Posted on 09/02/2010 5:29:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
The post-Cold War new world order is rapidly breaking apart. Nations are returning to the ancient passions, rivalries and differences of past centuries.
Take Europe. The decades-old vision of a united pan-continental Europe without borders is dissolving. The cradle-to-grave welfare dream proved too expensive for Europe's shrinking and aging population.
Cultural, linguistic and economic divides between Germany and Greece, or Holland and Bulgaria, remain too wide to be bridged by fumbling bureaucrats in Brussels. NATO has devolved into a euphemism for American expeditionary forces.
Nationalism is returning, based on stronger common ties of language, history, religion and culture. We are even seeing the return of a two-century-old European "problem": a powerful Germany that logically seeks greater political influence commensurate with its undeniable economic superiority.
The tired Israeli-Palestinian fight over the future of the West Bank is no longer the nexus of Middle East tensions. The Muslim Arab world is now more terrified by the re-emergence of a bloc of old familiar non-Arabic, Islamic fundamentalist rivals.
With nuclear weapons, theocratic Iran wants to offer strategic protection to radical allies such as Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, and at the same time restore Persian glory. While diverse, this rogue bunch shares contempt for the squabbling Sunni Arab world of rich but defenseless Gulf petro-sheikdoms and geriatric state authoritarians.
Turkey is flipping back to its pre-20th-century past. Its departure from NATO is not a question of if, but when. The European Union used to not want Turkey; now Turkey does not want the shaky EU.
Turkish revisionism now glorifies the old Ottoman sultanate. Turkey wants to recharge that reactionary model as the unifier and protector of Islam -- not the modern, vastly reduced secular state of Kemal Ataturk. Weak neighbors Armenia, Cyprus, Greece and Kurdistan have historical reasons to tremble.
Japan's economy is still stalled. Its affluent population is shrinking and aging. Elsewhere in the region, the Japanese see an expanding China and a lunatic nuclear North Korea. Yet Japan is not sure whether the inward-looking United States is still credible in its old promise of protection against any and all enemies.
One of two rather bleak Asian futures seems likely. Either an ascendant China will dictate the foreign policies of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, or lots of new freelancing nuclear powers will appear to deter China since it cannot count on an insolvent U.S. for protection.
Oil-rich Russia -- deprived of its communist-era empire -- seems to find lost imperial prestige and influence by being for everything that the U.S. is against. That translates into selling nuclear expertise and material to Iran, providing weapons to provocative states such as Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, and bullying neighbors over energy supplies.
Closer to home, Mexico has become a strange sort of friend. It devolves daily into a more corrupt and violent place than Iraq or Pakistan. The fossilized leadership in Mexico City shows no interest in reforming, either by opening its economy or liberalizing its political institutions.
Instead, Mexico's very survival for now rests on cynically exporting annually a million of its impoverished and unhappy citizens to America. More interested in money than its own people, the Mexican government counts on the more than $20 billion in remittances that return to the country each year.
But American citizens are tired of picking up the tab to subsidize nearly 15 million poor illegal aliens. The growing hostility between the two countries is reminiscent of 19th-century tensions across the Rio Grande.
How is America reacting to these back-to-the-future changes?
Politically divided, committed to two wars, in a deep recession, insolvent and still stunned by the financial meltdown of 2008, our government seems paralyzed. As European socialism implodes, for some reason a new statist U.S. government wants to copy failure by taking over ever more of the economy and borrowing trillions more dollars to provide additional entitlements.
As panicky old allies look for American protection, we talk of slashing our defense budget. In apologetic fashion, we spend more time appeasing confident enemies than buttressing worried friends.
Instead of finishing our border fence and closing the southern border, we are suing a state that is trying to enforce immigration laws that the federal government will not apply. And as sectarianism spreads abroad, we at home still pursue the failed salad bowl and caricature the once-successful American melting pot.
But just as old problems return, so do equally old solutions. Once-stodgy ideas like a free-market economy, strong defense, secure borders and national unity are suddenly appearing fresh and wise.
Good. Now we know where everyone stands. I prefer it.
Europe brought all of this on itself. The saw that their shrinking population couldn’t provide the money to fund the elitist’s dream of a socialized, subsidized retirement utopia so they opened the doors to the muzzies, hoping they would pick up the slack. Unfortunately, these immigrants turned out to be a parasitic underclass who were actually a drain on the system. Now they are stuck with a large population of unproductive, violent and angry barbarians and no way to pay the bills. Stick a fork in Europe, it’s finished.
It's tough, as a hardworking bureaucrat, to address the complexities of micromanaging the lives of 300 million people while, at the same time, figure out how to line your own pockets by gaming the part of the system you control.
“Once-stodgy ideas like a free-market economy, strong defense, secure borders and national unity are suddenly appearing fresh and wise.”
Would add limited government and you would have a very solid basis for a nationalized election. Contract with America II anybody?
So much of the worlds problems stem from the Treaty of Versailles and the UN....two historical, colossal mistakes.
My fear for Mexico is a narco-coup.
Bad times ahead I’m afraid..... things would be a bit rosier without a nuclear Iran.
Indeed
I don't think we have to worry too much about a newckler Iran. Israel's survival is at stake.
I agree though, the ol persians are a bit more resourceful than Saddam's bozo regime.
IMO, agents of Iran have been pre-positioned here on our soil in anticipation of an attack on their playtoys.
When news hits the headlines of bright flashes of light occuring out and about in Iran....might be a grand idea to stay away from heavily populated areas.
These passages from Daniel J. Boorstin's 1948, "The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson," seem to relate to Hanson's observations of today.
Boorstin says, on P. 177:
"In the predatory societies of Europe, Jefferson discerned the indelible characteristics of the whole species (human beings). His primary question was not what was the matter with European institutions, but what quality of the human animal had made such institutions possible. In 1787, Jefferson wrote from Paris:
'"Under pretence of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judgss and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe. . . .'"
On P. 178, Boorstin states, "More than once Jefferson reminded Washington that he (Washington) was not immortal, and that his successors would posses the normal human vices of ambition and avarice. There could be no insurance against the reappearance of Caesars and George IIIs. Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men . . . . Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was a delusion. This Jefferson observed in criticizing the imperfect separation of powers in the Virginia Constitution of 1776:
"Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume . . . With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our asssembly be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and claws after he shall have entered." (Underlining added for emphasis)
One can conclude that this reasoning is the basis for Jefferson's praise for America's written Constitution for self-government--a Constitution by which "We, the People" were to "bind them (elected representatives) down by the chains of the Constitution."
The Old World Order may have some interesting bits that are quite old indeed.
For example, the modern mass armies that have existed since the time of Napoleon are likely to in many cases to be supplanted by mercenary armies, solely because of the cost involved. Even the US may choose to augment its standing army with an offshore semi-mercenary, semi-corporate, semi-foreign legion, modeled to some extent on the French Foreign Legion. This was how Europe did things for over a thousand years.
Importantly, the purpose of this force would not be major conflicts, but expensive and time consuming, low intensity operations, like extended peacekeeping and humanitarian relief efforts. By using them, instead of our military, the US could save many billions of dollars, and avoid degradation to our forces.
Did Tom call it or what.
I agree with all but this sentence. American ceased to be a "melting pot" the moment the word "diversity" was adopted by the elite.
It's getting more interesting.
Illegal immigration to U.S. down almost 67% since 2000, report says
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