Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, January 16

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

I. ISLAM OUTSIDE THE MIDDLE EAST

THE EUROPEAN JIHADISTS AND THE SOCIALIZATION OF MALES: Oliver Roy has for decades argued that de-territorialized Muslims are radicalized because they are not socialized in a living cross-generational religious community. He says establishing a Muslim identity among expatriate males as a brotherhood in a foreign land is vastly different than going to mosque with your grandpa in a small village. Here he argues that Islam is the face of a generational, almost Oedipal, conflict in France which has no transmissible culture to pass on to its progeny and socialize young males.


THE BATTLE SETTING THE MUSLIM-CHINESE BOUNDARY: A short history lesson.

II. FOREIGN POLICY, HISTORY, & NATIONAL STRATEGY

FOUR STRATEGIC CHANGES NEEDED IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY:

 Understand our identity as Americans as a religious nation fighting the "godless West" and a Salafist jihad. This suggests an alliance with Orthodox Russia and a reconfiguration or dissolution of NATO. We do not have a good historical understanding of the religious nature of the Cold War. Nor do we see that our allies in that war have become our enemies and our old enemies can become friends. The same phenomenon happened after WWII when allies Russia, China and India became our foes and Germany and Japan became our allies. We are fighting a war against atheistic gender ideology and jihadist salafist Sunnis---the centers of these movements were our allies in the Cold war (Europe, Saudis and Pakistan).

Protecting the religious liberty of Shia to defend themselves with states in Iran, Syria, Iraq. and Yemen. The enemy is the Salafist Sunni movement not radical Islam.The Shiite states will be central players in a Mideast fighting force that will destroy ISIS.

Help the Israelis break from their Saudi alliance (and their Wahhabi ideology) and be recognized as a legitimate religious state in the region.

Ally with India, China, and Afghanistan against the Salafist movement in Pakistan.

TWO ARGUMENTS ON REALISM IN FOREIGN POLICY: We need more by Stephen Walt. We need less by Roger Cohen.

COMMUNISM VS CAPITALISM? OR WAS IT CHRISTIANITY: Getting the enemy straight, and defining oneself in one's own terms in the course of war,  has been an American problem long before 9/11. Capitalism is Marx's name for us, not ours. An excellent essay by Russell Kirk on the imaginative failure of fighting the Cold War as Capitalism vs Socialism.

EDWARD SAID, AUTHOR OF ORIENTALISM, ON HUNTINGTON'S CLASH OF CIVILIZATION: Professor Said lecture on Huntington's Clash of Civilization. Does the presence of different civilizations mean there must be a clash? The solutions of Said (denationalizing education) is less helpful than his critical analysis of the deficiencies of Huntington's celebration of the West against the Rest.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
Dr. Pence on the Republican debates.

III. CATHOLIC AND JEWISH ROUND-UP

CATHOLICS FROM YEAR ZERO: An excellent reflection by Rod Dreher of American Conservative on Ross Douthat of NYTimes arguing with a progressive priest at America. It then turns out, though, that sacramental time-keeping is the real division between Catholics and modernist Christians.

INTO THE BREACH: On the feast of the archangels this past September, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of  the Diocese of Phoenix called on the Catholic men of his diocese to step into the breach:

"...my sons and brothers in Christ: Men, do not hesitate to engage in the battle that is raging around you, the battle that is wounding our children and families, the battle that is distorting the dignity of both women and men. This battle is often hidden, but the battle is real. It is primarily spiritual, but it is progressively killing the remaining Christian ethos in our society and culture, and even in our own homes."

Bishop Olmsted's full apostolic exhortation can be heard in audio and there is also a short promotional video for the exhortation which every man should view.

THE JEWISH FOUNDING: A Biography of Menachem Begin (1913-1992) by Rabbi Daniel Gordis. Gordis argues that Begin was the first "Jewish" Prime Minister (1977-83) of the State of Israel (refounded 1947). Most of the founders of Israel were socialists, as well as the peculiar nationalists of Zionism. This talk, and Begin's life, reminds us that a man who believed all men are God's creatures can also believe that God chose the Jews for a particular mission among the nations. For those of us who posit that nations are the sacral covenants that bind men to God, the land, and one another, Begin is probably the best man to study. His sensibility is ours in seeing that God calls men into transgenerational unions called nations, so that Providence might work His way in history.

ORTHODOX JEWS AND CHRISTIAN FRATERNITY: Towards the Christians an unusual reconciling statement of Orthodox rabbis, ending with hopes for a coalition against "Satanic jihadism."