Obama's "Lord of the Flies" Foreign Policy

A thought just popped in my head. The problem is the thought is based on two grave literary sins. Allow me to share the idea and then the self-identified sins.

In watching Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal speak about Israel and the history of American foreign policy, I caught a fascinating phrase or two. Stephens points out that the last seven decades of American active, liberty-supporting foreign policy has created one of the greatest stretches of peace in the history of man. Stephens goes on to point out that autocratic regimes are now sensing an opportunity to assert themselves that they have not felt during the Pax Americana (i.e., the term for the American Peace that borrows from the established concept of the Pax Romana from the Roman Empire's period of peace and prosperity).

Last week, many commentators were discussing Hillary Clinton's remarks that Obama's idea of "don't do stupid sh... er ... stuff" is not a foreign policy.

With Stephens' early remarks there is the hint of the concept of the US as the world's policeman. Stephens believes that the US is tired of keeping the world in check.

Frankly, I find the concept of a policeman wrong. The idea is that there is a rule of law and the police are just there to remind the outlaws about what should be done. Police are a modern concept from large urbanized areas with police appointed by elected officials.

I find the concept of International Law laugheable. Eighteenth Century Swiss writer Emmerick Vattel started it by pushing the idea that each country was reflecting the will of its people. The acts of the countries could then be treated as law. Frankly most of the world suffers a despotism imposed on them, so the people's will is not reflected in the government. Vattel's notions fail at first blush. The international scene is not orderly. It is not subject to one legal regime that a policeman can simply enforce.

The better imagery for the international scene is wild west US Marshal. Here is the agent of a far away central and legitimate power that is trying to establish order among the locals who have not organized functioning state governments. The marshal's job is to keep base-line expectations of order. Protect life, liberty, and property.

Truman set the US up as the international marshal. The US has served to keep chaos from breaking out on the international scene while the locals have a chance to build up their organizations. This was the intent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When Obama entered the White House, he clearly did not see the world with Truman's eyes. He wanted the US to just be another country, not the marshal of the world. Obama thought it stupid to create order half a world away.

Now as Obama draws the US back within its borders, we see the world changing.

We have moved from the US as world marshal and seeking to allow each country to find their people's will (to attempt to bring truth to Vattel's world order?). We have moved toward a world where there is no dominate force to maintain basic order and protect life, liberty, and property.

We are seeing Obama's foreign policy to allow the return of the world of chaos. We have seen the growth of Obama's policy of encouraging a global reenactment of the Lord of the Flies. Obama encourages the most blood thirsty to seek greater chaos and threats to life. Obama shows minimal interest in understanding the life-protective effects of the US military.

Obama seeks to remove any sense of order other than the order of a form a detente between dictatorial regimes and timid democracies. Obama seems to believe that it is better for the US to be loved than feared by tyrants.

Machiavelli in the Prince, chapter 17, famously asks whether the autocratic prince should prefer to be feared than loved. Machiavelli points out that a man can only control his own passions, so an autocratic prince cannot cause the people to love the prince. Machiavelli also points that a prince can institute fear in his people by the prince's own cruelty. Machiavelli believes the prince is most efficient in using what the prince can control as opposed to what the people control. Control comes from imposed fear. Only after should the prince seek to be loved.

Obama turns this notion on its head. He wants the US of Obama's creation to be loved and not feared. This seems to be because Obama believes that Vattel's fantasy of how the world works is true. Vattel was wrong. There is no international order of law. It is the world that Machiavelli envisions for the prince would seek to rule. (Remember this is not Machiavelli making prescriptions for the world to have an ideal government. It is Machiavelli, as an experienced diplomat in the pre-Reformation era, describing how autocracy do work. Machiavelli writes a more prescriptive view of the world in his less famous Discourses on Livy.)

Obama fails to understand the truths of despotic power in the absence of a functioning democratic order that Machiavelli describes so well. Iran, China, Russia, some of the Soviet break-away "republics" understand Machiavelli's description of cruelty as a means to holding power. Obama wishes Vattel's fantasies were true, but ignores that Machiavelli's portrait of tyrant is near flawless.

The result is a situation where cruelty most foul prevails over democratic principles. Here is the invitation to either anarchy and chaos with the swift imposition of despotism in the name of seeking a false law-and-order. Obama is creating an anarchic world. Since the failed attack by the Turks on Vienna, Islam has not felt its power to inflict chaos and fear to non-believers. Obama is encouraging a world where Islamic threats are growing more powerful. Obama is discouraging actions that lead to spontaneous order where citizens feel safe in their life, liberty, and property. Obama is seeking to become his own lord of the flies.

So now we have the Lord of the Flies metaphor, what about the two literary sins? I hate inaccurate use of literary allusions. They often lead to the misapplication of the literature. The most famous is "Uncle Tom" as an indictment of a black who is loyal to his slave owner. In fact the character is the center of dignity under bad circumstances and helping others at risk to himself.

I also hate when writers act like they understand stories when the writer has clearly never read the work.

Because I have never read the Lord of the Flies, I fear that my thoughts on Obama's foreign policy could be cause me to guilty of both such literary sins.

Lord Acton's wisdom revisited

We all know one of Lord Acton's famous phrases: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

As I was looking around today at other intelligent quotes, I ran across several of Lord Acton's other quotes.

"There are two things that cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion." This one took some effort for me to completely understand. 

Maybe a different way to put these concepts are that: 'There are two qualities that cannot be prevented in advance: ignorance and narrowmindedness. Even worse, neither one enjoys recognition or tolerates debate of its existence. The ignorant do not know that they lack of facts. The narrowminded cannot imagine that different points of view could exist.' Less poetic. Easier to decode. Harder to remember.

Governing by Polls

Figuring out good public policy requires a thorough knowledge of economics, psychology, politics, science, etc.

Why is it then that we decide policy by polls?

It seems odd.

Isn't policy by polls like driving a car based on instructions from your eight-year old looking at the back window of the car? He can only tells what you  just passed and has no appreciation for how the mechanics of driving the car works. Whatt  he odds that you wreck?

Polls are driven by uninformed people having their dinner interrupted or selected to serve up a desired message. They have little interest how their opinion will be used.

Why do successful companies run with a board of directors? You want informed people with different life experiences to offer considered opinions.

Which tend be rewarded for good decisions and which are rewarded for decisions that reflect what others might believe based on 3 seconds of thought?

Republicans as the party of policy can never win based on polls. They can only win based on strong, well-articulated ideas and a healthy dose of disdainful humor for poll-driven Democrats. Any other response is to become a Democat-Lite wondering why he can never be elected.

What is Our Future?

As we sit awaiting Obama's next decree and wonder about its consequences, we should be looking farther into the future. We should be looking at large trends that may be influenced by policy but are mostly influenced by numbers and historic trends. Knowing these trends and their possible effects on our nation, would it influence or should it influence modern debate?

Throughout history, military might has led nations to territorial conquest. Military might is influenced by many factors. A highly advanced military may be able to field a small army and conquer. When two armies of similar technology meet, two factors remain important: leadership and numbers.

Good leaders follow military maxims as old as Sun Tzu, Napoleon, or Clausewitz. They know the terrain of battle, the ideal time for battle, the maneuvers, the logistics, delegation of authority, the strategic goals, the strategies, the tactics, and small-unit deployment. Good leadership can overcome numbers.

Equal leaders on equal footing are likely to find victory in numbers. A unit of 1,000 will always struggle to beat a unit of 1 million. Very few soldiers have an Enola Gay.

As a result of numbers, it is easy to guess what will happen to a mass of peasants attacking a city that lacks medieval walls. Death and destruction. For the peasants who lack property to defend, mayhem and destruction are the best way to overcome a more sophisticated city. Peasants can turn to marauders if they find a systematic method of attack. This fear and terror can enrich a marauder through coercive demands for tribute or Danegeld.

The city dweller or rural land owners make money wealth from property owned. Peasants and marauders make wealth from actions taken. The more aggressive the action, the more fear generated, the more wealth obtained.

The most dangerous marauders have been the swift by land and sea. The Mongol hords and the Vikings are the best examples of each, but are not unique in history. Each of these had little use for specific land. Mostly their lack of interest in land was because their homelands could be barren and desolate in long cycles. They needed to be able to move over large distances to provide food for their families. The ability to hunt translated easily into an ability to make war.

Chinese history and Western European history are filled with marauders conquering farmers then conquering cities then conquering empires. Why is that?

No small portion of this pattern is due to the influence of women.

Women prefer home and stability. For city dwellers, how this pattern plays out is obvious to the modern eye. A new bride wants a nice home for her two future children. She decorates the house nicely. She may push her husband to do some yard work. She wants her house to be in good repair, preferably by her husband's hand. Her goal is a life focused on the family, home, and local community.

Women who live on old fashioned farms had many of these same desires but had a heavier focus on tasks that kept a home functioning without as many city services or nearby groceries to provide basic food stuffs. They had to do many back-breaking chores routinely. They had a profound respect for their husbands and "'menfolk" who took on these and heavier chores with quiet fortitude. My family lost many of these women through old age in the 1980's and 1990's.

I can only imagine the wives and daughters of herdsmen, fishermen, or nomadic hunters. These women were often left with their children without their husbands for long periods of time. Their responsibility for fulfilling all functions of home and field were even more intense than a mid-twentieth century American farm wife. I can only imagine the respect that these women held for their husbands when they were successful bringing home a bounty. I can also imagine their anger if the men came home empty handed.

Now let's imagine a rough and tumble young teenage boy raised in each of these households with a mother annoyed with her son's antics. What is the city dweller, farm wife, or hunter's wife going to say to her son? Will the city dweller encourage the testosterone rush? I can imagine throughout history that first-generation city dwellers would be reluctant to minimize the male attitude. The mother might seek to channel the effort into aggressive sports that encourage traits that the mother respected in her father before moving to the city. What if other city dwelling women looked down on such encouragement of rough sports? Women reinforcing women would tend suggest a push against traditional male behavior.

Now place the same teenager in a farm wife's kitchen. Different result? If she were like my grandmother, she would only say, "Take it outside!" The problem was not behavior. It was "the proper time and place for everything." The boy could still be a boy. The farm wife knew that strength and competitiveness had a place on a farm. Who could till the most soil? Who could harvest the most corn? The competitive farmer was likely going to earn the most and be best positioned to buy out his neighbor's crop ground in bad times.

The same teenager in a hunter's household would actually be in training for the skills he would need to hunt. Need I say more?

What about birth rates? Cities are more expensive because land is more limited and more competing buyers. Land prices make all resources in the city more expensive because of rent and acquisition prices. This makes large families extremely expensive. Farms produce their own food and before mechanized farming required many persons. Rich farmers often had large families to provide the labor. Herders tended to have large families to provide work, too. Marauders created their own armies because more fighters meant more victories in acquiring land, food, or tribute.

Land acquisition costs and birth rates usually fight each other.

How do war and child raising fit together? Cities have traditionally fielded sophisticated armies with a tendency to grow soft and compliant, leading to conquest of the city. Farmers make loyal and sturdy soldiers and sailors who do their duty. Nomadic peoples make conquerors. They are hungry, strong, aggressive and prototypically penniless. Female ideals move toward cities and comfort. The men who follow that trend are ripe for conquest.

Modern society -- particularly of the post-baby-boomer variety -- has moved strongly toward a feminine world view where city life is the ideal. Farms today have easy access to markets. The drive to Walmart may take 30 minutes but the milk is cheaper and more plentiful than milking a cow. We are living the feminine ideal of history.

Is this a first in history? Rome did repeatedly. Constantinope did for a period. China did repeatedly. Each of these fell. Many explanations for these have been given. Yet they all tended to fall fastest and hardest when the feminine ideal was in full flower at the time of the fall. Essentially the feminine preference for hearth over battlefield left the cultures weaker in the eyes of the societies that preferred battlefield over hearth.

When a boy is disciplined harshly for being masculine and not given alternative masculine outlets, what should we expect? The boy running through the halls does need discipline, but he also needs to get outside with a ball and chance to compete aggressively at full speed for an hour. 

When a military becomes a plaything of feminine goals of collegiality and equality of existence rather than equality of opportunity to compete, what should we expect? Tough women should be in the army. They should be held to tougher standards than men, not lower standards. Enemy soldiers will rape women, it is less likely that enemy soldiers will rape men, unless Roman slavery notions are in play.

Modern society needs to learn from history. The fall of civilization is often to the illiterate or poorly read hoards. Literacy provides protection only when Caesar, Napolean, MacArthur, Sun Tzu, and the Codes of Chivalry and of Bushido are core parts of the curriculum for purposes of learning martial principles and not just treating the writers as barbarians.

Apocryphal Napoleon Maxim as GOP strategy

As a college history major and a lifelong historiophile, to coin a phrase, I'm a firm believer in the analysis of history to understand the present and to predict the future.

For this to be effective, the first step of that is an accurate understanding of history. To truly learn from what has happened in the past, a  student of history must be true to the events as they occurred. With the Internet, it is easy to quickly come to the assumption that Ben Franklin was correct when he said, "Everything on the Internet is true." If we believe that Ben Franklin made such statement, we can  become comfortable with what George Orwell predicted. A government-run Department of History would actually exist and rewrite past events for the people to be better able to comply with Big Brother's vision.

The latest incarnation of this Big Brother method of doing politics is the GOP's great claim to following a supposedly Napoleonic maxim. The saying goes "Never get in the way of an enemy who is  destroying himself."The first step is to question whether this statement was ever made by Napoleon.

While I am not sitting in a library filled with source materials on Napoleon, this sounds like a preposterous quote. One writer attempted to trace the history of this alleged quote. His attempt is at http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/06/never-interfere/. I will not vouch for his analysis, but his methodology is more sound than the Republicans quoting Franklin about the Internet. I have not independently investigated. For the sake of discussion, let us assume that his analysis is correct. If he is correct, what does this tell us about the GOP's political strategy?

According to this revised quotation, Napoleon was only in favor of allowing the enemy to make one tactical error. Napoleon then was ready, willing, and able to seize the initiative on the battlefield to begin his counterattack. To suggest that Napoleon was in favor of a strategy of strategic inaction is to fail to understand the Napoleon entirely. Napoleon was renowned for his aggressiveness and willingness to attack. In fact that willingness is part of his self-destruction when he pursued a land war in Russia going into the winter.

The only way Napoleon would be willing to show patience was a matter of tactical patience. He would not give up strategic initiative.

What can the GOP learn from this proper analysis of history, assuming my sources are correct? 

The opportunity to turn tactical patients into a strategic initiative has arrived. We should be looking at the opportunity to overcome Obamacare through aggressive strategic counter-response.

The GOP needs to avoid making the classic Democrat mistake of purposefully misunderstanding history and its lessons.

Comparing Obama to Reagan: it's not even close

Many Democrats try to avoid any discussion of Reagan compared to Obama. When they do allow such a comparison, they often try to obscure the facts. This article http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/reagan_vs_obama_its_not_even_close.html devastates that bias toward Obama.

Federal Reserve of San Francisco blames Obama Tax Hikes

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2531410

Obama is to blame, says the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. His tax hikes are causing the economy to fail to recover.

June 28, 2013: How big the document dump?

Prof Rahe speculates on perjury in the hearings. http://ricochet.com/main-feed/A-Smoking-Gun?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

In my family, we tend to have mini-family reunions that last for days over July 4th week. If you want to catch us unawares, have big news on Friday, June 28, 2013. We will not see the news or think about the news we get until July 8th. 

That leads me to wonder whether other families are like ours. If many, wouldn't Obama try to hold all his IRS and DOJ dirty laundry until June 28th? Then when Republicans get the documents and get no traction for a week, the Democrats will say on July 8th, "Why are you raising the issue now? You are just playing politics. This is 10-day old news."

Smart Republicans should start asking questions about the list of documents that will be dumped on or after June 28th. Make the point about Democrats playing games. Then when it happens, the July 8th conversation will be I-told-you-so. 

If no dump occurs (highly unlikely), the question is what is being hidden must be so bad that the Dems missed the summer dump cycle. They will have to wait for Thanksgiving or Christmas for a similar opportunity.

Cost per pupil

New Jersey has created a debate http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2013/04/11/new-jersey-school-stats-stir-the-pot/ about how to measure the costs of a student in public education. They have changed the definition of "per-pupil costs." Well I am not familiar with the lingo of education policy, it would seem to me that a valuable number for public education would be to come as close as possible to measuring the cost of the student. It would make public education more like private business. It would allow families seeking a private education to truly understand what the real cost of an education is.

Hey family seeking to place a child in private school or parochial school will better be able to see what the cost of education really is. It would allow them to understand better what they would choose to spend.

It would allow the public sector to better assess its cost versus private costs. While we do not expect government expenditures on any subject to be cheaper than private expenditures, it does allow some reality check as to what better performing schools can do with less money.

Viewing the debate from the wrong end of the barrel

Obama once again has started to debate about solutions that do not address the correct problems.

Currently we are entering a season of heavy debate over gun-control. The Democrats had given up on this area of debate over the past 10 years. Their lust for the renewed debate is palpable.

Whether due to lack of information or a desire to make a showy argument, Democrats once again focus on the wrong end of the debate. They wish to restrict "assault rifles."Many writers of done a better job of describing the problem with definitions. A recent New York Times article describes the problem of definitions, too.

The Democrats have desired to get rid of guns that look mean. They look at the stock. They look at the barrel. They look at the grips. They look at the magazines. What do they not look at?

I am not a marksman. I am not a specialist on guns. I do believe that I know a bit more about guns than the average Democrat.

What I'm looking at a gun, the first question that comes to my mind is "What do I want to do with it?" Do I want to shoot squirrels? I want to shoot deer? Do I want to shoot quail? Do I want to shoot a home intruder? Do I want to shoot an intruder on my farmland? Do I want to shoot a mugger? Do I want my wife to be able to protect herself from a rapist?

Each one of these seems to describe a different gun or configuration for lawful use of a firearm. Some require shotguns. Some require large bullets out of powerful guns. Some require short barrels. Some require long barrels with telescopic sights. Some require easy concealment. Some require being able to be placed in a woman's hand bag.

And then the question becomes, "What defenses do I have available?" Am I able to hide behind a wall? Do I have time to react and target carefully? Do I need to stop the movement of a person? Do I need to put a hole through a person? How long do I need to wait for additional assistance from police? How long do I need to wait for assistance from family members or neighbors?

I would be a fool to take a heavy gun used for deer to shoot squirrels. There would be no squirrel left. I would be an equal fool to shoot at deer using a squirrel gun. I would merely annoy the deer.

If I am in fear of my life, do I want to put one bullet into an intruder or attacker? Do I want to put on entire clip into the attacker? Do I trust that my aim would be true on the first shot? If I am running away from the attacker, as many states would require, would I be able to hit my target?Is the attacker shooting back?

How does a military grip answer these questions? How does a folding stock answer any of these questions? How does a small clip solve these problems? How long am I willing to wait for police to arrive to discover my dead body? As one joke says, "When seconds count, the police are minutes away."

Selecting the right gun for the correct problem is an important step.

Equally to avoid problems using guns, proper identification of the guns that are the problem is important.

The biggest problem with guns in crimes is that a human being picks it up. Until the gun is put into action by a human being or set up in a trap by a human being, the gun is merely an inanimate object. The fastest way, then, to identify the gun that is likely to be a problem, is to identify the person holding the gun that is a problem.

Since only the law-abiding will dispose of guns as gun-control is imposed, we leave the criminals armed and the citizenry unarmed.

The proper solution is to find ways to have citizens be better armed and better trained than criminals. The proper solution is to have more well-trained citizens carrying weapons. The proper solution is well-trained citizens able to use long guns to protect their homes and families at a safe distance from criminals. Short guns are for short distances. Long guns are for long distances.

The best criminals are dead criminals outside of a home. How many bullets does it take to achieve this goal?