The policy of containment, with respect to the Soviet Union and the Cold War, evolved at the end of World War II and into the post-war period because the other options were not practical. Sending the US army to push the Russians out of eastern Europe would have been an impossible sell to the American public, assuming it was even possible. Dropping a nuke on Moscow would have been a public relations disaster.
On the other hand, simply letting the Russians dominate Europe was out of the question politically, even though many within the American ruling elite were communists. There had to be a way to keep most of Europe free that did not result in a war with Russia. Containment was the near perfect solution. It kept the Russians in check, created thousands of jobs for the Yankee elite and fed the military-industrial complex.
That’s not intended to imply that the people who crafted and developed the Western response to the Soviets thought all this through in advance. It just evolved into the best solution. At the onset it scratched the itch, the need to respond to Soviet aggression, but over time it proved to be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of various constituencies within the ruling class.
The funny thing about the Cold War is it preserved the American ruling consensus long after the facts on the ground justified it. The public was not going to support overturning the apple cart as long as the threat of nuclear annihilation was very real. That naturally made anyone advocating great change a threat and they were easily painted as a hothead or commie.
The result was a self-policing where the Left kept their commies in the lower ranks and the Right kept their hot heads out of sight. Within living memory, a ridiculous fop like Barak Obama would have been kept in the community organizing department where he could not cause trouble. Of course, fear of nuclear annihilation kept the public from questioning the arrangements, even if meant keeping the black man down.
Since the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago, the ruling elites have lost their footing, staggering around like drunks. In Europe, the main parties are imploding into a single party relying on skullduggery to overcome a lack of purpose. The recent French elections demonstrate their willingness to lock shields to preserve the status quo, even when they can’t come up with reason for maintaining it.
In America, the Democrats are a party for men in dresses and women in muumuus. The Republicans are the land of misfit toys, politicians just not weird enough for the other team. The ructions in the GOP primary reveal the party establishment to be hollow men with no reason to exist beyond habit. The Democrats look like God’s waiting room, an old pinko in a pantsuit versus an old an old pinko in pants.
For the past few decades, there’s been no real cost to excess, but that’s changing as the demographic explosion on the fringes of civilization threaten the West with an invasion of barbarians from over the horizon. Islam presents both a cultural and demographic challenge. Africa presents a demographic and biological challenge. So far, the ruling elites have failed to come to terms with this looming threat.
It strikes me that the rise of “far far far extreme right wing” parties in Europe and the rise of the “extreme right wing racist Donald Trump” in America may turn out to be a catalyst for how the ruling class responds to the next great challenge to civilization. While abandoning anti-racism, multiculturalism and egalitarianism is unthinkable, all three can be shoehorned into a new policy of containment.
Keeping the Mahommedan bottled up in his own lands, a new policy of containment, has obvious practical benefits to the West. Capping off Africa by making the Mediterranean a real barrier to entry (and maybe bribing the countries of the Maghreb), helps solve the African explosion as well. The Arabs would simply refocus their attention on making the Sahara a natural barrier again.
At the same time, containment means not mucking about in the affairs of the Mahommedan. In the Cold War, the West left the Eastern Bloc to the care of the Soviets. They had their sphere of influence and we had ours. The new containment would follow the same model. Let the Mahommedan manage his lands as he sees fit, but keep him bottled up in those lands, behind a technological, cultural and military curtain.
The benefit to the ruling class is it gives them a natural reason to exist. They are holding back the tides and sensible citizens will not want to risk that by supporting fringe candidates. It also brings back the natural self-policing that comes from permanent war. The Left will suppress their one-word fanatics, while the Right will keep their invade the world nutters under wraps.
Of course, the military and the diplomatic core will have plenty of reasons to get money and jobs for their people. Muffy Pemberton can pop out of Harvard and take a job in the diplomatic corps, while Dwayne Haskins can make a career out of standing guard at the borders. The Yankee ruling class gets the band back together, just focused on a different enemy. They can even, wink-wink, argue about which side has the best approach.
The sales pitch can center around the fact that it is more effective to send aid to these people than it is to resettle them in the West. There’s also the benefit of keeping their best and brightest in their home countries so they can help develop their societies. There’s the obvious safety angle, keeping the Mahommedan from exploding in your local coffee shop. It’s an easy sell with obvious benefits.
Containment. It’s not just for commies anymore.
Muffy Pemberton can pop out of Harvard and take a job in the diplomatic core, while Dwayne Haskins can make a career out of standing guard at the boarders.
Please tell me those spellings were intentional humor.
Good post.
PS It’s “diplomatic corps”, not “core.” Just sayin’.
Too late to bottle up the Islamic genie. They are here, in our lands, with more on the way. No, the containment ship has already sailed. Time for Plan B.
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The only containment that is going to happens is the same of the past with Russia still being the boogeyman, the worst nightmare of the American and West European elites aren’t massive 3rd world influx and shootouts in our cities but the rise of the White working class being lead by a Nationalistic leader, they’re still fighting against the eternal Hitler who is now Putin.
Where do the chi-coms fit in?
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Good post. Nothing that would give me pause. I would add, though, that the battle with Islam might have a silver lining.
Since the militaristic wing of Islam is an existential threat to both Russia and the U.S. there is an opportunity for a joint venture, so to speak. And this kind of a deal could work if Trump were to become president.
Both he and Putin share many characteristics, three of which are: they are both non ideological, they are both nationalistic, and they both believe in wealth creation as a means to power, both personally and nationalistically.
For nationalism to succeed it needs an enemy. While the U.S. and Russia would be competitors they needn’t be adversaries as long as they both focus on the threat of Islam.
Modern Russia, for all of its faults, is post- Soviet. If Trump succeeds in getting elected he will be, I believe, the first post-Soviet president. And he will do this by killing off the neo-cons.
I believe we are on the cusp of a new era and, while I admit there is no fool like an old fool, I am optimistic about the future.
The solution should have been seen after the first Arab oil embargo, and it has never been any different. Oil was $2 a barrel. It cost the Saudis six cents at the well head. Then it was twenty, and forty, and eighty. Incompetence and malice went exponential. It was always within our power to let the dogs of capitalism loose, but we went red instead, or as they like to call themselves, green.
Those policies you endorse must be used to boil down the mess, but without a more permanent capitalistic approach the Islamic weeds will spring back. The Saudis have left the well heads wide open to contain the Farsi it is true, but even more so to destroy energy exploration and innovation. This is the third time around by my reckoning.
Containment – the obvious solution. Couldn’t agree more. Time to fill the southern Mediterranean and the littoral skies of North Africa with a million drones. Big drones, tiny drones, all kinds. Shoot the boats, shoot the trucks, shoot anything that moves across the line. The only non-negotiable tactic is – first, we must annex the Saudi and the southern Iraqi oilfields. That will finance the operation, easily. All profits to be paid in equal shares to each taxpaying American citizen.
Any military involvement in the ME should end up with oilfields being taken away – the profits empower the worst people on earth, and they are obviously buying many of our politicians.
Use a portion of the profits to supply food. Demand things in return: guns, Christians, the heads of terrorist leaders, sterilizations for their young women. apply porkfat to the food – the less tolerant and flexible will be more likely to starve – while others notice what dumbclucks they are.
The ruling elites prefer some sort of “one world” and economic stasis with them at the top. They are smart enough to know that the shifting economics and politics of the nation states means that those at the top generally don’t last long up there. Instead, they seek a more feudal arrangement, thinking that the serfs can fight it out amongst each other, and leave them alone. I do not think they have thought this through very well, but this mindset is necessary for admission to the “club”, so they do not question it. With this in mind, I do not think they give a rat’s patootie about containment or establishment of some sort of standoff. Instead it will be the threat of war and terrorism to keep the serfs down, and sending the strongest and bravest to fight foreign wars, if that is what is necessary to emasculate the rest of the serf population.
Containment would make great sense to anyone wanting to preserve Western nations. I don’t think that the Socialists running Western Europe and the DNC share that goal. They seem to want hordes of third world Muslims (and Hispanics) flooding into their countries.
The Left thinks the human flood will give them big enough electoral majorities to permanently drive a stake into capitalism and all things “Western”. Only after the Nationalists are truly gone will they even acknowledge the problems they have imported.
re: “acknowledge the problems they have imported”
You jest. There is no problem. They are merely just importing more Democrats, their eternal clients for their Thousand Year Democrat Reich. They are creating a nirvana with Circa a billion <90 no <85 no <80 mean IQ Democrats being cared for by 110 mean IQ graduates of Harvard, Yale & Stanford "Social Studies" & "Law Schools."
Bet it never happens as eventually some smart whites spoil the party. There will be blood.
Dan Kurt
Containment requires buffer states if you can’t have people-proof borders — better however if you can have both with the buffer states firmly on the other side of the wire.
In Europe post-WW2 the allies were willing to let west Germany be the buffer state and the possible battleground. Tactical nuclear weapons were developed with the aim of using them in Germany to halt a possible Soviet advance.
Germany though is not a buffer state any more. It’s Merkel-inspired role is to help immigrants reach other European destinations.
The question now for Europe is who gets to be the required buffer state? Efforts by all sorts of western politicians, including your Barry, are demanding that Turkey is let into the EU, so the idea that the Turks can hold off the trouble on their borders begins to dissolve. The Med isn’t a buffer zone: One of the most inexplicable decisions was for Europe to send warships to the Med and then rescue immigrants so they can get to the lands of the fabled welfare benefits safer and faster. You might think that the best bet was to lift the hordes from the overcrowded boats and take them back to north Africa. Of course they could try again and again but the sensible result would always be the same: the Africans get to see the same Libyan beach over and over again.
Sadly, our idiots in charge never thought of that, so the Med isn’t any sort of barrier at all. We in the UK used to think the Channel was a barrier, but that was cleared for free entry years ago.
I suppose we will have to pay someone to be the buffer, and as such they get to hold the west to ransom. As these places are unstable, and run by deceitful tribes, you can bet we will go on paying more and more and more. A sort of new OPEC, if you like.