Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
This is an article by Professor Anatol Lieven, Kings War Studies, which appeared in my electronic reading list today, but was published pre-Xmas in The National Interest, so some may have read this before.
The sub-title says:
He opens with:
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/anatol-lieven/can-we-please-learn-from-history? or The National Interest:https://nationalinterest.org/feature...522?page=0%2C1
David,

I read this guy's bio and it is impressive, but his article is a bunch of hyperbole that suggests we bury our heads in the sand. The U.S. has no enthusiasm for a new Cold War, and I suspect Western Europe would prefer to avoid one also. In fact, both the U.S. and Western Europe went out of their way to accommodate China. The Russia situation is more complex, but the U.S. extended multiple olive branches. Based on Xi's increasing aggression, and Russia's military aggression and increasing gray zone interference in the internal affairs of western nations, we had to respond. To do otherwise would be to repeat the same mistake Chamberlain made prior to WWII.

We are waging a competition as a distraction from our internal troubles, and the one thing Anatol got right is we have a lot of internal troubles that have resulted in significant economic, social, and cultural insecurity leading to a higher death rate and addictions. This is exactly the reason we don't desire a new Cold War, they're expensive and distract from the work we need to do at home. If it was a distraction it certainly failed, because both Americans pay little attention to this competition. Many American college kids can't identify where the U.S. is on a globe, but they'll tell you white males destroyed the world, yet be unable to defend their position in a debate.

Here are some of his hyperbole comments:

Murderous Filipino populists? I suspect many Filipinos would take issue with this broad characterization. The Philippines has had insurgencies and high crime for the past 150 years, but they have also made significant progress and the vast majority of the population are good people.

Apparently according to the author, India is ruled by Hindu Fascists. I'm amazed that India exists as a country at all with 13 official languages and its various ethnic groups, insurgencies, separatists groups, economic disparity, etc., the fact that it does is admirable.

Millions of people from Central America fleeing to the U.S., millions? Really?

Unfortunate, but not surprising that another academic is polluting our youth's minds with with anti-Western, anti-democratic, and the West is always wrong diatribe.