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Samizdata quote of the day – unserious or unstable people are thick in the natsec arena in election years In the end, what I would offer to anyone on either side of the Atlantic who thinks a new Trump administration would yeet the USA out of NATO on a whim is this; get out more. Actually talk to people on the natsec right. Get out of your intellectually onanistic terrariums. And for the sake of your larger credibility and sanity – do not think the America you read about in the NYT/WaPo and their derivatives, especially in an election year, is a reflection of the full reality.
Read broadly. Seek out a contrary opinion. Have reasonable discussions of substance. Don’t assume anyone who disagrees with you on policy is evil and the absolute worst version of their enemies’ caricature.
In the end, we all want the same thing, don’t we? Keep America in, the Russia out, and France & Germany down.
– CDR Salamander
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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None of this is necessary – we already know what Donald John Trump will do in relation to NATO because he has already been President for four years. President Trump will ask other members to pay more money – he will negotiate with them.
As for assuming people some are evil – one does not have to assume that the establishment (political, corporate and media) are evil, one can tell by how they behave. For example, they support the sexual mutilation of children – as part of the “Trans” agenda for children. That is evil – and it is part of a whole Legion of evil things they support. Sorry, but people who support a whole Legion of evil things, are evil.
I “assume” nothing – it is obvious that the other side, the establishment, the enemy, are evil, they-make-no-secret-of-the-fact.
The difficulty President Trump will face if he is not murdered, or imprisoned on false charges, or cheated by a tidal wave of election fraud (as happened in 2020) is that he will, on January 20th 2025 inherit a debt ridden economy (35 Trillion Dollars Federal debt alone – not counting Entitlements) and a collapsing society – the cultural collapse, including the collapse of the family, but also all other fraternal cultural institutions of society (destroyed by the vast government and the sick “Cultural Revolution” that started many decades ago, but is now reaching crises point).
NATO will be the least of his problems – as will foreign policy be generally. The main problem will be – will the United States survive, or will it collapse?
I do not want to keep France and Germany “down” – I would like these nations to be saved, but it is tragically unlikely that they will be.
And their tragic decline is self inflicted – as is the decline of the United States and United Kingdom.
I also don’t want to keep France and Germany “down”. It’s been 80 years. That’s like still being concerned with the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern rivalry.
I want Germany to be able to defend itself with it’s own military, not what it has now. I worked with professionals in the late 80s What has their military become now? A works program?
I think France is fine, for France. They’ll ghetto the Muslims like they did with the Huguenots, and eventually purge them with “repatriations” back to their origins or force-Frankify them.
What I am worried about is the general malaise, decadence, and corruption in the US. More and more of the economy is going to the gray market because of the incessant fees and regulations imposed on commerce.
An example is the legalized marihuana trade. It did not destroy the black market, and as government taxes on weed increased the smokers went back to their street dealers or took up growing their own, legal or not. Another imposition are the mandatory smog tests trying to force “polluting” cars into the junk yard, but resulted in more attempts to game the test, or just ignore it and drive on fake registration tags or get a tag from a less rigorous state. Yet another is the laughable “speedy trial”, which now takes multiple years and is resulting in felony cases being discharged for lack of prosecution and too long before trial.
And don’t get me started on the US Federal Government’s debt load. I have hope – the US debt is not as bad as Japan’s.
So those are the things that I’m concerned about, for-what-it’s-worth (which isn’t all that much).
Oh my Sweet Summer Child!
Always about power.
Amen to that. (Except for the ‘the’ before ‘Russia’.)
I see France and Germany as the sick men of the EU right now, because they alone (afaik) have been unable to produce a “populist” “Right” which both the mainstream “Right” and the mainstream “Left” see as rivals, rather than fascist enemies.
In France and Germany, it seems that there can be no dialogue about the issues that the middle & working classes find most concerning.
A friend pointed out that the a BBC piece called “Nato summit taking place against backdrop of alarming events and trends for alliance” by the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner ends with these lines:
– and Gardner is supposed to be the dedicated security correspondent!
This is the BBC link: “Nato summit taking place against backdrop of alarming events and trends for alliance”. It is a live feed, so if it no longer shows the article in question, look for a piece by Frank Gardner published at 16:53 on 10th July.
“…Gardner is supposed to be the dedicated security correspondent!”
Par for the BBC course. Check out Justin Rowlatt’s ‘journalism’.
Given the chaos in the French parliament, I’d be wary of relying on that lot to boost spending much on defence.
Matthew H Iskra – tragically you misunderstand the French situation and the European situation generally.
In France just speaking against the demographic transformation is “racist” (even though Islam is not a race – it is a religion) “Hate Speech”.
As for the sort of action you describe – it is about as likely as Charles Martel returning from the grave and taking up the leadership of the French.
Germany “defending itself” – the main enemy of Germany, of the German people, is the German government – as for the armed forces, the government (and its intelligence and security services) keep a very close eye on it, even though dissent is largely just loose talk by soldiers and officers who get harshly punished when they are (inevitably) informed upon.
Will the German people be allowed to elect a fundamentally different government (rather than the musical chairs of CDU to SPD to CDU again – which achieves nothing) before it is too late? I suspect that the answer to that question is NO – so, in effect, it is already too late.
However, you are correct about the United States – which is, PERHAPS, transforming into a Third World society, with endless regulations leading to people being forced into the “Black Market” (nothing to do with black skinned people – paranoid censors please note), and employment outside the legal economy – in very bad conditions and at very bad rates of pay. “Back ally capitalism” does not really work very well – due to the constant danger of arrest and the fact that it is taken over by violent criminals (see Mexico and many other nations).
Cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago (the three largest) have a very grim future when the Credit Money Bubble economy finally crashes.
Given the background in the West of the collapse of the fertility rate, mass Third World immigration, the Credit Money Bubble economy, crushing levels of government spending and taxation, endless regulations, and cultural (societal) decline – it is hard to see why people are looking externally for “national security threats”.
The most important national security threats are internal – and they are all getting much worse.
Indeed for many Western nations, it is already too late.
Some truth in this.
Trump does seem to connect with Putin on a deeper and more visceral level than he does with many NATO leaders.
But it’s a hostile connection. They’re not buddies. They just speak the same language in many ways.
bobby b – it goes back to the philosopher Hegel, of all people.
Hegel was not the first German language philosopher to make a fetish of bureaucracy, of the state machine, but he was the one who made this really fashionable. The state (not a particular leader – the state machine itself) is God moving in our world – according to Hegel.
These days German speaking or not “we are all Hegelians” – “we” (the establishment) all worship the bureaucracy, the state and corporate machine (the Partner Corporations being joined-at-the-hip with the state – thanks to Credit Money). Its rituals and ways of doing things like the Byzantine (sorry “East Roman”) Empire – or the Hapsburg Empire (the inventers of “Red Tape”, literal red tape to tie up documents, and lots of other shades of tape as well – for lots and lots of documents for hundreds of thousands of officials).
Mr Putin is NOT an Hegelian – he does not worship the bureaucracy, indeed if an official said “no we have to follow these procedures, and POLICY is the following….” Mr Putin would have the official thrown out of the nearest widow (he decides policy – the officials and their procedures do not decide policy).
President Trump is not an Hegelian either – but that does not mean he is like Mr Putin in any other respect.
Sadly the Western establishment are Hegelian to the core – anyone who thinks (for example) that the political leadership (not officials) should decide what policies are followed is, to the international Western establishment, a total monster – regardless of how they differ in other respects. They can not understand anyone who does not follow all the bureaucratic rituals and a political leader who thinks that they (rather than the officials and “experts”) should decide what policies are followed, is (to the Western establishment) beyond-the-Pale-of-Settlement (some sort of barbarian or savage).
As for France, Germany and so on (including the United Kingdom?) their fate is sealed – and no election will be allowed to save them.
They are still around – but their Death Warrant has already been written out, signed and sealed.
I am sorry but your death is POLICY – all the proper procedures have been followed, nothing can be done about it now.
A sort of thinking which the British and American establishment are also enmeshed in.
All this also applies to Western Corporations.
A lot of people ask why, for example, the Disney Corporations now follows policies (such as the DEI Frankfurt School Marxist agenda – the policy may be renamed, but its core will remain the same) that produces films and television shows that most people dislike – surely it would make more commercial sense to go back to making films and television shows that most people liked?
It would make more commercial sense – but Disney can not do that, because it would mean going against POLICY.
As irritated Corporate “creatives” say when people complain about the products – “if you not like it – do not buy the comic book”, or “do not watch the film – or the show”.
Pleasing customers is not what the vast Corporations (not just Disney – just about all of them) are about any more – the vast international Corporations have to follow POLICY.
And with the dependence of the economy on Credit Money which concentrates the control of shares under such entities as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – all this makes sense.
Ditto the drug companies – they are only following POLICY as well, they have nothing against you personally when they sell the state (taxpayer funding is vital in this process) toxic medications to be injected into you.
It is not personal, it is not even “just business”, it is POLICY – everyone agrees with it at all the conferences. They would do the same thing even if they made a commercial loss doing it – even if it cost them money.
Hegel would understand.
I certainly do. This has given Russia some nasty dilemmas they previously did not have. It has improved Europe’s strategic depth, created a new threat axis the Kremlin could previously ignore, and unless Russia manages to ultimately crush Ukraine & once again border with Romania & Slovakia with interior supply lines, their overall ability to threaten & influence Europe is greatly diminished. I am *very* ok with that.
Paul Marks:
Charles Martel returning from the grave would be something. I would rather expect a Charles de Gaulle, but that is equally unlikely.
I both admit to a limited understanding of France, but I do have at least one contact there, an American who married a French gal who works for the government in one of the regional governments – Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes IIRC. She is more country folk and admits that the attitudes of her fellows does not adhere to the dictates from Paris, hence my conclusion that France is better than the political pundits and doom-and-gloom club portray.
But one opinion, third hand, is hardly a trend, but I would guess that the rank-and-file bureaucrats, small businesses, and similar, are getting quite fed up with the immigration and special rules. France is historically more revolutionary than any other European nations, Britain, or the US, and I still believe that its people will coalesce into something powerful… and probably horrible. “Slowly, then suddenly” as the phrase goes.
I have a suspicion it is not far to go from ghettoized banlieues to actual walled ghettos reminiscent of 1941 Warsaw with a similar ending. A nightmare to be sure. But if I were playing the odds I’d say France will be France, but a lot more like current-day Lebanon – fractured, feuding, and feudal.
This, as always, is just IMHO.
Which side will end up inside the walls? Prisons and gated communities can seem similar.
There simply isn’t any rational or responsible thinking about security or national defense issues going on, anywhere in that which we term “The West”.
If you were to make believe that there was, well… Good for you; you’re exquisitely delusional or immaculately unaware. The sad fact is that everyone engaged in this work is under the misapprehension that nothing they do really matters; they perceive no threat, therefore there isn’t one.
Reality has another take on that, and we’re going to see what happens going forward. The feckless European attitude about border security, wherein they allow in the Third World in their millions of dysfunctionals? Yeah; that’s going to work out really well… Observe what happens, with those populations, should some sort of war actually come to Europe’s doors again. Can you say “Security issues”?
Can you project the sort of nastiness that will have to occur, before these issues get addressed, let alone fixed? Hell, with the demographic balance, I’m not even sure that the native European ethnicities are going to be able to survive, let alone thrive. It may well be that the only surviving ethnic Europeans are going to be the ones in the diaspora, here in North and South America…
Y’all listened to the siren call of the socialist, and now you’re borked. Wait and see… If they manage to pull out of the headlong crash they’re in, I will be pleasantly surprised.
It was also, I fear, totally unnecessary.
What Perry de Havilland said.
Sweden has an excellent fleet of small subs in the Baltic. The Finnish military is large, motivated and well equipped.
It really would help if our American pals didn’t always dismiss such countries. I know many on this blog don’t.l do so.
Matthew H Iskra.
France may well be finished – indeed the West in general may well be finished.
There are desperately serious dangers destroying Western societies, including the United Kingdom and the United States – as you know Sir.
But instead the elite in the West want us all to talk about “Putin” – who Mr Biden believes is the President of Ukraine, the Vice President of the United States, according to Mr Biden, being Donald John Trump.
“Ignore the fact that we are sexually mutilating your children, and robbing you blind with our Credit Money – there is a Bad Guy hundreds of miles away, think about him and ignore what we are doing”.
And YES Mr Putin is a Bad Guy (absolutely he is a Bad Guy) – there are a lot of Bad Guys and they now control just about every institution a lot closer to home than he is.
The people who are destroying the West are right here in the West – they are the people in charge of basically every institution, including the American intelligence and security agencies (remember the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation” according to these liars).
As for the military – General Milley (“Thoroughly Modern Millie” as he sometimes called – after the film of the same name), former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
His enemy is “White Rage”, which he kept going on about as Marxist BLM looted and burned large areas of American cities, and murdered people (yes murdered people – including black people) – over Mr George Floyd killing himself with drugs (for which several innocent people were sent to prison – to be abused, indeed cut up with knives).
General Milley, like all the top Brass, insists that young officers read (and agree-with) the far left “Critical Theory” texts – but NOT read works opposing these tissues of lies.
General Milley, and the rest of them, could not give a damn about defending the borders of the United States (vast numbers of young men crossing the borders – excellent! it would be “racist” to do anything to defend the borders) – and lies about just about everything.
Meanwhile patriots are being systematically removed from the United States armed forces – I wonder why, I wonder what the elite intend to use the military for in the future.
If I could speak to a personification of the US/UK electorate? Here’s what I’d say:
Y’all watched this shit start, in real time, and paid not the slightest heed. Instead, the man behind it all? You worshipped at his feet, ‘cos he was “the Lightbringer”. Y’all loved you some “black magic”, and the fact that you were votin’ fer the black man… What you got was a charlatan crook out of the Chicago machine, corrupt to his core.
All of this crap really started under Clinton, with regards to undermining and destroying the US military and sidelining any real reform of NATO. It meandered along, under Bush, who paid zero attention to all the appointments and “changes for the better” that the Clintons emplaced. Then, when Obama got elected by an electorate that I can only term “delusional”, it went into overdrive. Milley? Clinton and Obama admin promotion approvals, just like the sorry-ass excuses for officers that are the Vindman twins. Neither Milley nor the Vindmans would have gotten above about major, back in the day, but with the new criteria set by the Clintons and Obama, well… They made it to where they did, and did the damage they did. Time was, a lieutenant colonel selected for work at the White House was going to be someone you could automatically trust. Now? LOL… Look at the backstabbing little bitch and his actions, along with his brother. Now, they’re trying to whore themselves out to the Ukranian oligarchy, to get an even bigger piece of the military aid pie.
The level of absolute disgust you should feel? Indescribable. But, since all this crap went on in the deep background, nobody noticed and nobody cared. The national security systems of the United States have been so thoroughly deracinated and radicalized that it’s not even funny.
And, I will again repeat: You didn’t care when it went on, back then. The warning signs were there; the prioritization of “Consideration of Others” training over actual military drill, and all the rest. Your media said this was wonderful; your legislators said it was a great thing, and you blithely ignored the warnings people like me were making about the erosion of good sense.
In the end, the great enterprise set upon by the Progressives began with zero resistance, faced no opposition, and now here we are with an officer corps where they feel no fear of revealing that they’re active furries during their retirement honors. Won’t be too long before they’re doing that during duty hours while on active service… I don’t doubt but that at some point in the future, the troops will have to put up with a battalion or brigade commander in full fursona, giving orders in the field.
Nobody cared, nobody did anything, and all too many of you applauded this crap happening. I wish you much joy of it all, because you’re about to get the defense you deserve, which is “None”.
Oh, and don’t come whinging to me or mine about “duty, honor, country” ever again. You’ve no respect for any of those things, or you wouldn’t have played cheerleader as it happened, nor allowed it.
You want to know what’s behind the “recruiting crisis”? The fact that the majority of the people who were the backbone of the military no longer want to serve in it, due to the changes made by all these wunnerful, wunnerful people. This was done deliberately, I think, and we’re now at the end stage of where the Clintons and the Obamas (to extend that term out to all their supporters and adherents in government) wanted us to be.
The amazing thing is, they did it right out in the open, and nobody cared enough to notice or do anything. Y’all are going to get precisely what you deserve, and I’m going to laugh my ass off at you.
Oh, and don’t expect anyone of my ilk to come riding to your rescue. We’re done with that stupidity, and having been screwed a few too many times by your fecklessness, I think we’ll just sit this next disaster/crisis out. Too many broken promises, too much abuse of trust, and if I had it to do all over again? I wouldn’t. You’re collectively not worth it, what with the childlike stupidity and outright breach of trust on display. We killed for you; we died for you, and what did you do with that gift of our lives…? You pissed it away, allowing the people you told us were existential threats to simply walk back into power in both Iraq and Afghanistan, all while you sorry pieces of shit subsidized the hell out of the Iranians that spent the 2000s killing my friends and fellow soldiers in Iraq.
Frankly, America? I’m just gonna return the same massive “F*ck you…” to you that you gave us, with the election of Barack Obama and his coterie of like-minded traitors like Valerie Jarrett. None of you apparently have the slightest clue just how many died in Iraq due to Iranian machinations, and I will forever have to credit Trump for having taken out the main architect for all that, Qasem Soleimani. If he did nothing else, that act alone qualifies him as a good president… If only he’d kept going and gotten the rest of the assholes, and started in on the traitors in our own ranks that gave Iran billions of dollars to use spreading terrorism. You can draw a straight line through from Valerie Jarrett’s efforts, the money granted Iran, right to October 7th…
And, none of you care enough to do anything about it. If Obama were to run for office today, you’d happily vote for the charlatan again…
Do you have a time machine?