military conflict is possible, perhaps likely. Nevertheless, while the U.S. benefits from its unnatural role in East Asia and surrounding waters—effectively ruling the Pacific up to China’s shores—that position is not vital to American security, and thus does not warrant war with a serious conventional power that possesses nuclear weapons over interests it believes to be vital.

The U.S. should not be indifferent to increasing Chinese influence. Rather, it should help friendly states acquire the wherewithal necessary for their own defense and encourage them to work together to constrain the PRC. They can rely on anti-access/area denial strategies, just as Beijing does against Washington. America has committed to the defense of its treaty allies, most importantly Japan, Philippines, and South Korea, but what matters is their independence, so far not threatened by Beijing, rather than their control over every barren rock that they claim in contested waters. The U.S. should calibrate its commitments to its interests, avoiding war over peripheral matters.

The most incendiary issue is Taiwan, which matters to China both because of history, having been lost to Japan during “the century of humiliation,” and security, since possession by a hostile power would threaten the Chinese homeland. Although Beijing’s objective is to regain control through coerced negotiation, it is widely believed that the PRC would act militarily if Taiwan declared independence. Although there is no evidence that the Xi government has any firm deadline in mind, some Western analysts believe that an impatient China might act in the coming years.

Like Russia’s attack on Ukraine, a Chinese assault on Taiwan, though a moral atrocity, would be only a geopolitical inconvenience for America. From a U.S. security standpoint, the island is useful in impeding the PRC, not defending America. Taiwan is not worth a war, one against a nuclear power which has both nationalistic ego and serious security interests at stake. Washington should promote other forms of deterrence, not risk this nation’s very survival.

The report warns “that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.” Confidence to do what? Americans should not expect to defeat China and occupy Beijing. What matters is preventing China from defeating the U.S. and occupying Washington, D.C. Which we can do.

The Commission on the National Defense Strategy’s report reads like a long litany of militaristic screeds emanating from America’s military industrial think tank university complex. The proposed solution is always a frenzied military buildup and war against all.

The world may be dangerous, but the U.S. remains surprisingly secure. The greatest threats against America result from Washington policymakers making other nations’ enemies America’s own. How to better safeguard U.S. interests? Stop confusing them with the wishes of foreign friends and fantasies of Washington officials.

Reprinted with permission from The American Conservative.

Related Topics:#LifeSiteNews #USRussia DougBandow GlobalPower TheConservative USChina USMilitary USNationalDefenseStrategy USSecurity

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conflict

Sending arms to Ukraine is unnecessarily placing American lives in danger

Published on December 18, 2024

Todayville

U.S. President Joe Biden signs the guest book during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Ukrainian presidential palace on February 20, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine

From LifeSiteNews

By Bob Marshall

Joe Biden’s direct military support, coupled with ignoring peace efforts and sidelining containment principles, could spark global conflict.

To understand why a congressional budget fight over continuing or possibly expanding the Ukraine-Russia war is so fraught with dangers, some background of the relevant history and politics must be considered.

Ukraine-Russian hostilities

On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated what he designated as his “special military operation.” He undertook this action in Ukraine which was an extension of the hostile acts that started in February 2014 with a U.S.-supported coup of the Ukraine government. But, recall that Putin approached Biden in late December 2021 through mid-February 2022 with proposals to forestall or avoid Russian military action mainly centering around assurances that Ukraine and other countries would not join NATO, an expansion policy which had its proximate beginnings at the end of the Cold War right after the reunification of Germany.

Putin did not approach Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with such proposals because the United States, and specifically President Biden, was the sine qua non for making such a decision regarding Ukraine’s entrance into NATO both for the U.S. and NATO. Basically, Biden told Putin there was nothing to talk about, especially with regard to reaching any agreement on Ukraine not entering NATO.

Biden rejects Ukraine-Russia peace agreement

Biden and British Prime Minister Johnson refused to accept bona fide peace agreements reached and worked out between Ukraine and Russia during the first weeks of this unnecessary conflict achieved with the assistance of Israel’s 13th prime minister, Naftali Bennett. Former Fox News commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote that Biden and Johnson urged Zelensky to reject a more than 100-page peace treaty, “each page of which had been initialed by both sides, and its essence accepted by the Kremlin and by Kyiv,” and that by trusting the U.S. and Britain for military assistance, eastern Ukraine could be protected and Ukraine would not have to make concessions to Putin.

For these reasons, Biden and Great Britain own this war and bear partial responsibility for the Ukraine, Russian, and other lives lost as well as other war costs incurred after the treaty’s rejection.

So, American, Russian, and Ukrainian citizens now suffer the political, economic, and military consequences of the myopic and imprudent judgments of Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, and perhaps much less so by Volodymyr Zelensky who apparently believed promises of continued economic and military support from Biden and Johnson.

Biden trashes Kennan Containment Doctrine

Containment worked! America avoided nuclear war.

Direct U.S./NATO Attacks on Russia

The headlines, of course, say that “Ukraine fires UK-made missiles” and that “Russia says Ukraine attacked it using U.S. long-range missiles.” Not so fast. Zelensky may have given the order to fire, or maybe even pushed the buttons, but the White House needs to explain to the American voters who paid for these weapons, who guided the missiles to their targets in the Russian homeland, and why it is not constitutionally and morally irresponsible for Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to risk a much wider or even a worldwide nuclear holocaust to call Vladimir Putin’s bluff.

On November 24, Rebekah Koffler, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, told Fox News that “we are now on the escalation ladder inching towards a nuclear war. Those ATACMS do not fire by themselves.”

Even if Ukrainian soldiers technically pushed the button, “the targeting of the weapons systems, ensuring that there is a proper flight trajectory of the missile, that it destroys the right target, and the actual battle damage it achieved that we wanted it to achieve, all requires U.S. personnel and U.S. satellites. This is why the Russians have stated that the United States and European targets are now in the crosshairs. In every wargame that we conducted back in the intelligence community ended up in a nuclear war.”

This is direct engagement.

In September, Vladimir Putin explained why a decision like Biden’s is radically different from all other “redlines.”

[T]his is not a question of whether the Kiev regime is allowed or not allowed to strike targets on Russian territory. It is already carrying out strikes … using Western-made long-range precision weapons. … This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or U.S. satellites. … [O]nly NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. … Therefore … It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not. If this decision is made … this will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.

Biden finesses radical policy change

Biden has still refused to take public ownership of his radical departure from George Kennan’s Cold War containment policy of communist powers when he committed the one cardinal sin of American diplomacy: authorizing the direct military attack of a nuclear opponent, however “small.”

The initial press coverage from the Associated Press on November 17 announced that President Biden had authorized Ukraine, for the first time, to use U.S.-made long-range missiles for use by Ukraine inside Russia, “according to a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter…. The official and the people familiar with the matter were not authorized to discuss the decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.”

The stark refusal of even one Biden official to put their name to this monumentally dangerous and radical policy change is astonishing. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) noted on X that, “Joe Biden just set the stage for World War III[.] Let’s all pray it doesn’t come to that[.] Otherwise, we may never forget where we were [t]he moment we received this news.”

AP also noted that “Biden did not mention the decision during a speech at a stop to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil on his way to the Group of 20 summit.”

Press disguises Biden policy switch

Biden’s “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to not acknowledging the political-military consequences of his own actions was received with favorable “silent” coverage from the nation’s compliant mainstream media.

Indeed, none of the following news organizations told readers that Biden has converted American military personnel and civilian employees into warfighters who are directly engaging Russian troops, equipment, buildings, and territory by his direction: Associated Press, New York Times, NBC-Washington, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg News, ABC-News, Public Broadcasting, Seattle Times, Minnesota Star Tribune, Miami Herald, and The Hill.

Checking the White House, the State Department, and the Defense Department websites for this period reveals no press releases, fact sheets, or acknowledgments about the unprecedented and radical missile policy change with Ukraine or any of its particulars. However, Biden’s White House website posted a note on November 20 expressing sympathy with the Transgender Day of Remembrance but is silent on the possible escalation toward World War III.

Even a week later, National Security Advisor John Kirby still did not acknowledge that Biden has authorized direct attacks on Russia in obvious disregard of Kennan’s successful policy of avoiding nuclear war by avoiding direct military to military conflict with nuclear powers. Below is an exchange between National Security Advisor John Kirby and a reporter at an “on the record” press gaggle:

QUESTION: In the past, you kind of downplayed [the] potential impact of the ATACMS on the battlefield and warned that allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia could lead to escalation by the Kremlin. How do you see it now?

KIRBY: Right now, they are able to use ATACMS to defend themselves, you know, in an immediate-need basis. And right now, you know, understandably, that’s taking place in and around Kursk, in the Kursk Oblast. I’d let the Ukrainians speak to their use of ATACMS and their targeting procedures and what they’re using them for and how well they’re doing. But nothing has changed about the – well, obviously we did change the guidance and gave them guidance that they could use them, you know, to strike these particular types of targets.

Biden’s war escalation ladder

At this point, in light of the grim statistics about a completely avoidable war killing and maiming young men and women, Americans are entitled to the truth, not to a rehash of tired legalisms about Ukraine’s right to defend itself.

On November 25, Judge Andrew Napolitano cited 27-year veteran former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, a frequent guest on Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast, as confirming that Biden made the decision to let Ukraine use the ATACMS missiles without any input from his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which is highly unusual.

Biden and weakening Russia

Previously, Austin admitted on April 25, 2022 that the point of the war is “to see Russia weakened,” and Zelensky told The Economist on March 27, 2022, that “there are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives.” As Leonid Ragozin wrote in May 2024:

The West has crossed many red lines and is willing to try even more, but it is impossible to predict how the close-knit group of criminally inclined individuals which rules Russia will act if their country begins losing. It has always been a tough proposition to play chess with a guy who is holding a hand grenade. And it makes no sense, as Biden’s predecessors knew very well during the Cold War.

Biden initiated direct but “lower level” hostilities with Russia on November 19, and Biden ally, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, followed suit with similar hostile bombardments of Russia on November 20, partially fulfilling the goal of British and American war hawks attempting to push Russia into larger hostilities under Biden’s lead, or that of his “handlers,” to turn the second cold war with Russia – the aspirations of Washington and London’s armchair generals – into a conflict more likely in their minds of bringing Putin into a more contentious and uncontrollable situation that would relieve Putin of power.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.

conflict

Trump has started negotiations to end the war in Ukraine

Published on December 17, 2024

Todayville

For the first time since Russian soldiers entered Ukraine in February 2022, the US is negotiating with Vladimir Putin. Surprisingly it’s not President Biden’s team at work, but President Elect Donald Trump. Trump has been working through Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. President Orban traveled to the US to meet with Trump a day before he had an hour long phone conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Clearly Trump is looking for at least a quick de-escalation if not an all out end to the conflict in Ukraine. Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris of The Duran podcast explain the current situation.