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Thread: The Trump impact on US policy

  1. #141
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    Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
    This was tweeted just hours before he accepted the DCIA position....think Iran needs to run for cover now....and those future Iranian nukes...will definitely be rolling out sooner than later....interestingly KSA is against the Trump moves to eliminate the Deal....because they do not want to get into a nuclear arms race in the ME.....

    Mike Pompeo
    Verified account
    ‏@RepMikePompeo
    I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.
    In relation to Syria, this is getting funnier and funnier, actually.

    About a year ago... Pompeo published an article in the National Review.... here it is: On National Security, Some Republicans May Be as Weak as the Democrats.

    Now lookie here (excerpt from the same article):
    "Syria — an ungoverned territory where terrorist groups control swathes of land, Russian troops roam freely, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has found an ally in the fanatical butcher Bashar al-Assad."
    ...

    "It is in our interest to crush ISIS, terrorist groups like the al-Nusra front and Ahrar ash-Sham, and Iran’s puppet Assad."
    ...

    "Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and Assad are two sides of the same terror coin. Letting Assad continue to wield lethal power means that Tehran’s terror network — from Hezbollah to the Houthis — will persist in threatening the West."
    ...

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    Default Will Trump Really Purge Obama's Generals?

    Will Trump Really Purge Obama's Generals?

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    Quote Originally Posted by CrowBat View Post
    In relation to Syria, this is getting funnier and funnier, actually.

    About a year ago... Pompeo published an article in the National Review.... here it is: On National Security, Some Republicans May Be as Weak as the Democrats.

    Now lookie here (excerpt from the same article):
    CrowBat.....here is the perfect example of the coming Trump hypocrisy of a Russian driven FP and we thought the Obama WH FP was bad...OR non existent.

    Trump is an ego driven power and wealth seeking individual and those that do not follow/support his thoughts...words and deeds are considered to be "against him".....and he seeks revenge for those that slight him and or his family especially the press..this man does not believe in freedom of the press and free speech...BUT WAIT he in fact does...his own....

    We must based on his own declared biases take what he says seriously...if he is going to fight IS then he will do it with Putin and Assad and we see that both assume he will fight with them thus ensuring the remaining of Assad in power which has been the core reason for the Syrian rebellion by 78% of the civil society....and they will support Assad and Putin because of a "religion" which is what those advisors selected yesterday by Trump fully believe...these selections I one looks at them are in fact a declaration of war on 3B Muslims.

    Exactly what both IS and AQ have wanted since 2003.....

    From the NYTs....today....

    “We need to use common sense with the who-what-where of the threat. It is the toxic ideology of Islam.”

    General Flynn similarly favors the immigration ban and has expressed support for the idea of forcing Muslims in the United States to register with the government. He once erroneously wrote on Twitter that Shariah, or Islamic law, was in danger of taking over the country.

    Should the Trump administration shape its counterterrorism strategy and broader foreign policy around these ideas, Mr. McCants predicted the United States would find itself at odds with its allies in Europe and the Middle East, which have long sought to separate violent extremists from the billions of peaceful mainstream Muslims.

    “This kind of rhetoric pushes them together and in a way creates a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Mr. McCants said. “It is a sea change, and it really changes the terms of the discussion about what to do about it.”
    THIS is exactly how wrong many are getting about Trump...this individuals were not selected out of loyalty to him during the campaign..they were selected as they will provide the echo chamber Trump needs for his ego....

    People are saying well he will balance them with his DoJ and DoS and SecDef with say a Romney but that would then require him have to take back his comments against Trump and become then an anti Islamist and these positions will not counter balance the national security selections...so as a possible DoS will other countries actually trust what he says to them as they know he totally flipped in his onw personal belief system.

    We are in the new buzz word "Post Truth Era" where lies count far more than the truth....take Flynn who has blasted away at Islam the religion and lead the chants at the RP Convention of "jail her" this coming from supposedly a great thinking intel officer...if we summarize many of those that voted for Trump into a single sentence it would be..."yes I knew he had bad baggage and that he lies steals and cheats people BUT hey he is this great super rich businessman and that is what they do and besides I liked what he says"....

    BTW Flynn coined a great statement that he supposedly lives by but in fact he does not...."the truth always answers questions"....the core problem now in the Era of "Post Truth"...is whose "truth".

    THUS the article I posted from Lister is extremely important for many to read...

    There has been since 9/11 on the right a deep desire for payback and make the dispute with a bunch if armed Takfirists into a "clash of civilizations" which BTW the Russian Orthodox Church declared with the "crusade comments" when the RuAF went to Syria......and this makes that clash come even closer....

    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 11-19-2016 at 06:12 AM.

  4. #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
    CrowBat.....here is the perfect example of the coming Trump hypocrisy of a Russian driven FP and we thought the Obama WH FP was bad...OR non existent.
    I see. From my POV, this means: get ready for the same mix of all sorts of obscene lies, nonsense and PRBS like emitted all the time by Keystone Cops in Moscow...

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    Quote Originally Posted by CrowBat View Post
    I see. From my POV, this means: get ready for the same mix of all sorts of obscene lies, nonsense and PRBS like emitted all the time by Keystone Cops in Moscow...
    CrowBat.....you actually hit on something that many in the US have failed to truly see in this era of "Post Truth".......MAYBE it takes living outside the US to really understand the US and all of it's quirks....

    There is uniquely something binding Putin to Trump and vice versa which is the reason of their bromance.......it is their inherent ability to spin truth to lies and lies to well their "definition of what is the truth"....and yes there are great similarities in how both view government and their role in that government....and both regardless of what Trump supporters think...Trump is just as authoritarian as is Putin....

    This is a match made in "heaven" just not sure how to define that "heaven"....

    My Trump FP prediction for the next four very long years....since we have seen him track both left and right ...meaning first he states publicly in front of rolling cameras...and when confronted with the same footage denies he said that....that will be his exact FP....meaning one way one day and two days later another confounding both the ME and EU....and in the end it will force both EU/ME to finally step up and lead pushing the US as a FP leader into a secondly roll.....WHICH is exactly what Putin wants...

    If one takes the Russia non linear warfare to heart Putin has stated many times since 2008 his three geopolitical strategic goals.....WHICH Trump also wants to do if we take his verbal outbursts to heart which we must as that is exactly what he in the end does.....

    1. Putin has declared he wants to weaken and damage EU
    2. Putin has declared he wants to weaken and damage NATO
    3. Putin wants the US completely discredited and damaged in EU and ME....

    THIS drives to a core Putin goal....the coming of a Second Yalta...giving Putin and Russia complete hegemony over all of Europe and the Far East to China....plain and simple...which he has stated publicly he wants this in potentially declared when he first meets Trump...

    http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/03/1...lta/#arvlbdata

    A similar thesis was proposed by another Russian PR guru, Stanislav Belkovsky.

    …“Putin’s most important task is to become in international politics a new Stalin, not in the domestic sense but in the international. That is, to move toward a second Yalta, to return to the world of Yalta and Potsdam, and to agree with the US and the EU, and in the case of the EU in the first instance with Germany, about the division of the world” with clearly “fixed zones of influence.”
    BTW.....not especially a fan of NewStatesman BUT the author of this article is a solid journalist who knows much about Putin and company.....AND he lays out the new Yalta Deal very accurately......
    http://www.newstatesman.com/world/eu...ready-big-deal

    AND here is the proof it is coming.....those that Trump are selecting will both support a Second Yalta and want a Second Yalta.....that is what is concerning both EU and ME......they see it coming.......and what Trump fails to realize is that for example the EU with 500M is both economically and culturally a massive powerhouse and militarily not a pushover as many seem in the US to believe......ALL they have needed for closer military harmony has been a push to do it......the US has repeatedly sidelined that push as they wanted since 1945 to control militarily Europe in their Cold War with the Soviet Union......

    BTW...much as the US has limited the delivery of arms and TOWs to the Syrian rebels.....

    WHEN Germany openly states......well we have also a nuclear shield ie France and UK.....we just need to formulate it.....they are serious about it....especially if Iran marches on to their nuclear weapons. This was not a threat against the US/Trump but a simple EU view of the new Trump world....there is an old belief that states how many nuclear devices do you need to ensure your opponent thoroughly suffers as you do.....2..4..10 ESPECIALLY when during most of the year European winds cross West to East?

    BTW...what Trump in all his fury against free trade has failed to realize....right now Canada is tied into the EU via CETA....and actually over the years the EU has expanded into northern Africa and now there is talk about expanding free trade agreements into all of the ME that would help in creating local jobs and economic expansion....it just got sidelined by the IS debate and Assad....

    That would create a free trading block that Trump has to deal with or not deal with but it would be in EU terms not those of Trump....
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 11-19-2016 at 09:26 AM.

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    Default Outsider Picks by Trump Could Give US Intelligence a Jolt

    Outsider Picks by Trump Could Give US Intelligence a Jolt

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    IS the coming Trump FP being driven by the Trump businesses and or vice versa.....ALL need to thoroughly read this and REMEMBER just a week or so ago Trump was calling for "Drain the Swamp"...BUT WAIT he is the swamp now????

    Banana republic watch. Foreign diplomats getting sales pitch on Trump hotel, figuring out how to curry favor. Day 10
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...35_story.html#

    Blatant conflict of interest seems to not bother anyone associated with and or Trump himself....this is going to be a long hard four years...

    REMEMBER this is the same man that stated in 2000 in a fortune interview he could make money both running for President and being President.....
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    Dear all, dear Pres-elect @realDonaldTrump.
    I asked @CJTFOIR about the effect of the Russian air strikes on defeating #ISIS.

    Don't forget!
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    SOME URGENT insight for the so called great anti IS intel officer that he seems to not know is ongoing yet he claims to be the greatest US intel officer of all times...former Gen. Flynn.....

    AND this insight is coming from a very good SME on the ME.....WHO holds NO US security clearance BUT has access to information that the DoD and the IC seems to want to either not hear and or want.....

    Charles Lister ‏@Charles_Lister
    By “infighting,” I mean competition, outbidding & rivalry, *not* violent clashes.

    Big developments inside JFS in #Syria, as infighting has erupted betw'n pro-AQ & pro-JFS elements.
    Talks ongoing, rumors of possible split.

    pt: JFS's internal tensions began during the Nusra-to-JFS formation, which was actively rejected by several very senior Nusra leaders.

    pts: Most ‘rejectionists’ didn't publicly split from JFS, but have been working to convince JFS fighters to break away & form new AQ group.

    pts: JFS's crisis reached its peak when “reformist” figures began pushing for further JFS “reforms,” thereby enraging AQ loyalists further.


    NOTE: the current Trump and yes even Obama advisors have often overlooked that the Salafist groups are always discussing and modifying themselves internally and what was said/done two years ago is not what you see and hear now...there urgently needs to be engagement with this development NOT trying to simply kill them and or run from them.....these groups do respond to their supporting civilian societies regardless of what we in the US think....and right now JFS while no longer officially AQ is highly regarded by the Syrian people BECAUSE they are fighting to protect them against the Russian onslaught that Trump wants to work with THUS driving them straight the arms of JFS and indirectly IS....AND CAN we blame them for it???

    THIS has been one of the most ardent arguments used by Obama WHEN the argument turned to arming the moderate Syrian FSA.....BUT TOTALLY SHREDDED by ground reality......

    U.S. maintains relations with 80+ vetted FSA factions.

    - 1,073 TOW missiles sent
    - Only 12 were proliferated

    12 single TOW missiles found their way to other groups...NOT a really big threat it would appear....
    http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/17/...aster/#…
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-19-2016 at 05:47 PM.

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    Default Moderator at work

    Apologies for the delay in completing a review - other commitments will suffice.

    I have edited out a number of photos, most originate from Twitter, plus some posts which cite an un-named source and deleted thirty-eight posts that simply go way beyond the Forum's ToR.

    A reminder Small Wars Forum has this section for:
    Politics In the Rear National will and developments back home for the intervening nations.
    We are not a political discussion board, but after such an apparent seismic event, with the election of President Trump, there was bound to be a reaction and an exchange. The exchange was not a "level playing field". That happens on SWC, but members have expressed concern here and directly via PM.

    I have noted a number of posts on President-elect Trump in other threads, which circumvent this thread being closed. If I have time those posts will be moved here. If more such posts appear, for example in the Syria thread I will delete them.

    Update: Sixty-eight posts moved here from the Syria thread and approx. twenty to other threads soon.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-19-2016 at 05:57 PM. Reason: 2329v
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    Default Meeting Cabinet Contenders, Trump Praises General Mattis

    Meeting Cabinet Contenders, Trump Praises General Mattis

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    Default Retired Marine General John Kelly Eyed for Potential Role in Trump Administration

    Retired Marine General John Kelly Eyed for Potential Role in Trump Administration

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    I will be backing out of posting to the Syrian as well as the Ukrainian threads because in both the killing just keeps on going on as the core problem with the Russian non linear warfare is...it has never been fully countered by either NATO and the US and under Trump it will continue to be potentially a supportive proRussian positon taken by Trump thus making the current global problems even worse.....

    SWJ had a recent article on the success or failure of the Russian non linear warfare with the two key cornerstones of 1) cyber warfare and 2) informational warfare....

    HATE to admit it and many might not like this... we the US and the entire West have lost and lost badly.....

    Russian cyber warfare is still going strong and not a single pushback by the US has occurred and NOW we have a "cyber arms race" and we are even losing that....and that informational warfare using fake news sites....social media trolling companies aided by the Russian government and a Russian state sponsored global disinformation/propaganda media network...being funded for 1B USDs per year and going strong with no pushback by any Western country....WELL they have actually won there with the massive upsurge in "populist" parties culminating in the election of a US "populist" that is proRussian leaning...and who firmly believes as do Russian oligarchs in the concept called "kleptocracy".....and potentially a number of NATO countries also swinging towards "populist leaders/parties" and proRussian leaning leaders being recently elected in Estonia, Bulgaria and Moldavia...

    Nothing has changed in eastern Ukraine and in Syria where we the US are now fully complicit in supporting a genocidal dictator and Trump's bromance partner Putin and Trump states a number of times he would support both against IS driving 100,000 well trained and experienced FSA fighters straight in to the arms of JFS ....

    We now hear about US Muslim Registries and banning of immigrants from "supposedly terrorist nations" and those that voted for Trump..."see" radical Muslims on every street corner and behind every bush/tree..AND Sharia law literally taking over the entire US State/Federal Court system..and the racist and anti Muslim rhetoric just keeps climbing in the US driving sadly towards an eventual "clash of civilizations" that both IS and AQ have predicted and wanted....

    We are sadly now in the "Post Truth Era" and no amount of trying to keep people informed about areas of the world that have sadly become part of this "Post Truth Era" that MSM is failing to fully and completely inform the reading public about is another reason to slowly back away....

    One can lead a horse to the pool of "truth" but you cannot make that horse understand that it is the "truth" in this "Post Truth Era"....

    The killing still goes on in eastern Ukraine and Syria and just posting that which everyone knows never will change appears to me to be just a exercise in futility and a waste of time...

    Interestingly the sheer number of Reads (over 570,000 since 2015 on Syria AND the over more than 400,000 on Ukraine in the same timeframe) over the last year or two indicate to me that some do want to be kept informed even if of another political opinion, but in the end just being informed does not change FP and with this new coming Trump FP....I am thoroughly happy to be getting my German Passport on 4 Jan which is another reason to back away...as I personally feel then that a former US citizen now future German does not have the right to critique the US...

    I had thought after Rwanda and Srebrenica genocide had been beaten back into the ground .....it has not...I thought after the Wall fell the issue of changing international borders using force had stopped...it has not and after roughly 15 years of war against AQ and IS we still have not learned a single lesson on how to deal with them other than more killing....and until we learn those lessons that are literally in our faces.... that we must honestly address AQ and IS directly....the killing will continue for the next several decades.

    Trump or no Trump....

    So it is time to move on....the photo that haunts me from my time in VN was the little nude girl running from napalm and two ... 8 and 10 year old Vietnamese boys killed in my ambush who even though while 8 and 10 both carried VC ID cards and two old rusty US ,45 pistols AND the picture of the little Syrian girl injured from an air strike with an oxygen mask who died later not even achieving the age of 1...sad that the world has never seemed to learn...

    If the US FP cannot stand up...lead and provide answers any more...that is a simple declaration of bankruptcy...a bankruptcy of morale values...civil and humans rights....end of story...

    Time to move on..... if someone would have told me that I would be ending my life time in a country that will be pushing back on European populism ie fascism with a smile in the coming years I would have called them crazy....

    Amazing to watch US citizens using Nazi salutes during Trump rallies and yesterday in DC......this is not the America that I defended from enemies near and far.....
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-21-2016 at 11:44 AM. Reason: Copied from the Syria thread as it explains a lot.

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    From those SWJ commenters/readers who maybe have not liked my comments on "white supremacy and or ethno racist nationalism" called now "white nationalism"..this might help to explain why I am so adamant of being against it and why I see the threat of so called "populism" that Trump is deliberately using far more dangerous than anything IS can do to the US........this "white nationalism" is being pushed by the KKK...the 270 armed militias in the US....the 300 or so right wing media outlets and now the Brietbart.com which uses "alt Right" arguments..and which the new Trump advisor pushed...used and developed.....

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/%E2...cid=spartandhp

    White Nationalism Explained...


    A question has been posed in a puzzled whisper in many of the nation’s living rooms and newsrooms ever since Donald J. Trump’s triumph in this month’s presidential election: What, exactly, is white nationalism?

    Self-proclaimed white nationalists have happily embraced Mr. Trump’s victory and, particularly, his choice of Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist, as a win for their agenda. A barrage of groups that fight discrimination and hate speech have, in turn, criticized Mr. Bannon’s appointment, warning that his embrace of the “alt-right” movement was little more than an attempt to rebrand racism and white nationalism into something palatable enough for mass consumption.

    And much of the rest of the country has been left to wonder what this unfamiliar term actually means.

    While white nationalism certainly overlaps with white supremacy and racism, many political scientists say it is a distinct phenomenon — one that was a powerful but often-unseen force during the presidential election and will most likely remain a potent factor in American and European politics in coming years.

    Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at Birkbeck University in London, has spent years studying the ways that ethnicity intersects with politics. While most researchers in that field focus on ethnic minorities, Professor Kaufmann does the opposite: He studies the behavior of ethnic majorities, particularly whites in the United States and Britain.

    White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation’s culture and public life.
    So, like white supremacy, white nationalism places the interests of white people over those of other racial groups. White supremacists and white nationalists both believe that racial discrimination should be incorporated into law and policy.

    Some will see the distinction between white nationalism and white supremacy as a semantic sleight of hand. But although many white supremacists are also white nationalists, and vice versa, Professor Kaufmann says the terms are not synonyms: White supremacy is based on a racist belief that white people are innately superior to people of other races; white nationalism is about maintaining political and economic dominance, not just a numerical majority or cultural hegemony.

    For a long time, he said, white nationalism was less an ideology than the default presumption of American life. Until quite recently, white Americans could easily see the nation as essentially an extension of their own ethnic group.

    But the country’s changing demographics, the civil rights movement and a push for multiculturalism in many quarters mean that white Americans are now confronting the prospect of a nation that is no longer built solely around their own identity.

    For many white people, of course, the growing diversity is something to celebrate. But for others it is a source of stress. The white nationalist movement has drawn support from that latter group. Its supporters argue that the United States should protect its white majority by sharply limiting immigration, and perhaps even by compelling nonwhite citizens to leave.
    Mr. Trump’s appointment of Mr. Bannon as his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist has, more than anything, brought white nationalism to the forefront of conversation. He is the former editor of Breitbart News, a site he described in August to Mother Jones as “the platform of the alt-right.”

    Although the alt-right is ideologically broader than white nationalism — it also includes neoreactionaries, monarchists, and meme-loving internet trolls — white nationalism makes up a significant part of its appeal.

    For instance, Richard Spencer, who runs the website AlternativeRight.com, is also the director of the National Policy Institute, an organization that says it is devoted to protecting the “heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”
    Mr. Spencer argues that immigration and multiculturalism are threats to America’s white population, and has said his ideal is a white “ethno-state.”

    He has avoided discussing the details of how this might be achieved, saying it is still just a “dream,” but has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” to remove nonwhite people from American soil.

    Mr. Bannon, the Trump adviser, told The Times upon his appointment that he does not share those ethno-nationalist views. But under his leadership, Breitbart News has gone to considerable lengths to cater to an audience that does. And in a 2015 radio interview that was resurfaced this week by The Washington Post, Mr. Bannon opposed even highly skilled immigration, implying he believed it was a threat to American culture.

    “When two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think...” he said, trailing off midsentence before continuing a moment later, “a country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”

    White nationalists, including Mr. Spencer, have rejoiced at Mr. Bannon’s appointment to such a senior position in the Trump White House. But focusing on high-profile figures like Mr. Bannon may obscure the more significant way that white nationalist ideas are affecting politics — and fueling the rise of politicians like Mr. Trump in the United States as well as anti-immigrant populist movements in Britain and continental Europe.

    Several studies of other countries have found that a desire to protect traditional values and culture is the strongest predictor of support for the sort of populism that propelled Mr. Trump to power in the United States.
    Many of those voters would not think of themselves as white nationalists, and the cultural values and traditions they seek to protect are not necessarily explicitly racial. However, those traditions formed when national identity and culture were essentially synonymous with whiteness. So the impulse to protect them from social and demographic change is essentially an attempt to turn back the clock to a less-diverse time.

    A recent working paper by Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, concluded, based on an analysis of wide-ranging survey data, that populists have succeeded by appealing to the cultural anxiety of groups like older white men, who once formed the cultural majority in Western societies, “but have recently seen their predominance and privilege eroded.”

    Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, a professor of politics at the University of Bergen in Norway, came to a similar conclusion after studying anti-immigrant policies in Europe. Their supporters, she found, were motivated by a desire to protect their national culture — suggesting they believed that immigrants posed a threat to it.

    Mr. Trump’s criticism of immigrants and promise to “make America great again” may have tapped into those same cultural anxieties, fueling his success with older and less-educated white voters. (Over all, he won white voters by 21 percentage points.

    Professor Kaufmann argues that anxiety over white identity and anti-immigrant populist politicians can have a symbiotic relationship, each strengthening the other. When populist politicians gain mainstream success, that can make white nationalist ideas more socially acceptable.

    “It’s not just a question of ethnic change and people being alarmed over it,” he said. “It’s also a question of what people see as the boundaries of acceptable opposition. It’s about what counts as racism, and whether it’s racist to vote for a far-right party.”

    “This is all about the anti-racist norm,” Professor Kaufmann continued. “If it’s weakening or eroding because people think the boundaries have shifted.”

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    Default Mattis as Defense Secretary: What it Means for Us, For the Military, and For Trump

    Mattis as Defense Secretary: What it Means for Us, For the Military, and For Trump

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    Default Painful choices ahead

    A considered Lawfare article by Professor Daniel Byman 'Should We Work with the Devil We Know against the Islamic State?'. He ends with:
    None of this is ideal, and even in the best of circumstances the Islamic State is likely to survive in some form, but all of it is better than a deal with the Syrian devil.
    Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/should-w...islamic-state?
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    Default Plea to Donald Trump: No More 'Quibbling Micromanagers' at the Pentagon

    Plea to Donald Trump: No More 'Quibbling Micromanagers' at the Pentagon

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    Default General David Petraeus Opens Door to Trump Administration

    General David Petraeus Opens Door to Trump Administration

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    Default What Trump May Not Know About the Generals He’s Eyeing for Top Positions

    What Trump May Not Know About the Generals He’s Eyeing for Top Positions

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    I had a post about President Trump, the unknown unknowns:http://brownpundits.blogspot.co.uk/2...-unknowns.html

    Excerpts:
    ...I don't think Trump is particularly racist or sexist (relative to most 70 year old males, of any ethnicity) and he is obviously socially liberal compared to traditional Republicans. But the possibility is there that this shallow man (more or less socially liberal, a conman, ignorant) will be manipulated by his newfound advisers into disasters (initially abroad) that could have endless branching and mutating unintended consequences here and abroad. That could be a truly transformative crisis.. Racism and the rise of the KKK (real and imagined) are small potatoes compared to the storms that could potentially be unleashed in the world...Muslims, being intimately connected to the worldwide crisis in very direct ways, will likely face the consequences within the USA too; but the crucial point is that the whole ####storm is likely to proceed along tracks that are occasionally parallel, but mostly completely unconnected with the identarian postmarxist postmodern worldview that dominates the elite Eurocentric Left today...Incidentally, if the ordure does hit the fan (I hope it does not, i hope the much maligned current world order survives or at least, has a soft landing), then Blacks and Latinos, like other citizens, will fight for America. I suspect that the fantasy worldview that emphasizes supranational and subnational identities well above national ones will prove very flimsy; flimsier even than "class solidarity" proved to be in the first world war...the elite Left's freakout about the KKK and the coming age of Jim Crow is not completly wrong, but misses the biggest threats and their likely consequences. Which is not to say that no connection can be made between racism and the international order, but the race-obsessed post-truth glasses of the new postmarxist Left do get them into endless wrong turns and dead-ends in terms of priorities to be tackled

    ..But having taken him seriously, we still have what his own chief strategist calls "a perfect vessel", waiting to be filled. But with what? Partisan commentary almost necessarily has to try and freak-out their support base for or against the incoming administration, and may be grossly exaggerated. But there are some grounds for thinking it may not be business as usual. My preference is clearly for business as usual (because I tend towards the belief that change will happen anyway, but it is better if it happens slowly and imperceptibly; of course, this is not how providence sometimes operates, so real life can and does deviate from my personal desires) so I personally will be relatively at ease if Trump turns out to be mostly talk; relying on distractions and culture wars to keep his constituency from noticing that nothing has changed for the better in their life, in short, just another modestly corrupt Republican administration; consistent in serving the short-term interests of the "top 1%" , willing to damage the long term interests of America (and the world at large) if it means more profits in the short term, and more than likely, losing the next election. Hopefully without terminally tarnishing the dignity and gravitas of the office of President.
    It may turn out this way. Which will be unpleasant, but life will go on until the next election and then perhaps the next (modestly corrupt) Democratic administration. Such is the best case scenario. And I hope this less than exciting outcome does come to be.

    But suppose it is not business as usual? Then I am looking for insights about two scenarios:

    1. World War Z. The big changes will start abroad in this scenario, and most will probably be unintended. We will soon have a National security adviser who thinks that war against Islamism (or as he prefers to call it, Islam) is the defining feature of the world today. Without getting into any long discussion of whether this is true or not, look at it this way: there is no competing Islamic civilization out there in terms of unity, material progress or military strength. Even if we imagine (as Islamists sometimes do) that superior fellow-feeling and social organization (a patriarchal but otherwise egalitarian religion, resistant to culture-destroying postmodern memes; their view, not mine) means that they win in the long term, even Islamists recognize that in the short or medium term this "victory" involves getting invaded by competing infidel powers with better artillery and missiles.

    So let us imagine Flynn has his way. What would such a war look like? His views are frequently incoherent and it is by no means clear where they will end up. e.g. he seems to regard IRAN (not Pakistan, Turkey or Saudi Arabia, the big three Sunni hopes) as the main threat and regards Russia as both threat and ally. There is just no rational way to predict what happens next based on these reported views... The US would presumably want to smash any and all Islamic counties that don't cooperate, but isn't it then a given that China, Russia and the US would also compete against each other in this new "scramble for Africa" (the Muslim world being only one order of magnitude more capable than Africa, while the big three are several orders of magnitude more materially capable than any Muslim country)? Who will line up on what side? Will it be mostly covert, low intensity warfare or will things spin out of control (the "scramble for Africa" being followed by World War One)? What about India? Japan? Latin America? The Baltics? Poland? Ukraine? This is a very complex system. Start a disturbance at a few critical points and the transitions can become totally unpredictable.
    Think about it this way and it is easy to reach the comforting conclusion that this scenario is so nightmarish that "saner heads will prevail". The current international order will survive. I certainly hope so, but then again, that is probably what many sane people thought in 1913. I look forward to your thoughts.

    2. From Dawn to Decadence...to collapse?

    The amazing rise of Western civilization and its steadily increasing dominance of the globe in the last 500 years have given it an aura of inevitability and permanence. Not in terms of particular nationalities (particular powers rise and fall), but in terms of intellectual paradigms and visions of reality. But alongside this dominance are well established currents of doubt, pessimism and rejection, from Ivan Illych to Dugin (and even, in a way, Bannon). I am not including the currently fashionable postmarxist postmodern current in Western universities, with its rejection of tradition, authority and "dead White males" and its glorification of identity politics and not so critical "critical studies". This current seems just the next (last?) stage within the Western tradition itself; more a sign of its bankruptcy than the vision of an alternative (simply put, because it's major themes seem to have such tangential,incidental, and minimal, contact with actual biology, history, culture or science). Anyway, without getting too far into this potentially book-length debate , suppose this really is terminal decadence, then what comes next?

    The unknown unknowns get really interesting at that point.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 11-29-2016 at 10:23 PM. Reason: Link added and quote marks

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