This piece was published in The Patriot Post after Osama Bin Laden was killed. It’s still valid. “Play it again, Sam” (Bubba).
Killing OBL is a great symbolic victory. It is heady stuff. We need to return to the ‘war questions’ Americans always ask – during a war of ever changing dimensions, consequences and demands for commitment.
- Who are we fighting?
- Why? What are we defending?
- What will be victory?
- How much, how long, what risk will war cost?
- What must I do?
America is fighting a World War against Islamists and a cultural Civil War at home.
WW-IV is on the terms of the old Roman Empire. It is the defense of Western Civilization. Our enemies will fight us for generations – even centuries – until they change their way of thinking or are conquered or we are defeated from within. Our America, as the leader of the West, has imperial responsibilities without imperial ambitions.
Moreover, our nation faces its greatest test since the American Civil War (our actual ACW II). Can a nation so powerful, so rich, and so hated for being so remain a Republic with the protected individual freedoms endowed by our Creator?
WWIV
WW IV didn’t start on September 11th, 2001. It could be dated to the first attack on the Twin Towers by Islamists in ‘93. It may have started in ’79 with the Islamist takeover of Iran. It may be ’72 with the Islamist terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics. Perhaps, it was the genocide of the Jewish village of Qurayza by Mohammed in 627 – five years into the era of the new religion of peace. For America, WW IV starts for real on 9-11. Now, five years have passed and WW IV is still fighting. WW II didn’t take this long for the U.S.
That’s because WW IV will be like our Indian Wars, not WW II.
The ideologies motivating ruling cabals of the WW II nation-states Japan and Germany were destroyed when their governments and their military were defeated. Likewise, Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party was destroyed when his military was defeated. There is a world war because of the scale and scope of the Islamist enemy. If 10% of Muslims are Islamists then there are 120 to 150 million Islamists. Yet, the world war isn’t against a nation-state. The world war is against an ideology which is a naturally-occurring outgrowth of civilizations and their cultures based on Islam – which is so far behind the West that it is barbaric to Western Civilization.
Instead of the dreaded clash of civilizations, this world war is, today, a clash of one sub-culture in Islam against the world. Someday, it could become a full blown clash of civilizations but that reckoning is years or decades to come. The decision to make the enemy Islam more than just the Islamists will be made by Muslims, not the West.
World War IV Strategy
America’s strategy in WW I and II was offensive. America’s strategy in WW III was a global defensive based on ‘containment.’ It was genius. Nuclear weapons established a Mutual Assured Destruction standoff. Wars on the periphery and by proxy were won and lost by both Superpowers. Yet, eventually, as expected, the internal contradictions of Marxism, its inherent lies, caused its economic and political collapse. Likewise, America’s strategy in WW IV should be a global defensive – for this phase. The war, like all wars, will change over time. Someday, America might be on the strategic offense, perhaps in Europe.
WW III meant defending the Free World against an empire based on Human Secular Communist Totalitarianism. WW IV is one Uber Superpower defending against Islamist Totalitarianism. The difference from WW III is the enemy.
The great strategic situation is like Rome after the fall of Carthage. The U.S. must worry about internal civil wars and external barbarians beyond the borders of our civilization. Contain Muslims in the Islamic world. Kill Islamists where you find them. Engage Muslims worldwide with ideas about capitalism, democracy and either Christianity or Pagan Human Secularism. The war is over ideas.
About 150 million Muslims share Islamist ideas. WW IV is fighting Islamist world domination. Some claim the Islamist enemy is motivated by grievances. What rot. If every grievance were fulfilled tomorrow – from eradicating Israel to installing Muslim Mullah governments across the Islamic world to isolating their subjects from Hollywood – the Islamists would still hate us and fight to conquer the world under one Muslim Caliphate.
Since the war is about ideas, not nations, the center of gravity is people. The Islamist Muslim minority has to be held harmless. Killing them is one way. Keeping them in their own countries helps. The non-threatening Muslim majority must be engaged with ideas, lest they take the small steps from the center of their faith to become Islamists on Jihad.
The worst, immediate Islamist threat is Weapons of Mass Destruction – nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. They can’t destroy the U.S. but they can kill a lot of people and hurt the economy. The long range threat is conquering Europe by having babies. Demographics are part of destiny.
Islamists don’t pose a conventional threat – army, navy and air force. Even if they take over a Muslim country, even Pakistan, they present a military threat that can be defeated. The Islamists’ asymmetric threat is to have a population in arms or small terror cells in direct action. Immigration is their bloodless invasion of the West.
Any strategy must use Muslim allies wherever possible. Old alliances, like NATO, can serve well as long as Europe has any will to survive. New ad hoc alliances will arise as the occasions demand.
The strategic stage may look Roman in scope, but the nature of the fight is our Indian Wars.
Our Indian Wars were a fight between American Civilization and many sub-cultures of Indian nations. They started in 1607 and ended in 1890. 283 years. That’s the kind of war we are in now. American Civilization had a Magnificent Destiny to spread the American ‘Empire’ across a continent. The Indian cultures (they hadn’t risen to civilizations yet), based on a Neolithic culture were so barbarian that Indians are referred to as ‘savages’ in our Declaration of Independence. Indian tribes and American Civilization could not co-exist in the same place and time.
Today, America must protect the golden goose of capitalism and flame of freedom in our country and among the Allies of the Willing. Our imperial responsibilities without imperial ambitions are to maintain zones of peace and security – which may become zones of prosperity and freedom. Unlike occupying a continent, our mission is to keep the Islamists out of our continent. Also, the U.S. must attack and destroy the Islamists on a case by case basis. Containing them in the Muslim world is vital until, and if, Muslims have their own Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, and, maybe, Great Awakenings. Or, until they convert to Christianity. This is a mission for decades, if not centuries.
Roman Legions lived and died in places they hated for over 400 years (1200 years for Roman Byzantium). The Romans won battles and lost whole legions, but as long as Rome was willing to send reinforcements, Rome crushed any contender – like the siege of Masada – to send a message. Afghanistan (OEF) and Iraq (OIF) told enemies how far and how much the U.S. would do to defeat a threat.
Like Rome, ambitious immigrants are drawn to our power and wealth while everyone else in the known world will hate, fear, resent, and envy us – regardless of how we use our power and wealth. The purpose of our power is to create ‘security and stability’ within real limits in the world order. Such is the odd lot of the reluctant Imperial Uber-Super Power of insular Americans.
Likewise, the small, hard professional army, our U.S. Army, fought battle after battle, called wars, through the later half of the Indian Wars (1608-1890). The culture of each Indian tribe shaped the circumstances of each unique war. Similarly, the transforming Army that evolves after deployment upon deployment will be different from the popular, citizen soldiers of the occasional large conflict.
Rome’s decline from Republic to dictatorship to ruin began when Roman law became what men said it meant. When Rome wouldn’t man its own Legions, the long decline tipped. Rome had the means, but lacked the Will to survive.
The Indian Wars were a different war of National survival, because the no-quarter clash of cultures was confined to the frontier. The understanding of the wars changed with each mile and year an American was removed from the threat of being killed by Indians. The experiment with democracy in the Middle East means little at this time, despite the blather about an Arab Spring. Any progress can come undone quickly. This is the Middle East. Its understanding of democracy and the Rule of Law is about where England was when the Magna Charta was signed in 1215.
The future of WW IV will be raids, support for friendly regimes, and occasional regime changes as needed. Eventually, our Homeland security should fear less about racial and religious profiling and focus more on criminal identification. Yet, as that simple issue shows, the domestic conflict between Liberals who will surrender – eventually – and Conservatives who will never surrender – ever – will worsen. Eventually, our domestic struggle, our third American Civil War, will get resolved and one worldview will become our consensus culture. Until that day, America stands divided, and potentially as weak, as Rome before the Barbarians.
Remember Beslan as well.
On September 3, 2004 the Islamist Totalitarians deliberately murdered children in Beslan, Russia. The targeting of children in Beslan foreshadows the vicious terrorism against families in WW IV.
This is the depravity of evil. The evil is real. It’s not the aerial or belt bombs. The evil is in the bombers themselves.
WW IV will likely be decades longer than WW III. WW IV will have a savagery that butchery in Beslan only hints. It will be different from other world wars, but like the U.S. Indian wars (1608-1892). The Nazi and Soviet Communist Totalitarianisms in World Wars II and III had limits. The Nazi’s didn’t commit chemical war, when they could have. The Communists avoided a nuclear Armageddon and acknowledged mutual deterrence. Yet, the Islamists are motivated, not constrained, by their interpretations of Islam. Every non-Muslim or wrong kind of Muslim to the Islamists – women, children, aged seniors – is the enemy. Anyone can be killed with impunity and cruelty by any means – nothing is too brutal, too horrible.
Well-warned of Islamist terror knowing no bounds, what then for American Civilization? Understand what ‘winning’ means for WW IV. Have the Will for the ‘how’ to win WW IV. Hold realistic expectations for how very, very long the war, how varied the campaigns, how terrible the possible casualties among our innocents as well as soldiers.
Winning WW IV means defeating the culture that produces Islamists. Victory can come from within Islam with a Reformation and Enlightenment. Or, defeat can follow outside ideas, like Christianity or Human Secular Paganism, that overwhelm and discredit the currency of Islam that creates Islamist terrorists.
Until 1.2 billion Muslims can’t count 150 million Islamists among their numbers, the Islamists must be contained. Keeping Islamist fighting troops out of America means severely limiting, or ending, immigration from every Islamist-producing land across the globe. The Liberals will call such restrictions ‘racial profiling’. The priest-king judges will legislate from the bench to open the U.S. to terrorists, but the judges can be defrocked by any Congress and President who summon the courage to do their Constitutional duties.
It means protecting the free speech of all Americans to criticize Islam chapter and verse. To mock it as they like and disdain it as it deserves.
