Ian Welsh

What can I say, it’s just the perfect Trump picture.

It’s for sure that there are those with great influence on him who want him to. Thomas Neuburger has the quotes, starting with Stephen Miller:

[This is] Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more local law enforcement officers in Oregon than there are guns and badges in the FBI nationwide). This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.

“Legal insurrection … an organized terrorist attack on the federal government”. There are laws against that. Another example, Miller to Hannity:

The Democrat party … is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers, and illegal alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic, extremist organization.

Noem and Hegseth agree (see here and here) and seem to be willing, as commanders of government forces, to fight by his side. Trump also agrees:

[T]hey’re throwing bricks at full force into the window and into the car. It looks like it’s a war zone. And I said, never let that happen again. From now on if that ever happens, and I say it here, you get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do …

Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room [the Pentagon’s generals] because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.

So, Thomas thinks this might be the start of a new civil war, or at least that’s what Miller wants and Trump may agree. (I think Trump is too fickle to be sure. But by all accounts Miller is the consummate Trump-whisperer.)

But what I see happening is something else. Just declare the Democratic party a terrorist organization and add in RICO penalties. Send law enforcement after them. Some may not be willing to, but ICE will do the job if no one else does, and other cops or military won’t fire on them, they’ll get the pols. Then put them in an ICE controlled prison. If really smart, set up an administrative court with executive appointed judges to try them, and either have the Supremes ratify it, or if that’s too far even for them (unlikely, but possible), ignore them.

Then, with full control of all legislatures, call a Constitutional referendum and change any and all amendments and the Constitution as Trump (or the smart lads who really do the work, like the 2025 crowd) desire, essentially changing America’s form of government permanently.

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Trump’s not smart enough for this, but Miller and various backers are, he’s got a Cabinet full of yes-men and women to back him, he’s purging the military and the three letter agencies of those who might try to stop him, and there’s no particular reason to think it might not work. There’d have to be a massive uprising, or enough soldiers and various types of police who resist to stop him.

If there are, it’s civil war. If there aren’t, well, it may be a low grade civil war anyway, or he may just get it thru. Hard to see most Democrats actually fighting back effectively, or fighting back at all.

Not saying this will happen. I don’t think they have the guts for it, and Trump is fickle. But there’s a large faction with a lot of influence who want it to happen, and they’re working hard to make it happen.

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China Is Going To Leave The US What America Left Britain: Nothing

By Ian Welsh

On October 10, 2025

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Chinese and American flags

So, China has slapped draconian export controls not just on rare earths, but on all technology related to rare earths. If you want rare earths you have to beg for permission and certify it won’t be used for anything military or anything technologically related. If you want the rare earths or tech to catch up, you can’t have them. (Like when the US banned advanced lithography machines.)

As an extra fillip, China has also announced that all American ships must pay port fees. (This is symbolic, few ships are flagged American.)

The writing was on the wall for this when China, just recently, told all domestic firms to not buy Western chips. That mean that they had enough of the chip technology stack that they felt they were immune to counter-sanctions.

And now the whoop-ass.

You can thank Trump for this. His chip and Huawei sanctions taught the Chinese they had to control their entire own tech stack. Before that they preferred American, Korean and Taiwanese chips. No big Chinese company would buy Chinese crap chips. If the US hadn’t decided on its moronic trade war, China would have allowed it to gracefully age out of its Empire, letting it keep some areas of technological superiority.

As usual, the Chinese played this ice cold. They took their lumps, they devalued the yuan, they made concessions. When Biden came in, he doubled down so they realized it wasn’t just a democratic hiccup, but core policy agreed to by both parties. Then Trump came in and went on his insane tariff blitz. Worked against his vassals, but China doesn’t have to take America’s crap any more and it isn’t.

Now, as the kids like to say, having fucked around, America and the West are about to “find out.” Revenge served ice fucking cold.

I want to be really clear on a couple things here.

First, China is not going to leave the US or the West anything meaningful in terms of tech lead. They are going to take the tech lead, with the industry to back it up, in essentially everything (they’re already in the lead in at least 80% of areas, so don’t kid yourself about the rest.) And they are going to break the US’s hold on the Americas too. By the time China is done with America, they’ll be lucky to still have have Mexico and Canada as vassals (which is why they might invade and is why the US is threatening Venezuela before it gets a full suite of Chinese and Russian weapons.)

Second: if you are in charge of any country in the world that is an American vassal and you have an IQ above 90 and the smallest amount of interest in the future of your country, your job right now is to transfer your allegiance to China and get the best deal you can in exchange. The longer you wait, the worse the deal will be.

I do mean everyone: Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea.

Everyone.

Get out, now. The US has already lost the war, and while there may be a lot of screaming and even a shooting war (without rare earths, the US needs to fight a war in the next two years, or wait tent years as it rebuilds its military stack) it’s over. Just like Japan had already lost even before Pearl Harbor (and that sort of attack is the danger now.)

China is going to run the world for the next forty to sixty years, minimum, barring ecological collapse. It has zero love for the old hegemons. The US, the Anglo countries and the Euros will not be treated kindly out of some feeling of kinship or because they are needed, neither is true. Only Australia and Canada have something to offer the Chinese might want. Everyone else is just wasting assets.

Besides, the Americans are bastards. Right now they aren’t offering anything but “stay our vassal and let us loot you.” Pull out your knife and your pen. Sign an agreement with the Chinese, and drive a knife right between America’s shoulder blades.

I’d say “they do it to you” but they’re natural born bullies and you’re already on your knees begging them not to hurt you more. (EU, I am especially looking at you. To say you have the dignity of slaves would be to malign slaves, who at least have no choice.)

America’s done. All statesmanship for the next fifteen years will be about handling the fallout. If the West had any statesmen, even one, that might be good news.

I’m Told Black Folks Are Lying Low in the Face of Stephen Miller’s Crackdown

By Nat Wilson Turner

On October 10, 2025

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In response to a post of mine at Naked Capitalism about Trump’s dispatch of National Guard troops to support ICE in Chicago, and the possibility of thing escalating beyond his control or intention, a commenter wrote that “so many Black people are avoiding the protests entirely and are considering each antiBlack outrage from the TrumpAdmin as a provocation designed to lure them out onto the streets, which so far they have not done.”

I replied in violation of my general practice of not commenting on Black American internal politics, and wanted to share it as a full post here.

The Black folks I know are keeping their heads down and have generally been on full alert since it became clear Trump would be re-elected.

Black folks know which citizens’ heads end up on the chopping block in this country. Every. Single. Time.

It’s obvious the feckless Democrats (both centrist and progressive) are not allies to be counted on in a crunch.

I also hope it’s obvious that what the late Glen Ford of The Black Agenda Report called the “Black Misleadership Class” cannot be trusted one bit.

The twinned fates of the martyrs of Ferguson and the grifters of the official BLM orgs are so sick and sad.

Many of the best, bravest, and most selfless organizers of resistance came to tragic, mysterious (yet obvious) ends at the hands of we all know who.

Meanwhile, the loudmouths, the leeches, the grifters stole and squandered millions of dollars and even more social capital.

This Medium essay addresses many of the flaws of the ideology driving “the movement” that should have been obvious as soon as bullshit artists like Robin “White Fragility” DiAngelo were “centered.” From Martin X:

I watch a narrative war drive the written legacy of the Black Lives Matter movement. On one side: celebrity activists maximizing their visibility through self-aggrandizing books, articles, and speaking engagements. On the other: conservative commentators claiming the movement pushed a divisive Marxist agenda, among other things. When America’s political right wing exposed the BLM’s organization’s financial mismanagement, I noticed the very same individuals who once built careers advancing the movement’s organizing theory began to write vague criticisms of identity politics and the financial fallout it produced. Despite many, like myself, being well aware of these issues long before conservatives got involved, few activists dared to challenge the core theory itself or the people who institutionalized it.

This came at a cost that I find myself working through. When a theory becomes both the foundation of racial progress while being immune to critique, it reveals a flaw in the frameworks we desperately rely on to change society for the better. We lose the ability to evaluate strategies by their effectiveness, causing promising analyses, such as identity politics, to become a shield for harmful ideas.

The relentless, racist, revisionist history of the protests has become the sole narrative of what happened when a large majority of Americans stood up together in outrage at an endless series of racist murders committed with impunity by police and were met with agents provocateurs, police riots, systematic misreporting of events in the media, disorganization, fools, looters, and indifferent to hostile politicians of both parties.

Never forget that Obama single-handedly stopped the NBA walkout.

Clyburn and Obama rigged the 2020 primary for Biden and then kept quiet when AIPAC systematically kept out or took out the best young Black leaders in bought election after bought election. How is Nina Turner not in Congress? Cori Bush? Jamal Bowman? How is Richie Torres in? Hakeem Jeffries?

The Democrats were so dazzling and efficient at preventing a competitive 2024 primary, despite 2/3 of their voters not wanting Biden to run for re-election, but Obama and Pelosi couldn’t manage to stop Kamala Harris from seizing the nomination and pissing away $1.5 billion in 15 weeks in a campaign that completed the discrediting of establishment Democrats.

And now here we are, being fed into the wood chipper, divided we fall.

The endless cynical abuse of identity politics in the service of the status quo helped Trump win in 2024 as much as Facebook or CNN helped him in 2016.

It’s all so sick and heartbreaking.

I think many of us have a feel for just how crushed the Reconstruction era interracial alliance of southern populists must have felt by 1900, after fighting so hard and coming so close and losing so badly, except we didn’t accomplish a fraction of what they did in their era.

I fear we may be crushed even more thoroughly, if more subtly, via mind control, drugs, diabesity, and despair.

And if necessary, they’ll resort to guns and camps and bombs.

But I don’t think the American right is any more on top of its game than the left.

The blender is going to spit up unexpected outcomes, and I fear we’re all going to regret what happens by the time the dust settles.

Russo-Ukraine War Update

I’m going to relay a conversation I had on X today with everyone here. It’s just easier this way, as I dislocated my shoulder yesterday and sprained my wrist falling down the stairs. Let me add, that crap that movie star tough guys do when they have a dislocated should is utter balderdash. Having my shoulder relocated was excruciating. So a ton of typing is out. Copy and paste is in. But I digress.

I replied to a Tweet, an X, WTF do we call those things now? Well, I’m sticking with Tweet. This one from the US Ambassador to NATO.

The US Ambassador to NATO tweeted the following;

“Russia is losing hundreds of soldiers a day without making any significant gains in Ukraine. Russia must recognize that it’s time for peace and come to the negotiating table.”

I replied to the Ambassador with a series of tweets:

“The @USAmbNATO clearly does not comprehend what a strategy of attrition means. Capturing territory and manuever warfare are secondary to degrading the Ukraine’s ability to fight. This Russia is succeeding at quite well.

I would add that US Generals, who excel in tactics and the operational art of war–which includes logistics–love to quote Bradley’s axiom “amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics.”

I loathe this quote for a number of reasons. Most of all because US generals and their partisans use this argument from authority to dismiss often very valid criticism. I’ll give you one example: Tommy “Catastrophic Success” Franks. He, Stanley McCrystal and Petraeus are prime examples of US generals with a signal lack of imagination, relying on the strength of their logisctical prowess, e.g. The Surge in Iraq.

This was my third tweet to the Ambassador:

[The generals] insistence on this adage has lead to consequential misunderstandings of strategy and why so many continue to conflate Russia’s lack of forward movement with failure (i.e. General Kellog, ~spk). A strategy of attrition is all about the gradual erosion of the enemy’s ability to fight.”

It’s hard for me to comprehend that these men cannot understand Russia’s strategy in the Ukraine. Then an X user asked me a rather intelligent and sincere question:

For how long would you say Russia has been succeeding quite well at degrading Ukraine’s abiity to fight? For the full 3.5 years or a shorter time span? Follow up: how long will this success take to yield major changes on the battlefield?

Let me first say how pleasant it was to get a sincere question on X. Usually it’s agreement or derision, and second I thank my cultured interlocotur for a few hours of intellectual stimulation.

My reply was fivefold, and many of you have read portions of it here in the past:

All modern Russian wars–starting with the Great Northern War in 1700–begin badly for Russia. All of them. The SMO is a perfect example. The Russians were uprepared, had an ill-thought out strategy and got pushed back badly. They got whooped. But the Russian’s learn quickly.

So, they did what they normally do in such situations, traded space for time. By mid-2023 their industry was on a total war setting, minting more artillery shells than all of the US and NATO combined. They’d called up fuck-tons of troops . . .

. . . and because necessity is the mother of all innovation quickly outstripped the Ukraine in drone warfare. Plus, with their thermobaric weapons and Iskander missiles in high production they devestated fortified positions. Then they attacked supply routes. (They also innovated an EW unjammable fiber-optic drone that was devastasting ~spk added later.) Then 3-5 man teams . . .

. . . cleared the trenches. The Kursk invasion was a catastrophe for the Ukraine and by 2024 it was clear the Ukrainian army was in trouble, [seeing as] recruiting meant kidnapping, and the Ukraine began shifting divisions will nilly against attacks initiated by the Russians.

Russia [now owns] the initiative & numbers & air superiority over all the Ukraine & drone superiority over the front lines. It looks very bad for the Ukraine now. Russia grinds away, caring not about territory yet. That comes next year in 2026 when they take Odessa. Does this [clarify]?

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Intelligent and incisive he asked the following:

If they don’t take Odessa in 2026 would you adjust your analysis? Also, Russia hasn’t won all its modern wars. Crimean, Russo-Japanese & Afghanistan come to mind. Chechnya is a bit messy in terms of winners/losers. So while Russia can take heavy casualties sometimes it’s too many.

My reply was threefold:

First, I didn’t say Russia has won all its modern wars. I said they all begin badly. Second, if they don’t take Odessa, I would be surprised. But it would not mean ultimate failure. Russian sabotage teams are already in Odessa. Chechnya actually became a total success.

It took more than a decade, much like the Murid War, but Chechens are now some of the most fanatically loyal soldiers in the Russian Federation. Crimea was a shit-show as was Russ-Jap and WWI and Afghan. Russian’s aren’t perfect, but they will win the war against the Ukraine.

The present military leadership knows exactly what they are doing. One action might change their strategy: an attemped decapitation strike that actually hit the Kremlin. Oreshniks would rain down on Kiev, brutal and devastating and foreign operaties (US/UK) would be targeted.

He then asks,

When you say they will win the war against Ukraine, what does victory entail? Full territorial acquisition? I predict more stalemate – for multiple years to come if both sides stick to the military approach at resolving the conflict. I’ve been right on that for ~4 yrs thus far.

My final reply was this:

Victory will be dictated on the battlefield. The Russians are not interested in full territorial acquisition. They are interested in landlocking the rump state. Zelensky will be killed or exiled. A pro-Russian regime will be installed. The Ukraine will be neutral . . .

. . . along the lines of the Austrian Treaty at the end of WWII. It will not be a frozen conflict. Putin’s main goal is to create a peace that endures for at least a generation after he dies or steps down. That’s what I see are Russia’s goals. I doubt the war continues past 2026.

My main beef here remains the lack, be it from wilful ignorance or delusion, of US policymakers, generals and think tank denizens, of understanding Russian strategy in the Ukraine. Understanding attrition is not difficult. Just google it and read the wikipedia entry. How difficult is that? Do they not teach boolean operators at the US Army War College?

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I’d Like To Be Optimistic About the Latest Gaza Peace Plan

By Ian Welsh

On October 9, 2025

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Sounds on good on screen:

Hamas & Palestinian factions agree to Gaza ceasefire plan. A formal agreement is set to be signed today, Thursday, in Egypt, with Hamas officially approving the deal. The agreement includes the immediate opening of five crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, adjustments to the Gaza withdrawal map, and the release of 20 Israeli captives alive in the first phase. The deal is guaranteed by the U.S., Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, ensuring that attacks will not resume as long as both parties adhere to its terms.

But, after all, this is basically the same agreement as in January, with release of Israeli captives in phases. You’ll remember how quickly Israel broke that deal. The only good, possibly, will be getting some food and medicine in Gaza. (Remember, again, that Israel let in very little last time.)

Netanyahu, and most Israelis, want to commit genocide. The polling and their own statements are really clear on this. The vast majority of Israelis don’t want to stop till all Palestinians are dead or gone, whether from Gaza or the West bank.

That means the only way a deal like this can work is if Trump will cut off all military supplies in order to enforce it if Israel breaks it. Odds of that? Pretty close to zero, I’d guess.

Rarely have I wanted to be wrong about something more than this, however, and I pray I am. The counter-argument is that Israel is, in fact, exhausted economically by the war, reservists are increasingly refusing to call up, and Israel has become a pariah nation and thus it is time to declare victory, at least for now. May that argument prove correct.

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Is Good Or Evil More Effective? The Case of America and China.

By Ian Welsh

On October 8, 2025

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(Second in a series. Read the first: “Is it more fun to be evil than good?“)

As I’ve repeatedly noted, China is now the most powerful nation in the world. If the US was to go to war with China, it would be crushed. After the first two to three weeks it wouldn’t even be close. China has magnitudes more ability to manufacture weapons, and there’s reason to believe that their missiles, drones and fighters are superior to Western ones.

It’s over. China won, and the US lost.

Why?

Well, one reason, bear with me, is that the people who ran China from Deng onwards were a lot less evil than those running America. Or if you prefer, more good.

One of the things you notice if you read Chinese documents about successes of government policy is that they almost never express success in currency. No “the new industry made ten billion Yuan.” It’s always “2 million apartments were built” or “12 nuclear plants are now operational” or “we have reduced the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere by X many thousands of tons” or “we now produce 50,000 tons more of wheat” or “we’ve built 5,000 of the 10,000 parks we promised and will finish the rest in four years.”

There’s no question that China had a lot of corruption till Xi’s crackdowns, and still has a fair bit, but China’s policy makers are focused on improving the lot of ordinary people. You can get rich helping do so, but you have to deliver. The CPC increased how long Chinese lived, gave them more education, gave them better homes, made access to health care cheap, and turned China into the world’s technological leader and primary industrial power.

This is because they were trying to make Chinese better off. It’s almost a side effect. If you make people healthier and better educated and give them good jobs, well, that’s good for the economy. China’s leaders weren’t primarily focused on making a small group rich, they were focused on making all Chinese richer, and on making China strong. You got rich by helping, not by hindering.

To give a recent example, after Chinese complained that they couldn’t afford homes or rent, Xi said “homes are for living, not for speculation.” The government deliberately crashed the real-estate market, reducing the prices of both homes and rent.

Rent as proportion in income

It is literally inconceivable that the American government would do this. Developers went bankrupt, major landlords lost billions. Rich people were hurt! Instead, despite having far more homes than homeless people, the US has a homeless crisis and the response to it isn’t China’s (they cleaned this up recently by giving homeless people jobs and a place to live) it’s to put spikes anywhere people might sleep and when they form a tent camp to have cops kick everyone out violently and destroy their possessions. Some homeless people were even honored by having California’s government, Gavin Newsom, personally help kick them out and destroy their possessions. American values.

Next notice the lack of war-making in the last four and a half decades. Even in the recent clashes with India, weapons were forbidden. How many countries has the US invaded or bombed since 1979? All that “not making war” has allowed China’s efforts to concentrate on China and Chinese. They focused on butter, not guns. Even today, the entire military is 2 million strong, in the world’s strongest economy (yes, it is) out of a population of 1.4 billion people.

There’s a trope that evil always wins. It doesn’t. I make no claim the CPC is full of Saints or always does good, but among major countries I can’t think of any where the leaders are as focused on the broad good of their people more than China right now. And polling all shows that Chinese agree—they’re far happier with their leaders than any Western population is. Turns out it’s not so much “democracy” that matters (not that we have that, as the EU is going out of its way to demonstrate) as whether your leaders are evil or not, and if the only choices you are allowed to make is “chocolate evil or vanilla evil”, the choice means nothing.

Good is very often stronger than evil. Evil consumes itself, as our elites have consumed their own countries power and real wealth in order to enrich themselves.

Good is bounty, it makes all those under its sway stronger and better.

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Is It More Fun To Be Evil Than Good?

By Ian Welsh

On October 7, 2025

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Fairly often I run across the following piece of reasoning:

There must be punishment, including punishment by God, because otherwise who wouldn’t want the fun of being evil?

This occasions some side-eye and sidling away from the person in question. “Uh, if you think evil is fun and are only good because of fear of punishment, something is wrong with you. And you’re dangerous if you ever think you can ‘get away with it.'”

Now this is a difficult topic because it requires us to talk about the fact that doing some types of evil IS fun for some people. Do I have to explain that rapists often enjoy raping someone?

Many years ago, and I can’t find it now, I read an excerpt from a book whose author had been a torturer during the Lebanese civil war. He wrote, quite seriously, that it had destroyed him because torturing someone was the most ecstatic experience, way better than sex, and now that he didn’t torture anymore, the entire world was gray and lacked any pleasure for him.

Power isn’t just an aphrodisiac, it’s an amplifier… Making someone else do what you want them to do is experienced by many people as very pleasurable. That they don’t want to, and force was used, makes people feel powerful and potent. Trickery, convincing people to do something that is against their interest, is likewise experienced as a rush. Con artists (including the really big ones like politicians, Obama, for example) revel in their ability to manipulate people, then betray them.

The human condition is weak. We are at the mercy of fate, luck, our bodies, and other people from the moment we’re born. As children, this is especially the case. Experiencing power, feeling that we aren’t weak, is, for many, the ultimate rush and the ultimate relief from fear.

Hurting people for your own benefit, successfully, is to experience power.

Almost every CEO and executive and almost all politicians experience this repeatedly. And, as many studies have shown, powerful people lose empathy. So they experience the upside of their evil without feeling the suffering of their victims.

It’s not just that he doesn’t care that they die, but that forcing them to die for him is a rush.

Now you don’t have to be super powerful to get this. Find someone weaker, and use your power against them. Weaker is relative: they could be physically weaker (your wife and kids, perhaps?) or they could be stupider (be a con artist) or they could just lack will and you have plenty (see henpecked husbands who are physically stronger and earn more money) or you could have managed to get into a management position and they need their jobs and have to do what you say, or else.

There are millions of variations: no matter how weak you are, there’s someone weaker, and you too can experience the retail version of the wholesale pleasure offered to a CEO or high-ranking politician. You’ll never get the full thrills of torture and murder of a George W. Bush or Netanyahu, but you can taste from the same sweet swill.

Evil is fun. And that leaves aside that the most evil people tend to wind up stinking rich as a side benefit.

I’ve made the case for evil, and I’ve done my best to make the strongest case I can, but I personally think you’re a fool to accept it or choose evil.

The problem with evil is that, as Tolkien pointed out, it consumes itself. You can never trust another person who is evil, not completely. For now, it may be in their self-interest to help you or at least leave you alone, but if you’re ever vulnerable and there’s enough at stake, well, they’ll come for you. You must always be strong, or you must be subordinate to someone stronger than you. That person will only protect you as long as it is in their self-interest. If you need to be sacrificed, so be it.

Safety requires good. The obvious solution is to be a free rider. Be evil, but live among good people. But, eventually, they figure out you’re evil, and the more people try to free ride, the more a society becomes evil, till the good people, even if not a minority, are effectively powerless. (This is arguably where the US is. Probably a majority aren’t evil, but who cares? They have no power. Israel, on the other hand, is a country where something over 90% of the non-Palestinian population is evil. There is no reservoir of evil larger than a muddy puddle.)

But it’s not just safety. Evil people care only about others when it’s in their interest. If you’re good and live with good people, you know that when you’re sick, broken, scared, or down, someone will help.

This is, really, true freedom. The knowledge that someone is there to help when you need help means you can take risks and you can do what you want, so long as it doesn’t harm other people. If you’re in an evil society, you must always be sure to have sufficient power (money is secondary; it means nothing if you can’t protect it). Your effective freedom is vastly restricted.

But perhaps most important, as good as the exercise of power feels, most of the enjoyable emotions in life are oriented towards good. There’s nothing quite like the warm feeling of love. There’s nothing like true friendship, the feeling of safety it gives, and the playfulness it allows. And as for power, the power of a good community is massive. When a group comes together to do something because the members all want to, not out of fear, the feeling of being part of something larger than oneself is wonderful. (Everyone should take part in a barn raising to get a taste of this.)

The price of evil is fear. Of knowing that you’re always in danger. Perhaps you’ll be the alpha predator who “wins”, the Barack Obama or Trump (though he often seems unhappy), or the Bush Jr., but for every winner, for every aspirational evil mastermind, there are millions of predators who are sometimes the victimizer, and other days the victim. People who always have to worry about who’s coming for them next.

Of course, if you live in an evil society, many of the benefits are lost. But even there, good people find each other and create their own small groups, and even if it’s just you, there is a satisfaction in virtue that is very real. There is a peace in being good, and knowing one has red lines and, oddly, in knowing that there are things one will not do to stay alive: that there are depths one will not sink to.

In the end, evil is about wallowing in pleasures that always have sickness to them, that never fully satisfy. The ecstasy of torture or rape or killing the innocent is real enough, but there is a filth to it, which is why such people often wind up with nightmares and PTSD, despite being the powerful ones who did the evil.

Those who want evil, who think it is fun, often wake one day to find the filth they have wallowed in has consumed them.

Evil has its pleasures, but they are not worth what they cost.

(The next article in this series will argue that China has defeated the US in large part because it has been more good, or less evil, than America for quite some time.)

Israeli Actions Encourage the Formation of the Coalition That Will Ultimately Defeat It

A little lesson in history is in order to understand why Israel remains dominant in the Middle East and continues to wage war against just about everyone. To understand better Israel’s strategic dilemma we have to look back at the Crusades.

The First Crusade established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099. But, before the Kingdom of Jerusalem could be established invasion routes from the north had to be secured, which occurred in 1098 when the Crusaders conquered Antioch, modern Antakya in Turkey. Second, its flank had to be secured, which is what Baldwin of Boulogne did in 1098 by capturing Edessa, modern day Şanliurfa in southeastern Turkey. Baldwin then created the County of Edessa.

Between 1099 and 1144 the Kingdom of Jerusalem fought against the Fatimids of Egypt, defeating them several times. The kingdom then attacked Damascus several times; winning some fights and losing others. The Crusaders attacked and captured Tyre, Tripoli, Acre and Beirut. They only held Beirut for a time.

The Byzantines were also active in keeping the Arab and Seljuk princedoms in the region divided. They won more battles than they lost. The Byzantine strategic goal was the reconquest of Anatolia. They had some success under Alexis Comnenos, but when he died so did his genius. That said, for most of fifty years Crusader Jerusalem was safe. It would take two to three thousand words to narrate this all comprehensively so I’ve oversimplified. Please be sympathetic.

One might get the impression that with the Byzatines knocking the Seljuks about in Anatolia, keeping them on their back heels and the Crusader States growing steadily and beating Fatimid Egypt several times that victory seemed assured. But even before the first Crusaders captured Jerusalem time was not on their side.

In 1094 the governor of Seljuk Aleppo, Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, was beheaded on accusations of treason by the Seljuk emir of Damascus, Tutush I. Aq Sunqur al-Hajib’s son, Imad al-din Zengi escaped to Mosul and was raised by its governor. As he matured he grew into a fierce warrior, becoming a scourge upon the Crusader states; one they were unable to answer. As the years passed Zengi fought, relentlessly. After many losses but more victories Zengi, in 1144, captured the Country of Edessa, dealing a crippling blow to the Crusader States. This blow necessitated the Second Crusade. For the next quarter century the Kingdom of Jerusalem muddled through, fending off most challenges. But the loss of Edessa caused a persistent drain on the kingdom’s power.

In the year 1171 Saladin came to power in Egypt, a development that would rapidly end the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s decades long containment of Fatimid power. Saladin’s life goal was the destruction of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. With Egypt under his complete control, Saladin immediately inaugurated the first part of his great project: unifying the divided states surrounding the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Saladin was largely successful in unifying the region, notwithstanding his loss to King Baldwin IV in 1177. The Leper King, Baldwin IV, husbanded a large force and defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard on November 25, 1177. Saladin had the good fortune of defenses in depth and quickly rebuilt his nearly eradicated forces quickly as he ruled both Syria and Egypt.

Catastrophe struck the Kingdom of Jerusalem when King Baldwin IV died in August of 1186. This set off a series of political machinations in Jerusalem wherein ultimate power was gained by a coterie of bigoted incompetents. In 1187 they marched their army towards the Sea of Galilee to challenge Saladin. At the Horns of Hattin, where there was no water, the heavily armored Crusaders quickly grew parched and exhausted. Saladin defeated them easily. The way to Jerusalem was now open. Saladin was ultimately successful in its conquest and by late 1188 the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem was under Saladin’s control.

The point of this brief history is this: the only way the Israelis can be defeated is exactly how the Crusaders were defeated. A coaliton of Arab and Islamic states must unify in common action against Israel.

On the other hand, all Israel must do to exist is maintain a divided region. This has been Israel’s grand strategy since its inception and remains so today, even though Netanyahu is making a mess of it by attacking everyone, everywhere, committing genocide in Gaza while expecting unconditional US support of its every action. A tall order at a time when the US public has begun seriously questioning continued support of Israel, especially in the face of the genocide in Gaza.

So, can the states of the region find common cause? Well, Turkey’s president Erdoğan is sitting on the fence, but could make life very difficult for Israel by simply shutting of its energy supplies, which come from the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Never mind the size and technological sophistication of its armed forces, that dwarf anything Israel has.

Turkey’s indecision notwithstanding, signs of potential unified effort by several Islamic states are beginning. First, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact that includes a Pakistani nuclear umbrella. Second, “Egypt’s Sisi has called Israel the “enemy’ and is renewing ties with its neighbors,” says Ted Snider at Responsible Statecraft. In a September speech at the Emergency Arab-Islamic Summit in Qatar Sisi gave an unprecedented speech. His three main points were that Israel is the enemy. He then warned the Israelis that there would be no new diplomatic progress in regards to the Abraham Accords, adding that Israeli actions could possibly violate the 1979 Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty. But the really shocking statement came, as Ted Snider recounts, when Sisi said, “it has become imperative for us to establish an Arab-Islamic mechanism for coordination and cooperation to enable us all to confront the major security, political, and economic challenges surrounding us.” Adding to this, “[that] the geography of any Arab country extends from the Ocean to the Gulf and its umbrella is wide enough for all Islamic and peace-loving countries.”

A second round of war with Iran might trigger a more formal defensive alliance structure like that between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. One that would be more comprehensively Islamic, as Iranians are not Arabs, but Persians. The Turks might buy into it as well. I’ll explore what a potential coaliton might look like in a subsequent post. But for now, the ultimate consquences of such an event are not heartening.

The wild card happens when Israel stares down total defeat. At this point Israel’s nuclear ambiguity will be clarified, necessity being the mother of all forced decisions. If Israel faces certain destruction what will it do? Lash out and let the nukes fly? Or accept defeat in the hopes of preserving something? In our complex adaptive global society nothing is inevitable. However, the day is coming when Israel will face a hostile, well armed and coordinated Arab-Islamic coaliton. The results are unforseeable, but more than likely devastating.

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Ian Welsh

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Israeli Actions Encourage the Formation of the Coalition That Will Ultimately Defeat It