At the Gates, Again: A new barbarism.

National Review Online - Guest Comment ^ | November 19, 2002 | Brink Lindsey

[xsysmgr]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment in a three-part series.

The escalating tension of the coming clash with Iraq, North Korea's nuclear revelations, the Moscow-theater nightmare, the atrocity in Bali, and other recent al Qaeda attacks — after months of relative quiet, the war on terrorism is heading into a new and dangerous phase.

Meanwhile, the water-torture horrors of the Washington-area sniper attacks — even assuming they had no foreign connection — only served to underscore the gravity of the international situation. President Bush, after all, declared recently, "We refuse to live in fear." Well, the shooting spree gave us a taste — just a taste — of the reign of fear we must steel ourselves to prevent.

In the midst of all these roiling exigencies, it is useful, even necessary, to pause and take a longer view — to reflect deliberately, but with imaginations enlivened by the present crisis, on the true stakes of the larger war. For it is not too grandiose to suggest that, last September 11, history took a momentous and dreadful turn. Did everything change that blue-sky morning, as so many are so fond of saying? Yes, it did — but plus ca change….

Here is the gist of it: We find ourselves, once more, in that paradoxical vulnerability that our forebears suffered for more than 20 centuries. The old menace, long vanquished, has returned in new guise. We are threatened again by an enemy whose weaknesses in peace become strengths in war. Our civilization is exposed to ruin by the very sources of its greatness. After a long respite, the barbarians are at the gate again.

In the seventh century B.C., horse peoples from the Central Asian steppe began to impinge upon the Assyrian Empire. First came the Cimmerians, who in 690 B.C. led cavalry raids that terrorized much of Asia Minor. Next followed the Scythians, who joined the military coalition of Medes and Babylonians that was challenging Assyrian power. The addition of the savage Scythian horsemen turned the tide, and in 612 B.C. Nineveh was sacked. The greatest empire the world had ever known was gone.

As military historian John Keegan notes, these events marked an inflection point in world history. A new and awful force had awakened, one that was to ravage and cripple civilization repeatedly for the next two millennia:

Thus the first Scythians who made their raid into Mesopotamia at the end of the seventh century BC were harbingers of what was to be a repetitive cycle of raiding, despoliation, slave-taking, killing and, sometimes, conquest that was to afflict the outer edge of civilization — in the Middle East, in India, in China and in Europe — for 2000 years. These persistent attacks on the outer edge of civilization of course had profoundly transforming effects on its inner nature, to such an extent that we may regard the steppe nomads as one of the most significant — and baleful — forces in military history.

In the ongoing encounters between steppe nomads and settled, agricultural societies, the nomads' perennial advantage lay precisely in their primitivism. With only the crudest division of labor, virtually every man in the horde could be mobilized as a warrior. And with no fixed investments in farms or cities, the nomads could outmaneuver their opponents and then concentrate force with lethal effect. Civilization's rootedness, the fountainhead of all its accomplishments, was likewise its Achilles' heel. Agriculture and the elaborate specialization of city life made possible the accumulation of wealth, the advancement of learning, the refinement of the arts — but just as surely they imposed limits on the resources that could be turned to warmaking and the speed with which those resources could be deployed. When the right leadership emerged on the steppe and the conquering impulse was unleashed, civilization was a sitting duck.

Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane — these names are still synonymous with terror and devastation. Assaults from the steppe proved catastrophic or even fatal for one great civilization after another. A weakened Rome fell in the end to the Hunnic invasion. The struggles against the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries rigidified Chinese society, ultimately leading to its fateful inward turn and aborting what might have been an Industrial Revolution in the making. In the Muslim world, the influx of Turkish peoples beginning in the 11th century helped to feudalize what had been a thriving zone of commercial dynamism. And in 1258, the Mongols overthrew the Baghdad caliphate and dealt the cradle of civilization a blow from which it has never recovered.

Only with the development of small firearms in the 16th century did civilization regain the upper hand. As historian William McNeill relates:

Effective small arms were not generally available to civilized armies until after about 1550; but as they spread, nomad superiority in battle suffered its final erosion. Instead of being able to encroach on agricultural ground, as nomads had been able to do since about 800 B.C., peasants began to invade the cultivable portions of the Eurasian grasslands, making fields where pasture had previously prevailed. The eastward expansion of Russia and the westward expansion of China under the Manchus between 1644 and 1911 registered this reversal of human settlement patterns politically.

According to McNeill, the Chinese defeat of the Kalmuk confederation in 1757 "marked the coda to an era of world history — the last time civilized armies confronted a serious rival on the steppe."

Throughout the modern era, the story of the interaction between advanced and simpler societies has been one in which former have held the unassailably dominant position. The Russian and Chinese partition of the steppe, the European settlement of the Americas and Australia, and the colonial subjugation of Asia and Africa — civilization, and particularly Western civilization, surged to globe-spanning hegemony. Backward countries have had their military successes — most notably, the nationalist uprisings after World War II that forced the European powers to relinquish their empires. But these victories have served only to set limits on advanced countries' projection of power. Never has there been any serious threat that advanced-country homelands were vulnerable to attack from the periphery. The barbarians at the gate, once the recurring nightmare of the civilized world, became only a distant memory.

The nightmare has returned.

On September 10, 2001, the United States stood at an apogee of power unmatched in human history — a combination of military, economic, and cultural dominance on a global scale, compared to which the storied empires of Persia, Alexander, Rome, and Great Britain seem pale and puny anticipations. Yet the next morning, a ragtag band of fanatics, headquartered in one of the world's most pitiable and stagnant backwaters, succeeded in bloodying the American colossus. Thousands were slaughtered, icons of American greatness were battered and destroyed, and the air above the country's largest and capital cities was fouled with the wafting remains of the disintegrated dead.

That morning, complacency and triumphalism gave way to grief and rage — and fear. The solid ground of security and comfort vanished beneath us, and we stared down into an abysmal vulnerability. We saw, with sickening clarity, that it was flatly impossible to defend every possible target, to anticipate every possible act of random destruction. We were not unnerved, far from it: The trial of September 11 has instead stirred American resolve and fortitude. But a shadow had fallen over our lives, and most of us knew that it would not recede for a long, long time.

We face, now and for the foreseeable future, the threat of a new barbarism. The new barbarians, like those of old, consist of groups in which every member is a potential warrior. Like their predecessors, the new barbarians rely on their ability to outmaneuver their civilized adversaries, to concentrate deadly force at vulnerable spots. But unlike the old steppe nomads, the new barbarians seek neither booty nor conquest. Our new barbarian adversaries pursue a strategy of pure and perfect nihilism: They seek destruction for destruction's sake. Their strategy, in other words, is terrorism.

— Brink Lindsey is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain Struggle for Global Capitalism. He also publishes www.brinklindsey.com.

[EternalHope]

Bump for a good article. Thanks.

[Uncle Miltie]

I think I will go and buy that gun.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Take a Kid to a Gun Show

[Kerberos]

Thanks for the article, great read.

However as the article points out the barbarians are at the gate, but it fails to mention our governments refusal to seal our borders so that the barbarians can also infiltrate us while they regroup.

Now is the time for all Americans to be armed.

[wideawake]

The new barbarians, like those of old, consist of groups in which every member is a potential warrior.

Precisely. But those useful idiots among us, who refuse to see the bigger picture, insist: "It's only a small minority of fanatics."

[angkor]

They seek destruction for destruction's sake.

This thought seems to be gaining ground, yet it is untrue.

They want to establish a primitive Islamic Caliphate (e.g., the Taliban), and the civilized world prevents them from doing so.

They want the oil, which bin Laden constantly calls "our property, our riches." He never says "oil" because it is perhaps too crass, but that's exactly what he means. No need to mention that he doesn't in fact own the oil, but wants to steal it.

They want to kill all the Jews, because they are instructed to do so by the Koran, and they are embarrassed that they cannot do it.

They want many things, and they've made no bones about what those things are or how they intend to get them.

They hate America because - obviously - America is the beacon of world civilization and prevents them from implementing their barbaric little dreamworld.

They want to kill us so they can steal and pilfer the oil, riches, power, and control that they don't have now. Like all Muslims before them, they are thieves, murderers, and barbarians. Nothing new under the sun.

[xsysmgr]

...it fails to mention our governments refusal to seal our borders so that the barbarians can also infiltrate us while they regroup.

This is first of a series of three articles. Maybe later articles will address the question of what to do to combat resurging barbarism.

[Kerberos]

"This is first of a series of three articles"

Ping me when the other two become avaliable.

[wideawake]

Good point. To us, establishing a regime like they had in Afghanistan is nihilism.

To them, it's a dream come true.

[FreedomPoster]

>>But those useful idiots among us, who refuse to see the bigger picture, insist: "It's only a small minority of fanatics."

Of course, the great majority of Muslims are peaceful -- so what?

[MattinNJ]

Ping

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Excellent article!

Here is a lengthy but important document which should be read by all!

Jihadis in the Hood
Race, Urban Islam and the War on Terror

JIHAD IN AMERICA:

To find all articles tagged or indexed using JIHAD IN AMERICA, click below:
	click here >>>	JIHAD IN AMERICA	<<< click here
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)

[section9]

If every barbarian has within him the suicidal soldier, then you confront him with the organizational discipline of the West that saw its highlights in the Roman Legion, the German Panzerdivision, and the American bomber formation.

Keegan understood that Western states had, at their hearts, a history of drill and discipline that went back to the Romans and, earlier than that, to the Greek city-states and the massed formations of Alexander.

I have no fear of militant Islam, as this writer does. The West is fully capable of invading the Islamic heartland and putting their cities to the torch. You may protest that the intellectual classes of the west are effete and would not do such a thing. I assert that the regular Westerner, most importantly the American, the Brit, the Aussie, the Canadian, and the New Zealander, quite understands the stake at hand.

I have no fear of the West's ability to defend itself from the jihadis, who the writer rightly identifies as the new barbarians.

Remember that Rome fell because of internal infighting and the collapse of internal political stability and the legitimacy of the office of Caesar (rotationg Generals and all that). In the end, you could purchase the office for the right price from the right group of Praetorians.

We simply have to remember where we came from...

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[spodefly]

bump

[Kerberos]

"I have no fear of militant Islam, as this writer does"

And having a fear of militant Islam as opposed to having an understanding of it are two different things. Having a fear of it serves no useful purpose.

"The West is fully capable of invading the Islamic heartland and putting their cities to the torch."

Which I fully expect to happen before this is over with.

"I have no fear of the West's ability to defend itself from the jihadis, who the writer rightly identifies as the new barbarians.

And I also believe that will be the case, but the question is at what cost to our people here? My point is that before engaging in adventures on the other side of the world doesn't it make sense to take care of business at home first by securing our borders and protecting our people. The situation on the southern border now is so bad that local citizens are taking up arms just to protect themselves. Call me naive but I always thought that was suppose to be a function of the government.

It just seems to me that common sense would tell you that before you go down the street to pick a fight, you make sure your own home is secure first. Where am I wrong here?

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

Another reason we NEED firearms.

[tsomer]

I think he omits the critical point in all of these instances: primitive societies seem to get into motion when their food supply tightens. Malthus noted this is usually the result of population surges, which are in turn often the result of increases in food supply-- through technology or trade.

It seems to work like this: Nomads, perhaps through trade contacts, acquire technology, which eventually causes population to swell. The result: healthy kids with no bright (or at least better) prospects. So they strike out for greener pastures. This was the motive behind the migrations, the settlement of America, the and the influx of Mexicans & etc.

This motive is nebulous to those under it. It is dynamic and volatile. But it can be directed and channeled in either benign or destructive ways by leaders, or witch doctors or the like. If you look at the situation in the Middle East, you see that the prospects don't look too good: most of the population is young, and their GNP is in decline.

As to the barbarians who sacked Rome: they sacked other barbarians. For centuries the Romans had absorbed Germans from along the Rhine, these were refugees encroachment by other barbarians. The entire Praetorian guard was German, it is said. Did Rome fall, or did it just change? There's a lot of gray in this question.

My 2 cents. Thanks.

[Cicero]

I strongly recommend John Keegan's book "The History of Warfare" to any Freeper who hasn't already read it.

When there are barbarians at the gates, there are usually also barbarians within the gates. That was the case with Rome, which grew soft and decadent and relied more and more on barbarians to defend itself.

I'm sure this writer will point out in his next two installments that the barbarians are already within the gates of Europe. In the case of Europe it may already be too late to fix the situation, since they are aborting themselves into oblivion as they bring in Muslim guest workers to do what they are too lazy to do themselves. Soon these Muslims will work their way into European police departments and armies, and take them over.

The situation in America is less grave so far. But it needs to be dealt with soon. Unless we can stop aborting ourselves, we need to continue bringing in immigrants, but we need to be very careful what kind of immigrants we bring in. In my opinion, there should be NO MORE MUSLIMS WHATEVER.

I don't expect the present government to take any such step, unless and until the Islamic fanatics force it on us by further attacks. In a way we are very lucky that bin Ladin struck too soon. If he had been more patient and less certain that he was the Chosen of Allah, if the Muslims had waited another hundred years, it might have been too late to resist them.

[section9]

It just seems to me that common sense would tell you that before you go down the street to pick a fight, you make sure your own home is secure first. Where am I wrong here?

One cannot secure everything. If one tries to, one remains on the defensive and cedes the strategic initiative to the enemy.

I agree with securing the borders, but that must occur concurrent with a constant offensive against the enemy.

By remaining on the strategic offensive and putting fear into the hearts of Jihadist fanatics, we will win in the end.

I believe that we differ less than you might have supposed originally.

Be Seeing You,

Chris