Saw Andrew Bolt interviewing former US general Jack Keane in the week. Keane is now chairman of the Institute for the Study of War. Bolt often has him on and they madly agree with each other. Both are firmly on the side of Israel and its need to be given arms and free air to defeat its enemies. Both are on the side of Ukraine and want it armed and unleashed to strike deep into Russia. There is a level of consistency in their approach to the two major conflicts of the day. The question is whether that consistency is appropriate.
Let’s consider. If Israel wins and destroys Hamas and Hezbollah, and Trump returns to power and cripples Iran, there will be peace. The Suez Canal will be fully open for business. Maybe the Abraham accords will get fresh legs and bring Saudi Arabia and other Arab states into the fold.
Now consider what will or might happen if Ukraine rains down US-made long-range missiles deep into Russia, which appears to be what Bolt and Keane support. The truth is no one knows. Certainly Bolt and Keane don’t know or haven’t explained. That seems to me to be seriously remiss.
Russia – 145 million people, the largest landmass of any country, rich in resources, a history of pushing back would-be invaders, armed with nuclear weapons, and with a high quantum of patriotism to boot. You would have to be mad wouldn’t you to start firing missiles into the middle of Russia, without having the least idea where it would all end. Mind you, reportedly Keir Starmer and an assortment of other European leaders are bellicose by proxy when it comes to Russia. Luckily, the US and Germany are more circumspect; or, in other words, err on side of sanity.
The conflict will not end until there is a realisation that Ukraine cannot win. This is not a partisan position; it is realistic one. Russia is not going to withdraw its troops, say sorry, and make reparations, having been soundly defeated on the battlefield and cowed by missiles striking into its heart. That is a Zelensky wet dream. Shared by others obviously, including Bolt and Keane.
Territory will have to be ceded to Russia. The objective should be to minimise the extent of such territory and to extract assurances and concessions on the other side. I’m not Henry Kissinger, so I don’t know what a deal might look like. Need somebody in power in the West who knows about The Art of the Deal. I wonder who that could be? Kamala?!?
Sort of like the ABC for neo-cons then.
Wife put out some bread for the birds. 3hrs later still there. Birds prefer live food in the form of insects, spiders, lizards, frogs, possums and bunnies.
Gen Buck Keane (Retd) of the Henry Kissinger Peace Academy.
When a yousa tinkin’ of inviting meesa? – Jar Jar.
I saw that interview with Keane and marvelled at its lack of insight. I also saw the remarks of Donald after he had a private interview with Zelensky.
Someone received a bit of straight talk – and it wasn’t Trump. Zelensky is trying to cover his arse because he sees a Trump victory as possible/likely. Every chance that a “cover deal” was reached.
Let us hope so because the Keane/Bolt scenario is disastrous.
20 + million have invaded the US through Mexico.
That’s more than 6% of the current US population.
Mexico demonstrated during the Trump years that it could stop that invasion.
Should Trump, if he wins, now invade Mexico in return?
Mexico has demonstrated that once the Democrats are back in control they’ll go right back to it, so how is the US to defend itself from a certain future resumption of this catastrophic change?
Invade or bomb Mexico?
The answer is no.
As much as one might want it to be so.
And the answer to Russia invading her neighbours is also no.
This cannot be tolerated.
Whatever remains of the post WW2 order relies on the US and her allies.
As grotesque as the Iraq war was, there was a reason for it, a genuine casus belli. You may, as I do, think that it didn’t reach the required threshold, but it was there: Iraq invaded her neighbour.
Against Afghanistan the USA also had a casus belli: Afghanistan was a terrorist state under the taliban harbouring al- Qaeda.
Again, in hindsight, these were not the wars we wanted.
But remember, before 9/11 the US military was untested since the defeat in Vietnam: untested and for much of the intervening time demoralised. Post 9/11 the USA again showed the world that it was a power not to be f***ed with. Who knows how history would have turned out otherwise?
We got 20+ years of prosperity and relative peace.
I would have preferred if we had spent that time rebuilding the working class and industry, but the powers that be wanted to build a world order of interdependent blocks, determined that tied together by trade, no one could afford to go to war, but they were oblivious to the resentments and ambitions of their new “friends”, not so deep beneath the surface.
This world is a world of power and domination: you either dominate and impose your will, your laws, your ideals, or you submit to another’s will. The simplistic notion that if the USA were only to stop imposing her will on others stability would ensue is akin to the far left notions of the noble savage or that man is in his natural state good: akin to the libertarian notion that if only we would allow it markets would solve everything. Don’t get me wrong: man can do great good, and markets are powerful engines for prosperity: but nether occurs without the existence of force.
Your naive notion that the vacuum created by an isolationist United States will be filled with some supposed natural order is wrong. Just wrong, and dangerous.
The war in Ukraine will end, the sooner the better. Trump may well end it upon his election.
But the lessons learned from that war will shape the next 50 years. The next 50 years of our lives and our children’s lives.
The lesson better be: don’t f*** with the USA and her allies.
You better go down on your knees and pray it’s so.
Rhodesia is gone. South Africa is gone. Israel stands on the brink. Taiwan waits, waits, waits for the coming storm. Afghanistan: a failed attempt at “nation building”. Europe, suffering under an unrelenting migrant invasion, so too the US. Iraq and Syria: coming under the control of Tehran. Japan in stagnation. Australia and Canada hollowed out.
Here’s the reason: the international left uses migration as a weapon of war.
Cause conflict in a country, direct the flow of refugees at your enemies, changing their populations, putting strain on their resources and causing social unrest. Unleash an information war, widening the conflict within.
These things are entwined. These things are by design.
The enemy within, the enemy outside.
Withdrawing from international conflict won’t solve our internal political turmoil. It won’t make the woke insanity go away: it will make it worse because these problems are part of the same conflict.
China won’t go back to being content as a black box into which you put money and intellectual property and stupidly cheap consumer products magically emerge.
Russia won’t go back to a post- Soviet disorganised non- threat.
There is much work upon us and little sign that people are prepared for the task, or the hardships ahead.
If you think the price of the war so far too much, you’re going to be shocked at what will be required to build the peace, if peace is even possible.