by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch
THE WEEKLY BRIEF
The Practical Peace of Christian Realism vs the Perpetual War of Globalism
In this season of Christmas, Christians assert with joy that the God of the Universe has become man and is calling all nations to live as brothers. As a Christian nation let us formulate a foreign policy consistent with our spiritual nature. Let us live among the nations. We support the nation of Israel in her present defensible borders and with her ancient capital of Jerusalem. We do not however accept the foreign policy of Israel advocating war and regime change in the Shia nation of Iran. Likewise in the season of peace we must reject the hateful anti Shia ideology of the Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia. We reject especially the aggressive war against Shia Muslims led by Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman in his own Kingdom and throughout the region. As religious men we must understand the war against religious freedom at the heart of the Saudi-Wahhabi kingdom. It is directed today most virulently at Shia populations which is strangely and fatally off the radar of "religious liberty activists". We must understand the Christians in the Mideast have much more in common with Shia states fighting the salafist Sunni jihadists than with the present war policies of Saudi Arabia and Israel. We must also remind our allies in Israel that a temporary alliance with the Wahhabis will never lead to the acceptance of a Jewish nation in the lands of Islam. American nationalists must reject the shortsighted Saudi-Israeli alliance just as President Eisenhower rejected the French-Britain-Israel alliance against Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956.
We reject the globalist insistence that the US as "a sole superpower" must deny regional powers their own natural spheres of influence. We Americans constitute one nation among many nations under one God. We do not share the exaltation of our own arms that seems the organizing principle of our 2017 NSS strategy (see below). Such military overreach apart from spiritual purposes is not a Christian nationalist foreign policy. A nationalist policy recognizes that dominant nations in various regions will organize relations in their own regions. The US is not called to be the keeper of global order and the suppressor of regional hegemony. This has never been the America First vision of Donald Trump proposed in his speeches (see below). The globalization vision of America as a suppressor of regional powers often calls itself "realism." This atheistic worldview of Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain was rejected in three Presidential elections by American voters who elected two very different foreign policy dissidents in Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The rejected globalist policy (still very much alive in the 2017 NSS document) treats Russia, Iran and China as "revisionist" regional powers to be opposed by the US and various "regional allies." President Obama rejected this approach to Iran and President Trump hopes to reject this approach to Russia. We would add that the US should not contest China's preeminent role in the China Sea. The globalist deep state, the huge military armaments industry, Saudi Arabia and Israel are presently set against an emerging American nationalist policy in the Mideast. The largest Christian nation in the world can no longer leave American foreign policy to a toxic combo of careerists in the foreign policy establishment and the moneyed lobbyists of foreign nations. We suggest at Christmas a Christian alternative.
The Practical Peace of Christian Realism vs the Perpetual War of Globalism
In this season of Christmas, Christians assert with joy that the God of the Universe has become man and is calling all nations to live as brothers. As a Christian nation let us formulate a foreign policy consistent with our spiritual nature. Let us live among the nations. We support the nation of Israel in her present defensible borders and with her ancient capital of Jerusalem. We do not however accept the foreign policy of Israel advocating war and regime change in the Shia nation of Iran. Likewise in the season of peace we must reject the hateful anti Shia ideology of the Wahhabi state of Saudi Arabia. We reject especially the aggressive war against Shia Muslims led by Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman in his own Kingdom and throughout the region. As religious men we must understand the war against religious freedom at the heart of the Saudi-Wahhabi kingdom. It is directed today most virulently at Shia populations which is strangely and fatally off the radar of "religious liberty activists". We must understand the Christians in the Mideast have much more in common with Shia states fighting the salafist Sunni jihadists than with the present war policies of Saudi Arabia and Israel. We must also remind our allies in Israel that a temporary alliance with the Wahhabis will never lead to the acceptance of a Jewish nation in the lands of Islam. American nationalists must reject the shortsighted Saudi-Israeli alliance just as President Eisenhower rejected the French-Britain-Israel alliance against Egypt in the Suez Crisis of 1956.
We reject the globalist insistence that the US as "a sole superpower" must deny regional powers their own natural spheres of influence. We Americans constitute one nation among many nations under one God. We do not share the exaltation of our own arms that seems the organizing principle of our 2017 NSS strategy (see below). Such military overreach apart from spiritual purposes is not a Christian nationalist foreign policy. A nationalist policy recognizes that dominant nations in various regions will organize relations in their own regions. The US is not called to be the keeper of global order and the suppressor of regional hegemony. This has never been the America First vision of Donald Trump proposed in his speeches (see below). The globalization vision of America as a suppressor of regional powers often calls itself "realism." This atheistic worldview of Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain was rejected in three Presidential elections by American voters who elected two very different foreign policy dissidents in Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The rejected globalist policy (still very much alive in the 2017 NSS document) treats Russia, Iran and China as "revisionist" regional powers to be opposed by the US and various "regional allies." President Obama rejected this approach to Iran and President Trump hopes to reject this approach to Russia. We would add that the US should not contest China's preeminent role in the China Sea. The globalist deep state, the huge military armaments industry, Saudi Arabia and Israel are presently set against an emerging American nationalist policy in the Mideast. The largest Christian nation in the world can no longer leave American foreign policy to a toxic combo of careerists in the foreign policy establishment and the moneyed lobbyists of foreign nations. We suggest at Christmas a Christian alternative.
I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
CHRISTMAS COMES: The centrality of Christ - John Piper. To receive Christ, first humility.
A RABBI, A BISHOP, AN IMMAN, A BLACK LEADER, A HISPANIC ACTIVIST, A LUTHERAN, AN ANGLICAN AND AN ORTHODOX: Male and female He created them THEY ALL SAID TOGETHER.
II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST
SAUDI-IRAN RIVALRY AND DECISION TO RECOGNIZE JERUSALEM AS CAPITAL OF ISRAEL: The Iranians are looking like the defenders of Muslims and Arabs.
WAR DRUMS IN THE MIDEAST - A PIVOTAL MOMENT WAS THE 1996 NEOCONSERVATIVE "CLEAN BREAK" STRATEGY AIMED AT REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ, SYRIA, AND IRAN: This explains things well.
AFTER BEING BOMBED FOR A YEAR, THE HOUTHIS SHOT A MISSILE AT SAUDI ARABIA: This is being touted as conclusive evidence that the Houthi defense from foreign aggression by the Muhammed bin Salman-led Saudis is really Iranian terrorism. The abysmal public and journalistic ignorance of recent international history allows these fabrications.
III. AMERICAN POLITICS AND FOREIGN POLICY
ISIS IS GONE AND ASSAD IS STILL HERE. TRUMP WAS RIGHT AND THE GREAT FOREIGN POLICY THINKERS WERE WRONG: The foreign policy establishment who were so spectacularly wrong about Assad are also wrong about Iran. Reading their old quotes is chilling.
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND - SENATOR FROM NEW YORK: Getting to know her.
ROY MOORE DEFEATED: Two takes. His white evangelical vote was lowest in two decades and is what beat him. Rusty Reno at First Things goes way too far in piling on Moore. He talks about Moore as a "transgressive" because he would not take down the Ten Commandments on Supreme Court grounds and he urged judges to disobey the federal imposition of marriage between same sex couples. Were the Maccabees transgressive? Reno has been one of the few writers at First Things who has been open to a more nationalistic view political loyalties in the Trump era. This article was not insight but piling on.
THE THREE ENCIRCLEMENTS. FOR MANY REALISTS THE FOREIGN POLICY OF A SUPERPOWER SHOULD BE ORGANIZING ALLIANCES AGAINST REGIONAL HEGEMONS - CHINA, IRAN AND RUSSIA:
1) Marco Rubio leads the way organizing the region against China.
2) Everybody against Iran in the Mideast is turning into Israel, the US, and Muhammed bin Salman against Iran. Our Secretary of Defense and UN ambassador are leading the charge. From DoD News-U.S. Defense Department:
"Everywhere you find turmoil [in the Middle East], you find Iran's hand in it," Defense Secretary James Mattis said Friday. Referring to U.S. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley's briefing Thursday which included physical evidence that Iran is providing ballistic missiles to the Houthis, Mattis said, "What we are doing in that region is standing by allies and partners, and we're, on one hand, exposing, on the other hand, helping them build their own capability to reject Iranian influence."3) The failed post Cold War policy of isolating Russia continues in the hysterical anti-Trump resistance movement trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.
"We find Iran actively engaged in keeping [Syrian President] Assad in power, despite the murder of his own people on the industrial scale, including the use of chem ical weapons. We see what [Iran has] done with Lebanese Hizbullah in Lebanon and the threat to peace and the support they've given to Assad and the threat to Israel, for example." Mattis added, "The reason Ambassador Haley was there, and not one of our generals, is this is a diplomatically-led effort to expose to the world what Iran is up to."
CHINA - DEVELOPING CREDIT AND SOCIAL RANK: Another revolution by the most dynamic economic society on earth.
FOR MANY CONSERVATIVES THEIR PRINCIPAL PROBLEM IS THEY ADOPT THE STRAUSIAN ERROR THAT THE MODERN/CLASSIC DIVIDE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL AXIS MUNDI: It isn't - the Coming of Christ is the axis mundi. That is a major theme at AOA and is alluded to in this article at Public Discourse by Paul DeHart. His article becomes a long discussion of the natural law. DeHart is on to something much more fundamental. We have argued that the fall of the Modern West is not to be grieved. Christianity lives! At Crisis magazine an English writer speaks of the ethnic origins of nations and the possibility of stateless Europeans. He is missing the fundamental insight of Christopher Dawson that Christianity is the core cult of the European nations. The discussion among most of the neoconservative Catholic world on global Christianity and the nations is pretty thin gruel. This writer is stabbing at the right questions.
AMONG CONSERVATIVES YUVAL LEVIN OR VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: A good review of two positions among conservatives.
ON CHINA: A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region. China’s infrastructure investments and trade strategies reinforce its geopolitical aspirations. Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability. China has mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there. China presents its ambitions as mutually beneficial, but Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo- Pacific. States throughout the region are calling for sustained U.S. leadership in a collective response that upholds a regional order respectful of sovereignty and independence. China is gaining a strategic foothold in Europe by expanding its unfair trade practices and investing in key industries, sensitive technologies, and infrastructure.PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SPEECH INTRODUCED BY VP PENCE TO MILITARY AND SECRETARIES TILLERSON AND MATTIS: The speech. ISIS caliphate has crumbled. America First. A Wall and closing lottery and chain migration. In his speech, he called Russia and China "competitive rivals" who we could cooperate with. As an example he told of recent US warning Russia of terror attack in Russia which was foiled because of our information sharing. His speech opened many more paths than the written strategy which is a repetition of the triple encirclements of China, Iran, and Russia to prevent regional hegemony. This posing of America as a rival to regional powers in Europe, the Far East, and the Mideast is the globalist strategy which needs to be countered with an American nationalist and Christian realist approach that allows other large powers to dominate their own regional relations. The hate Trump movement is stopping a sharper discussion with the President about the contradictions in his policy. Again his speech was much less bellicose and more encouraging that a truly different approach is being considered. A major problem is certain personnel like his UN ambassador are deeply entrenched in the globalist four war paradigm (stalemate in Afghanistan, organize balancing coalitions vs. Iran, vs. China, vs. Russia).
ON KOREA: In Northeast Asia, the North Korean regime is rapidly accelerating its cyber, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs. North Korea’s pursuit of these weapons poses a global threat that requires a global response. Continued provocations by North Korea will prompt neighboring countries and the United States to further strengthen security bonds and take additional measures to protect themselves. North Korea seeks the capability to kill millions of Americans with nuclear weapons. Iran supports terrorist groups and openly calls for our destruction.
ON RUSSIA: Although the menace of Soviet communism is gone, new threats test our will. Russia is using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments. With its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region. Russia continues to intimidate its neighbors with threatening behavior, such as nuclear posturing and the forward deployment of offensive capabilities.
ON NATO AND THE WILLINGNESS TO GO TO WAR FOR ANY MEMBER: The NATO alliance of free and sovereign states is one of our great advantages over our competitors, and the United States remains committed to Article V of the Treaty.
ON THE MIDEAST: The United States seeks a Middle East that is not a safe haven or breeding ground for jihadist terrorists, not dominated by any power hostile to the United States, and that contributes to a stable global energy market. For years, the interconnected problems of Iranian expansion, state collapse, jihadist ideology, socio-economic stagnation, and regional rivalries have convulsed the Middle East. Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, has taken advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding. Iran continues to perpetuate the cycle of violence in the region, causing grievous harm to civilian populations. Today,the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.
ON SOUTH ASIA: We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region. We will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials. The United States will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets. We will continue to partner with Afghanistan to promote peace and securi in the region. We will continue to promote anti-corruption reform in Afghanistan to increase the legitimacy of its government and reduce the appeal of violent extremist organizations. We will help South Asian nations maintain their sovereign as China increases its influence in the region. We will insist that Pakistan take decisive action against militant and terrorist groups operating from its soil.
Pursue Threats to Their Source
Defeat Jihadist Terrorists
Jihadist terrorist organizations present the most dangerous terrorist threat to the Nation. America, alongside our allies and partners, is fighting a long war against these fanatics who advance a totalitarian vision for a global Islamist caliphate that justifies murder and slavery, promotes repression, and seeks to undermine the American way of life. Jihadist terrorists use virtual and physical networks around the world to radicalize isolated individuals, exploit vulnerable populations, and inspire and direct plots. The United States also works with allies and partners to deter and disrupt other foreign terrorist groups that threaten the homeland—including Iranian-backed groups such as Lebanese Hizballah. Jihadist terrorist organizations such as ISIS and al-Qa’ida are determined to Attack the United States and radicalize Americans with their hateful ideology. Non-state actors undermine social order through drug and human trafficking networks, which they use to commit violent crimes and kill thousands of American each year.
ON REGIONAL STRATEGIES: The United States must marshal the will and capabilities to compete and prevent unfavorable shifts in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. Sustaining favorable balances of power will require a strong commitment and close cooperation with allies and partners because allies and partners magnify U.S. power and extend U.S. influence.
IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION
CARDINAL LAW IS DEAD: The former Archbishop of Boston resigned in 2002 following the discovery that he had participated in shielding predator homosexual priests in Boston since 1984. It was soon discovered that this was not an isolated practice. Read AoA's argument for the masculine anthropology and punitive approach needed to restore the Catholic priesthood.
AUSTRALIAN SEXUAL ABUSE: 90% of the victims in the Catholic institutions were male. Certain orders of brothers were the worst perpetrators. 30% of the abusers were priests. 1 of every 14 priests was an abuser. The Royal Commission had two particular suggestions for the Catholics. 1) Get rid of celibacy laws and 2) disallow the seal of Confession. The deep infiltration of the priesthood and religious orders by active homosexuals deeply opposed to traditional Catholic codes of purity and fraternity was not mentioned as a possible source of the scandal. The final report of the Commission deals with many more institutions than the Catholic Church and the specifically homosexual preponderance in catholic institutions was present in the larger report but not as striking. The desertion of the flock by shepherds and the absence of a functioning fatherhood is a consequence of a brotherhood fatally compromised by a homosexual subculture. .
POLITICS CRIME AND ESTABLISHING ORDER: A look at crime and punishment in pre-revolutionary Russia. Many insights from this book by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, an emeritus professor of history at the University of California. There is something about this analysis of lawlessness in Petrograd that evokes CHICAGO.
"Hasegawa draws on the founder of sociology, Emile Durkheim, to explain these changes. Petrograd was in a condition of anomie, or normlessness, that arises from a breakdown in what Durkheim called organic solidarity. Organic solidarity are the systems of belief held in common by people of complex, modern societies characterized by the division of labor and social differentiation. It enables interdependence in an increasingly individualized world. The political and economic crises that fed the crime wave caused a breakdown in norms and significantly altered the body of conventions that had previously governed social relations. The meta rules of living together that had previously allowed for peaceful coexistence were no longer relevant. The revolution swept all of that away."
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