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War is the Health, Wealth and Death of the State
“War is the health of the state.The American intellectuals, in their preoccupation with reality, seem to have forgotten that the real enemy is War rather than imperial Germany. There is work to be done to prevent this war of ours from passing into popular mythology as a holy crusade. What shall we do with leaders who tell us that we go to war in moral spotlessness or who make “democracy” synonymous with a republican form of government?”
– Randolph Bourne
Martin van Creveld is one of the most interesting warfare thinkers in the last half century and tends to provide explanations that in spite of going against the grain turn out to be right.
His book, “Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance, 1939-1945”, comparing the officer education systems of the German and American armies teased out conclusions that resonate even today. Fast conclusion: vast bureaucracy produces low information, low quality officers and commanders and shits out bloated war-losing mediocrities like General Milley.
The utter destruction of the fabbing and manufacturing capabilities of the US and the west is a marker for fundamental imperial decline.
Van Creveld misses the fourth conflict, the existential domestic conflict that has been brewing for years in the US.
“Like Britain in the late 1930s, currently the US sees itself challenged on three fronts. The first is Eastern Europe where Russia’s Putin is trying to reoccupy a vital part of the former Soviet Empire and, should be succeed, get himself into a position to threaten any number of NATO countries, old or new. The second is the Middle East where Iran, using its vassals in Yemen and Syria, has been waging war by proxy on Israel while at the same time threatening Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean. The third is the Far East—where America’s main allies, meaning Taiwan on one hand and South Korea on the other, may come under attack by China and North Korea respectively almost at a moment’s notice.
Even for the greatest power on earth running, or preparing to run, three ½ wars at once is an extremely expensive proposition. Especially in terms of ammunition of which, in sharp contrast to 19141-45, there simply is not enough. So far the center, though experiencing growing domestic difficulties, has not yet caved in. With the wings tottering, though, how long before it does?”
martin-van-creveld.com/a-tale-of-three-…
Email me at cgpodcast@pm.me.
The Logic of Eradicating Hamas
Is genocide logically required by Israel’s stated objective of eradicating Hamas? It looks that way. Israel demonstrably believes that to wipe out Hamas, it must use overwhelming and indiscriminate force in the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands, wounding and starving so many others, and destroying homes, hospitals, and infrastructure. If that is not, in effect, a massive recruitment campaign for Hamas, what would be?
So what to do? Simple: wipe everyone out so the inevitably traumatized kids won’t grow up radicalized and join Hamas to seek vengeance for their dead relatives and miserable childhoods. Is that so hard to understand, Israel and Israel partisans?
I know we’re not supposed to mention Hitler, but it might be worth re-learning that the Hitler Youth recruited its members from young people who had suffered under Britain’s starvation blockade of Germany during World War I — a blockade that lasted several months after the armistice. Those kids didn’t grow up resisting Nazism.
Yes, UN Security Council Resolution 242 Is Legally Binding on Israel
On March 14, Lex Fridman published a debate he hosted that pitted Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani against Benny Morris and Steven Bonnell (a.k.a. “Destiny”) on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Norman Finkelstein is an American scholar well known for his work on the conflict, and Benny Morris is a renowned Israeli historian whose work is the subject of my short e-book Benny Morris’s Untenable Denial of the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
I was unfamiliar with Rabbani before watching this debate and was impressed with his knowledge and eloquence. I was also unfamiliar with “Destiny”, a popular video streamer who first became widely known streaming gaming videos and later got into political commentary. At numerous points during the debate, Finkelstein appropriately called out Bonnell for displaying only a pretense of knowledge while repeatedly failing to get his facts straight and to produce valid arguments.
Watch the full debate below (a full transcript is conveniently available here):
The team of Finkelstein and Rabbani fairly well tromped Morris and Bonnell by calling out their factual and logical errors, and there’s much that I could say about the debate, but for the sake of time, for the moment, I want to highlight a particular false claim made by Bonnell.
The Israel Lobby Ain’t Shy
They are lots of things, but not that.
Members of Congress’ far-left “Squad” who have championed Palestinians in the Middle East conflict are in danger of losing their seats in Democratic primaries.
The efforts to remove Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York have gained momentum with an influx of money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its political arm, the United Democracy Project.
AIPAC-connected organizations are expected to spend up to $100 million this election cycle, mainly on House races. That is four times the $26 million the United Democracy Project spent in the 2022 election cycle.
“We evaluate candidates from both parties on one criterion alone — their support for the US-Israel relationship,” AIPAC said in a statement to The Washington Times.
In Minnesota, former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels said AIPAC’s support would boost his chance of winning a rematch with Rep. Ilhan Omar, an outspoken critic of Israel who has been criticized for antisemitic rhetoric.
“It’s going to be a different race,” he told The Forward of increased support of pro-Israel groups such as AIPAC.
And Another Thing
One reason I object to Israel’s behavior is that it brings anti-Semitic creeps out of the woodwork. Thanks a lot, Israel.
Production Precedes Distribution
The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able to virtually eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. The real question is not whether there will be 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 jobs in America in 1950, but how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living?
The problem of distribution, on which all the stress is being put today, is after all more easily solved the more there is to distribute.
We can clarify our thinking if we put our chief emphasis where it belongs—on policies that will maximize production.
– Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson
Is Israel Our Ally?
While I was sleeping, did “our representatives” in the U.S. Senate ratify an alliance treaty with Israel, complete with a NATO-style Article 5, obligating us to defend Israel if attacked?
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