These low-probability events could have major global implications
A “black swan” is a very unlikely but highly consequential surprise event. By their very nature, black swans can’t be predicted in advance, though they tend to be rationalised later with the gift of hindsight. “Grey swans”, however, are different: though they probably won’t happen, they could plausibly — and foreseeably — change the course of events.
My second favorite Jimmy Buffett song is his tribute to Tierra Del Feugo: Party at the End of the World. The verse relevant to this post is
In case you hadn’t heard, things are getting quite absurd
No one really shocks us that’s for sure
Roadside bombers and tsunamis. Oh God, how I miss those Commies
No one seems to play fair anymore
h/t DS
Historians of the future, flash-frying peccary testicles and mesquite pods over their campfires, will wonder at how the archetypal Shining City on a Hill of America’s storied yesteryear got transformed into the roach motel that our country has become on the threshold of 2024 CE. Will they be as stupidly bewildered as, in our time, the faculty at Harvard, the editors of The New York Times, or the directorate of the CDC? Or will they figure out the score by then?
Which is: the nauseating state-of-the-nation is being driven by a cohort of our own fellow citizens lost in an evil crypto-religious salvation rapture that veils their own self-disgust, moral failure, peevish discontents, petty hatreds, willful profanations, compulsive lying, sexual depravity, fraudulence, venality, cupidity, and all-around want of boundaries. They are wrecking the country on-purpose, led by their chosen figurehead avatar, “Joe Biden,” and the horses of many different colors he rode in on.
If there is a pendulum that regulates world affairs, it is important to know which way it may be swinging in the year that is about to start.
Seen from one angle, the pendulum looks like swinging towards uncertainty. In 2024, many countries with major roles in international affairs are facing dicey elections.
The United States looks set for what could be the most difficult election season in its history. Will President Joe Biden, with his physical and mental fitness questioned by some, be able to run the final mile to his party’s nomination? Or will his Democrat Party be forced to rally around Kamala Harris at the last moment and out of desperation?
As we survey the American landscape, we cannot help but notice that just about everything has been corrupted by the left.
The justice system has been corrupted by partisan politics to the point where Republicans and conservatives are persecuted and prosecuted at a level far higher than anyone else. We on the right can reliably depend on being prosecuted for “misgendering,” contributing to conservative causes, being a Christian or a Jew, speaking out against the barbaric transing of children, defending ourselves with a firearm, and not being a Democrat. We can depend upon getting arrested for protesting peacefully as the corrupt “Justice” Department singles us out for jail, bankruptcy, or keeping us off election ballots, while really destructive rioters go free.
Not since Gavrilo Princips assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 has the politically-motivated action of a single individual threatened to plunge an entire nation into strife and crisis like the decision by Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, to keep Donald Trump off of the state’s primary ballot.
Does that sound like hyperbole? Allow me to explain.
The past 12 months have seen a number of setbacks for the US, Europe and other major democracies on the international politics stage. None has been disastrous, for now. But they point to a shifting balance of power away from the US-dominated, Western values that have held sway for years.
On many fronts, the wind is blowing in the wrong direction for Western interests. Here’s why, and what benefits could still emerge from changes under way …
The traditional way to see a war is to fight in one. This can be a problem if your country is not actually at war
In 2004, the BBC sent me to the Iraqi city of Karbala to report on the gathering of Shia pilgrims for the religious holiday of Ashura. American troops knew to stay well away. They were already fighting a Sunni insurgency and didn’t want trouble with Iraq’s Shiites as well. The insurgency’s leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the butcher of Iraq — had just threatened to attack “the sects of apostasy,” as he called the Shia, and as we entered Karbala, militiamen searched us for weapons. The air hummed with tension. But at breakfast in the hotel, we ran into a gaggle of backpackers: Brits and Americans. Seeing the look on my face, a blonde woman in the group told me not to worry. “Things are much calmer now in Iraq, aren’t they?”
Signal 2024 as another year of living dangerously.
Last January, the People’s Republic of China sent a massive spy balloon over the United States, including strategic military bases. When the intrusion could not be hidden from Congress and the public, Biden officials claimed they couldn’t shoot down the balloon for fear of damage on the ground. They did not explain why they failed to shoot it down when it passed over water between Alaska and the lower 48. By now the reason should be apparent.
… but There’s a First Step to Fixing It
So 2023 is about to enter the pages of history, or its dustbin. And what can one say about such a year? Momentous as it was to some, as a quick scan of the birth notices or obituaries will confirm, it feels like one of those years of ominous quiet before the storm.
How can you say that, you may ask, when the Middle East exploded in early October? And my answer is that all years see some dramatic events. But while some are clear turning points, like 1942 or 1968, and others seem to be unimportant, like 1926 or 1955, still others give the troubling sense that serious problems are building toward a crisis that is yet to arrive.
Trying to grab a piece of someone else’s land has always been a favorite trick by rulers in domestic difficulty to divert attention from their own incompetence or worse.
It is, therefore, no surprise that as international order begins to break down for lack of an authority to enforce it and with the United Nations an empty shell, old irredentist dreams return to haunt more and more nations.
This back-to-the-future through the past episode started with the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008. Moscow’s argument was that South Ossetia, a Muslim-majority enclave in Georgia was, in fact, a part of Ossetia, which had been annexed by Russia in the 18th century. It mattered little that Russian Ossetia had converted to Orthodox Christianity.
However bad Robert Putnam thought it was, it has become considerably worse
In the Phetasy.com book club, we recently read the famous social science tome, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam. In it he examines the decline of social capital across various facets of American life. Based on his 1995 essay of the same title, the book was groundbreaking when it appeared in 2000. Putnam had noticed a trend: Americans were spending more and more time alone. His book analyzed the data and contemplated what it meant for our democracy and humanity.
The most serious political question is whether we want our nation to survive
A third world war is not possible in our time. Or at least, it is not possible in the way that any mainstream scholar or pundit thinks about such a thing.
There are many grave evils that threaten the international order and, by extension, the United States. Some of these dangers are quite likely in fact. A global conventional war between the great states like China, Russia, and the United States on the scale of the two previous world wars is not one of them.
Senator JD Vance on December 11 suggested that Ukraine surrender land in order to obtain a peace settlement with Russia.
“It ends the way nearly every single war has ever ended: when people negotiate and each side gives up something that it doesn’t want to give up,” the Ohio Republican said to reporters. “No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries.”
When someone dies at the age of 100 it is rarely deemed to be premature. In the case of Henry Kissinger, he maintained his unique aptitudes right to the end of his life and his insights on foreign and strategic policy matters were so perceptive and original and his gifts for repartee and aphorisms were undiminished; his demise would have been untimely even if he had lived for another 25 years. He was both one of history’s great foreign ministers and one of the world’s outstanding academic historians of international relations and great power strategy.
Thought it best to add an opposing viewpoint…
The two faces of Henry Kissinger – This nice Jewish boy was a natural liar
In the coming days, many will lavish praise and blame on Henry Kissinger for what he did and did not do. A prime example is the coup in Chile that removed Salvador Allende in 1973, which Kissinger welcomed but did not cause. With thousands of US academics teaching the falsehood of his guilt as truth, Kissinger just had to live with the calumny.
