America is an Island (I)

Goodbye New York

Your Home is Your Castle?

In my last article, I talked about “Fortress Mentality”.

The Japanese had their castles, as did the Europeans. But castles are an aspect of a feudal worldview, as much symbolic as anything else, statements reflecting a hierarchy of being in which the few dominate the many.

Castles do not win battles.

When you lose on the battlefield, your castle falls next. Still, we want to believe in their inviolability as shelter.

Your home is your castle and you keep a gun next to the bed until a no-knock raid and you and your dog die.

Wars are won by strategy, and especially by technologies. Success depends on many things including surprise and luck. A lot also depends on the support of a social base of people not only committed to your cause but with skills that you can use in killing your enemies and destroying their military capability. You need people — dedicated people. And, of course, equipment to do the job.

So it was that ragtag insurgents in Afghanistan and Vietnam, defeated the US Army. Those insurgents had a cause.The American soldiers didn’t. The guerrillas had weapons, maybe inferior, but good enough close up. The American soldiers had the equipment to kill from a distance. But they didn’t want to see the blood. For them, war was virtual rather than real.

Castles are inherently defensive. Ramparts don’t kill anyone unless you get thrown off. And nobody swims in a moat with the crocodiles. Inside, the Lord of the Manor frolics with the serving girls.

US bases are like castles. Razor wire and hardened concrete to keep people out. Inside all the comforts of home and air conditioning so the military don’t have to think about fighting. Whores await just outside the gates.

Every culture has its castles, which look different but their purpose reflects common strategy.

What Wins Wars?

So what wins wars? You might assume technology is the main thing. But, as I pointed out, that has not won any war for the US since Hiroshima but by the time of the atomic bomb, Japan had already given up.

One might say that wars are not “won”; rather than lost.

Of course, technology matters. But culture is often the basis for technology.

The British won more often than not against the French in the 100 Years War because of the long bow, which was an aspect of multi ethnic English and Welsh culture, with yeoman trained from childhood. Edward III said that if you wanted to train a yeoman, you had to start with his grandfather.

The longbow could kill at 200 yards, and deliver its steel-tipped arrows 12 per minute, which made it superior to the muskets used until the 1850s. Archery fell out of favor in the 1400s as people flocked from the countryside to the city. And also because it took at least 14 years to train a yeoman — who was difficult to replace if killed. On the other hand, any farm boy could learn to use a musket or crossbow.

The US invested billions in advanced technology — “added value” weaponry, with bells and whistles — that cost a lot and are often not up to conditions in the field. That emphasis derives from a consumerist culture, in which the state serves corporations rather than the other way around. “Too expensive to use: too expensive too lose.” But buy that shit anyway.

The AK47 wasn’t as good as the M14 — technically. But it was cheaper, more rugged and didn’t jam when it was needed. It was an insurgent’s longbow; the M14, a cross bow. If the M14 was difficult to use in mud; the crossbow was a problem in the rain.

The US, as I have written, has a fortress mentality, which encourages this attitude towards weaponry, which is all important when you are holed up behind a wall.

Insularity

Insular: that is obviously the US of A.

It is cultural and historical genetics, an Anglo Saxon thing.

The aim of the colonial project was to steal the lands of North America’s indigenous inhabitants, who naturally fought back, but were divided into separate tribes and bands, gradually decimated by European diseases, while the Europeans were constantly reinforced by immigrants from Europe and had a high birthrate based on the subjugation of women.

Villages and towns had their walls. They were both fortresses and home. The colonists expanded, one stockade at a time.

Eventually, The US found itself ruling one large island, dominating a continent mostly surrounded by water.

Canada and Mexico were just cold and hot vassal states that the US didn’t want.

The English who shaped American culture were also an island culture— and the exceptionalism that goes with that kind of insularity was passed on to American culture — reinforced by geographic isolation of the American continental island and the absence of existential threat — except perhaps from within — from people capable of critical thought.

The Global Trail of Tears: From Fort Payne to A World of Pain

Fort Payne was almost 800 miles on the infamous Trail of Tears; it was just one of many American military bases used to subjugate the indigenous people of the US, which mixed ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Now the nation has 800 bases worldwide, from which it can launch attacks with ever more sophisticated weapons. Super-Tech stockades. The purpose of each these bases is the same as Fort Payne’s: domination.

Back home the mantra is: “Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”. Yet, there is no real threat here! Yes, Saudi insurgents took down two large buildings in New York, with 3000 or so casualties — slightly less than deaths on a holiday weekend and probably less than the number of innocent people the police gun down annually for being black in a public (or private) place.

What are Americans actually afraid of?

Nothing really. Fear is an excuse.

In the 19th Century, the US wanted Indian resources — namely, fertile land.

Today, the US also wants control of resources.

But it doesn’t want the land. Rather it’s what’s under the land — like oils that counts. Who cares that the land doesn’t belong to you either in the US or abroad : big corporations can do what they want .

For the US, the end, which is Greed, always justifies the means. It carries out small genocides not for the sake of eugenics, as Hitler did, but for economic domination — money!

American “enemies’ usually aren’t enemies at all. The North Koreans weren’t. The Vietnamese weren’t. The Iraqis weren’t. The Libyans and Syrians weren’t. Nor the Taliban. Nor Russia nor China.

The US wants excuses to control any and all global resources and a free reign for American businesses in the vassal states that host its bases to enable such imperial robbery.

The bases are useful. Fallujah should have been a lesson for all the countries that have American bases. The purpose of a base is the subjugation of a local population, not defense against any external “enemy”. The US is a bully and it only fights those who think are weak and can’t really fight back. So be careful. The US has no “allies” only sepoys.

When was the last time, the US fought a battle against a peer-level adversary?

Storming the Castle

Fortresses clearly have strengths. But also weaknesses, especially if they dominate strategy, limiting adaptability.

In 1940, the French and the British actually outnumbered the Germans. They had effective air forces and good tanks. But the French focused on the Maginot Line. The British recalled WWI: they are always fighting the last war.

If the Allies had attacked Germany in 1939, the outcome could have been different. But they were confident the Maginot Line would protect them, thinking of the static warfare that had distinguished the 1914~1918 war.

The Germans finished off Poland, regrouped and resupplied.

Then attacked through the Ardennes. Their tanks weren’t all that good, but serviceable and the army had speed, good air support, and a command structure that supported flexibility on the battlefield.

The Germans had strategy.

The Allies had only illusions.

The Delusionary Mind of a Bully

The US’s 800 bases are both illusionary and delusionary.

They are well fortified and defended but, as indicated, the American military has not faced a peer level adversary since WWII.

US generals, as a group not known for intelligence or imagination, are promoted to their level of incompetence, never having won anything in war: they’re overconfident: assuming that their bases are impregnable.

Could it be the McDonald's on the base? Maybe the enemy don’t want like Big Macs. Or the Starbucks whose barristas would do a better job than the Generals, but whose sandwiches suck.

The French Maginot Line, at least, had wine and cheese.

NATO bases are are not really designed to defend against Russian attack since the Pentagon was sure that the Russians would not attack first. The nominal purpose of these bases is to pose a threat

Since neither the Soviets nor the Russians were — or ever — have been interested in conquering Europe; theirs is a defensive posture in response to such threats..

Moving weaponry like F35s, and Abrams tanks up to the Russian border is a bully tactic. Especially insofar as this over-hyped hardware is all show and no tell in a peer to peer conflict.

What do you do with an overconfident, exploitative bully? You know the kind who keeps on pushing you, accusing you of things you haven’t done and calling you names.?

You do what Putin did — kick him low and watch his gang back off, screaming and yelling for help. Still calling you names of course.

There ARE exceptions . A big kid who has won a lot of fights against opponents of his own size or even bigger is dangerous.

NATO/ American strategy, however, relies on the illusion of strength — ==technological superiority in the same way that most schoolyard bullies rely on being bigger and more aggressive and backed up by a pack.

When push comes to shove, things change.

The Russians are not intimidated by American bluster: not only have they successfully fought two real wars in Chechnya and Syria lately, they have hypersonic weapons, which, if used in all-out war, would reduce all those fancy, expensive American bases to smoldering rubble, along with everyone there, with or without nuclear warheads. Big Macs don’t taste good when burned.

Say good bye to a few billion dollars of F35s, F22s, Patriot Missiles and Abram tanks — and maybe the families on the base.

Static bases close to Russia are just convenient targets, just as are carrier groups in the South China Sea , and Japan’s 23 American bases are.

Carrier groups can maneuver but not fast enough. It takes as much as 3 minutes for a carrier to do a 180 degree turn but anti-carrier hypersonic missiles cannot be avoided through change of course on account of their speed and maneuverability.

So, if the US and NATO are big bullies, they have eaten not only too many Big Macs but a lot of their own bullshit. Not having been drunk too much of never been in a real fight they are not going to survive up close and nasty.

The American Bully State chooses “enemies” that don’t want to fight them. As I said, the purpose of US bases is mostly to control the countries in which they are based, not to wage war against a peer level adversary, especially one with nuclear weapons. Japan is a good example. It does exactly what the American tell to it, while pretending to have a say in the matter.

The Chinese don’t want to invade Japan. Nor do the North Koreans or the Russians. These countries don’t want domination; instead, they want cooperation and growth. Like the Indian tribes, they just want to do what they do and if possible do it better.

Japan is a mercantile nation without natural enemies but with a dysfunctional and corrupt political system. It doesn’t want war — but its elites want American dollars. So it pretends to be ready to support the Americans, just to

keep the money flowing.

Simply put, US bases are just the posturing of the global Fat Kid who wants to steal the world’s lunch money and fart in your face. The elites of the countries that host Fat Sam, are like the bully’s toadies. In the end, they are all cowards.

With the Ukraine War, the lunch money in question, belongs mostly to Europe, not its corrupt establishments — but the people of Europe.