I wonder if people remember Pearl Harbor. I get the feeling not too many do. When Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese Empire on the 7th December 1941, what did America do? They got together and bombed back — not just Imperial Japan but Nazi Germany as well. America set their entire military-industrial complex to the task of joining — and winning — a war that, at the time, looked like one that they may have to fight alone if necessary.
What happened since?
Political correctness took over. Apparently, nowadays, things are solved by prayer and “diplomacy” even when the problem involves an enemy that upholds an irrevocably perverted sense of what it means to pray and be diplomatic. Americans are now a fat, smartphone-addicted bunch of motorheads who had surrendered their freedom to a dependence on Arab oil and cheap Chinese manufacturing. They had all but surrendered their sovereignty to Big Private Corporate and, in the process, paved the way for an irreversible haemorrhage of their most prized technologies and manufacturing prowess to the Enemy all in the name of the gods of the Corporate Bible — “productivity”, “market share”, and “shareholder value”.
| SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY! Subscribe to our Substack community GRP Insider to receive by email our in-depth free weekly newsletter. Opt into a paid subscription and you'll get premium insider briefs and insights from us. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter, GRP Insider! Learn more |
We like to celebrate how World War II turned out. We won. Why did we win? Because America and her allies won. They won it not by using “smart bombs” supposedly designed to “minimise civilian casualty” but by carpet bombing entire cities to send their strategic message across. There was a cost to winning that war that we seemingly are not willing to bear today. Nonetheless, history will bear witness to the fact that they won because they knew where to draw the line and say enough is enough.
The argument today is that the world is now a “different” place. It’s now “more complicated”. The enemy now is, I read, a stateless entity that lacks borders and territory to defend and that, unfortunately, the militaries of the West, we are told, remain designed and organised to fight old-fashioned gentlemen’s wars involving battles for territory and mutually-agreed “war rules”. There is also talk about the war being not one that is being waged by states but one being waged between different ways of life.
Is it just me, or do all of those come across as mere excuses?
If I recall my history right, World War II was also a war between ways of life. Nazi Germany and Japan wanted a world in which the concept of a superior race underpinned a people’s right to dominate the world. How is today’s Enemy’s claim to a right to rule the world different from that??
Indeed, perhaps the weakness, indecisiveness, and lack of resolve to take action we are seeing in the West nowadays coupled with the softened and gentrified way it now regards its enemies may be just another dab of grease added to that contributed by the aging and declining population that is hastening the once mighty European civilisation’s journey to the graveyard of has-been empires. The disturbing pattern is not lost in historian Alfred McCoy who is cited in the Huffington Post article Dead Empires: How China May Overtake the U.S.
McCoy describes the Chinese strategy to break through the encircling ring of American bases to reach — and control — its markets and resources directly. As U.S. officialdom has already noted with some alarm, China is aggressively seeking to assert dominion over the South China Sea between it and Japan and the Philippines. It has been dredging landfill to create airbases on the unoccupied Spratley Islands, and has demanded that U.S. and other aircraft overflying the area obtain Chinese permission. But that’s just the eastern end. McCoy presents maps showing China’s massive investments in infrastructure to link it westward overland to the rest of the great Eurasian heartland. While U.S. railroads and bridges crumble, the Chinese are building a dense internal network of sophisticated high-speed high-volume railroads, plus oil and gas pipelines. These will connect up with transcontinental railways and pipelines, crossing Kazakhstan, reaching Moscow, and from there to Hamburg, Germany on the Baltic Sea. Another corridor will connect through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea, and yet another across Myanmar to the Indian Ocean. Meanwhile, the Chinese are making huge collaborative investments with these neighbors and with willing partners in Africa and Latin America. McCoy sees the TPP as Obama’s last-ditch effort to contain China.
Just like the Islamic State (and other terrorist organisations) are coming back to bite the West using the very weapons gleefully sold to them by the West’s private enterprise, China itself is marshalling technology sold to it by the West to seize the world from it. Both civilisations also have disaporas that are well-entrenched in the very societies they are now competing with for world domination.
In simple terms it comes down to this straightforward reality:
Our enemies want to win. We and our allies, on the other hand, just want to get along with them.
To our enemies, winning means beating us. That’s a big disconnect in the assumptions about how the world works that we hold fast to. In that light, it is quite evident who between the two sides stands a greater risk of paying the higher price for failure.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Even though I understand very well what you are implying with your article benign0, I must point out that I don’t agree with your praise of America, especially in second world war. If the Allies would have lost against Germany they would have been the war criminals. Same goes for dropping the atomic bomb, twice, even though Japan was sending out feelers to Washington for surrender weeks before. Fact remains, America and it’s policies are responsible for this whole mess in the middle east. I do in no way condone ISIS or any other radical religious group out there, but America made it possible for them to exist. Throughout history America has proven that they are the biggest war mongers and mass murderers on the planet. So, fuck you very much America for your criminal foreign policies!
Yes I get it. That’s what war is about. The winner always slaughters the loser — even this be under the guise of “trying” the enemy for “war crimes”. Whatever way its done, the newly-institutionalised winner’s way of thinking will lend legitimacy to any manner with which the loser will be treated.
So, yeah, both sides committed war crimes. But only the loser gets tried for it.
We all know America originally funded Osama Bin Laden, and invaded Iraq even when it knew there were no WMDs. Its thirst for oil made the Arab world rich enough to become a pain in the ass. Its orgy of outsourcing turned China into what it is today — a global pariah with cash to fund that bad behaviour.
And that’s just the way the world works — which is why it comes down to having the one with the biggest number and biggest sized guns ultimately. The one who wins gets to make the rules.
True! Very true!
Quite a fact.
This why China is on the rise, and the US is on decline. China learned from history, the US is slowly forgetting it.
The US is losing its touch with regards to the ever-changing nature of warfare. China meanwhile, remained faithful to Sun Tzu’s philosophy, and thus, managed to climb her way to where she is today.
It’s the US forgetting it but this current US president Barack. He won’t fight terrorist activities , just so he can maintain his so called legacy of No Wars. Our military is held off by this man. I hope that all of you who thinks America sucks, that wherever country you live or a citizen of, will be tormented (if not take over) by these Super Powers that you think are better than America. And don’t be calling US for help.
BTW, China climb her way up by cheating and other inhumane ways. Right now, all these other non-democratic countries and leaders are going to bully or takeover little countries because Obama will let them. He will tell you folks that he will not tolerate those things but he ain’t going to do nothing. 🙂
China and other authoritarian powers can actually make and execute audacious long-term risky plans — because its government need not worry about being booted out by its own people in one of those democratic exercises over the short-term. And even if war (or strategic mistakes) impoverishes its general population, its centralised command economy allows it to continue to divert resources to keeping its military in fighting shape even whilst its people starve.
I read somewhere that all the wealth of the US and West is disproportionately useless for waging war because most of it is held privately — inaccessible to the government when push comes to shove. Ultimately the state wealth can only be wielded for state interests if it is in the hands of the government — an economic structure that China enjoys.
Your knowledge of WWII history is either lacking or tainted. As far as A-Bomb, the war would still have continued if not dropped and more dead bodies. The feelers did not happen and that is why there was a second one.
And why America is the bad guy here, did you skip the history page that talks about Pearl Harbor, and was done while the Japanese ambassador was in negotiation with the US.
Somehow before you curse at America, know learn the real history, including middle east. America always comes to the rescue of people (unarmed people) who are being bullied by dictators and ISIS and bloggers like you assface !
Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power.
The ISIS enemy is dispersed thruout the world. They are faceless Jihadists, living next door to you , as “peaceful citizens”. Until, the right time for them will come, to slaughter you and your family. Their war is borderless, and stateless. They exist and don’t exist.
The ISRAELI have fought these people, for almost half a century. The Israelis were very successful in defeating them. The Israeli strategy and tactic are the most effective way to defeat ISIS. Bombing them, will never wok.
China is trying to assert itself as a superpower. They grabbed the Spartly Islands, with Aquino, hiding in his hole. Maybe, Roxas will again tell people: “this is a misencounter”…
Aquino is just like Obama, bunch of Rhetoric.
reading comments like the above brings to mind Cato the Elder’s pithy line “Ceterum autem censeo Carthigninem esse delendam” or in its more widely known shorthand, “Carthago delendum est” (“Carthage must be destroyed”).
There were 3 Punic Wars ultimately resulting in the obliteration of Carthage and Numibia, its ally, the salting of its fields, and the selling of its population into slavery.
Reason for all that – Rome had the notion that the world wasn’t big enough for a healthy competitor like Carthage, so ‘getting along’ was not an option, but wiping it out totally was.
After which the good citizenry of a unipolar Rome could turn on each other.
#prayforparis. terrorism is bad. i hope for solidarity and world peace.
the enemies of america just want to be left alone. to develop their cultures as they see fit.they see americans as interlopers who tresspass on their land and dictate how they should live.
How did america become so hated by some people? some examples are the overthrowing of legitimately elected governments by the CIA.
america went into iraq because of oil. saddam was a product of america. they supported iraq against iran because iran was more radical and muslim and they couldn’t control it. tapos nung ayaw na sumunod sa kanila, sinakop na nila.
look at what’s happening in palestine. look at the support they’re giving the bully israel against the hapless palestinians.
Try to read the works of Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal to get a historical perspective of the current problems of america which are mostly self made. Napakalaki na ng america with a big land mass tapos di marami ang tao compared to the land area kung tutuusin di na nya kailangang pakialaman ang natural resources(oil) ng ibang bansa. maaksaya kasing gumamit ng resources at di marunong magtipid at napakalaki ng ginagastos sa defense budget kaya nagkukulang. try to watch “the united states of amnesia” for a critique on how america became what it is today.
” Napakalaki na ng america with a big land mass tapos di marami ang tao compared to the land area kung tutuusin di na nya kailangang pakialaman ang natural resources(oil) ng ibang bansa. maaksaya kasing gumamit ng resources at di marunong magtipid at napakalaki ng ginagastos sa defense budget kaya nagkukulang. try to watch “the united states of amnesia” for a critique on how america became what it is today.” – Reading this, I remember that China is also as big as America, maybe tad bigger than continental US, and they also want oil in the S. China Sea with their 9 dash line. Maybe their is a commonality with “bullies” after all? But Anti-Americanism is on the rise so maybe some people are riding the apple cart, and political correct people are even praising China as a way to counterbalance Western powers, like US. I think the world is getting into a very f**ked up place because of idiots who thanks to the concept of Bill of Rights, you have the right to become an asshole, a burden, and an ingrate because its a way cooler nowadays.