A Soviet Childhood Sees American Despair & Asks What’s Happened? Lev Golinkin, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir.
“…Twenty-five years ago this month, the Soviet Union, where unquestioning first graders dutifully ran in gas masks and censors scrambled to protect citizens from themselves, collapsed. Scholars are still debating the precise cause of death, but surely unsustainable communal anxiety played a role. Today, I’m stunned to see signs of similar neuroses tainting the United States, the country to which my family fled. It’s not in the legitimate discussion over real national security threats, but in the relentless onslaught of helplessness being blared across the news and social media. I see it in groups calling for sanctions on vaguely defined pro-Russian media and peddling apps that block websites that allegedly benefit the Kremlin, like 21-century talismans to protect American minds from infection. I read it in columns that warn of Moscow’s unstoppable information war, the unraveling of democracy and the demise of truth. I see it in the constant assurance that we’re losing. Just as in the Soviet Union, it doesn’t matter how we’re losing or why, or to whom. It is particularly jarring to witness this defeatism in America, a country whose optimism reaches across continents. My family came here with many stereotypical visions of America. Most turned out to be wrong, but the one about the United States being built on optimism was true. Perhaps it takes an outsider to notice, but when you’re in the land of solutions, reading column after column offering nothing but paranoia leaves a disturbing un-American vacuum. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/a-flashback-to-my-soviet-childhood.html http://www.jta.org/2017/01/03/news-opinion/world/ukrainian-marchers-in-kiev-chant-jews-out http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-corruption-usaid-idUSKBN14J10Z?il=0 The Baker Rifle Transformed Soldiers Into Long-Distance Killers From Paul Huard, War Is Boring: “On a freezing January day in 1809, rifleman Thomas Plunkett of the British 95th Rifles was flat on his back in the snow outside of the Spanish town of Cacabelos. Some might say that was no place for an Irishman, but this was the waning days of the Battle of Cacabelos during the Peninsular Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. Plunkett knew exactly what he was doing.” Expeditionary Land Power - Lessons from the Mexican-American War
From Nathan A. Jennings, Military Review: “While many are turning to the two world wars and interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq for applicable lessons, the campaigns of the nineteenth century—with the exception of the Civil War—may offer more relevant case studies where relatively small, technologically advanced, and professionally led forces deployed to distant theaters. From the Indian Wars that raged across expanding American frontiers to the global attacks of the SpanishAmerican War, the republic’s oldest military service evolved to negotiate rapid and economized expeditionary warfare in both conventional and guerrilla settings. In the Mexican-American War, 1846–1848, a series of sparsely resourced but highly effective expeditions exemplified the U.S. Army Operating Concept’s imperative for future forces to jointly “present the enemy with multiple dilemmas” by being able to “conduct expeditionary maneuver through rapid deployment and transition to operations,” and “overwhelm the enemy physically and psychologically.”” Richard Boucher writes: In 1947, George Kennan said containment rested on our maintaining “a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own” among nations. That still applies. If we advance at the frontier of technology, design, global institutions, trading rules, and power, we will set standards, and China will fit itself in. If we abandon our leadership or close ourselves off, China will pass us by. Global power begins at home. – The Cipher Brief
India’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that candidates for political office cannot appeal to voters on the basis of religion, caste, community or language, arguing that India’s Constitution enshrines its elections as fundamentally secular. – New York Times
The announcement of a ban on the largest currency bills circulating in India, which came into full effect at midnight Friday, the last day for depositing the old notes at banks, set off cash shortages that have hit the country’s most vulnerable people hard and prompted worries about the economy. But despite those concerns, as well as doubts about whether the currency ban will reduce corruption as it is designed to do, for the moment, at least, Mr. Modi’s bet appears to be paying off in the public arena. – New York Times Shaan Taseer, the son of a prominent Pakistani politician assassinated over blasphemy allegations, is himself now the target of a police case and a fatwa calling for his killing after he recorded a Christmas message criticizing the country’s blasphemy law. – WSJ’s India Real Time Sadanand Dhume writes: Mr. Modi deserves credit for his surprisingly deft handling of complex strategic issues. But on economic policy he has damaged his international reputation by following a quixotic path detached from both history and the broad national consensus among experts on reforms. – Wall Street Journal (subscription required) |
CategoriesArchives
February 2024
EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ACE VENTURA
PAUL RAHE: REALISM IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SPARTA
CONSCIENCE & TEMPORAL AUTHORITY
SHAKESPEARE
POSITIVE LAW vs. CONSCIENCE
|