ON MODERN NATIONALISM AND WAR

I spent a few months working closely with one of our allies that sort of started to stand in our corner back when the Iran-Iraq Tanker War surged and the neocons in America and the West united to agree that something must be done to guarantee Europe's oil supply. So, that was a good few years earlier than my last visit there after Desert Storm. In the period of time leading up to the invasion of Kuwait their Emir had spent some money to buy something that looked like a modern day military. It was a hopeless gesture then but almost nobody recognized it as such. I mean ask yourself, how is a tiny nation of absolute hedonists and load-shedders ever going to stand up to a force that was going toe to toe with Persia in the Al Faw Peninsula? Yeah, it wasn't. 

The part that I found amusing and troubling was the after hours conversations in their offices with the middle grade officers of the Kuwait Navy who had all gone in the bag when the Iraqis stormed into Kuwait and captured it overnight. They told me about freezing in the far north in the POW enclosures and of their wives visiting them there as the US got ready to take back Kuwait and kick a little ass and each and every one of them talked about the first night of the invasion as they collectively stood gathered and ready to do something, anything, as the Iraqi forces rolled over Failaka and Bubyon and into Kuwait City and that the orders never came. 

There was never a single peep from the high command and every single one of the officers I talked with assured me that the next time it happened they would give the order, Run Away!! I think this is the reality of war now in what passes for the civilized world. The powers that be have so gutted nationalism and manliness that nobody sees any point in sacrificing their lives for something as gutless and useless as the EU or France or England and certainly not Germany or the Nordic states. There is nothing there anymore that remotely resembles the Warrior Castes of the past. As far as one can tell from over here, every government since 1990 has done its best to stamp out every vestige of nationalism and militarism and crush the military under their pretty socialist loving shoes. But Europe is not alone. 

We have the same vibe going on here and even more so do they have that going on in the Far East. One would think that countries faced with an overwhelming threat would see some cause or justification for pulling together and coming up with some sort of collective defense mechanism like has happened all through history but I'm not seeing it anywhere along the Pacific Rim. 

The current existing flashpoints are just China vs Taiwan and the two Koreas. All the other nation/states along the rim seem to be interested in keeping the boats afloat as the tide comes in and ebbs away. None of them see anything to be gained from challenging the regional superpower about potential resources lying in and below the China Sea. There is no shortage of materials flowing from Africa and these countries now that they have shed their idiotic Social/Communist whining are in the business of making money. They still make it the old fashioned way by building goods other people want to buy, not by selling themselves expensive weapons they never plan or intend to use and which would just give some people bad ideas. 

There is a reason for all this I think and it has something to do with the near universal acceptance of a simple reality that everyone seems to have discovered at about the same time, 'it just doesn't matter.' In Asia everyone knows that China is like the weather. It is not something one can plan to defeat since elemental China will always be there and there in vast numbers. In Europe the Europeans have sold their souls to the EU Commission for Peace in their Minds and have a near fatalistic attitude towards everything. They don't anywhere have even a tiny spark of what made Europe the rulers of the world that spread enlightenment and technology to the rest of the world. 

 I know, you might be asking yourself, what about Africa, South America and the Middle East? The short answer about all of them is that outside of them nobody really gives a damn what they do or how they do it. They make nothing, they don't have nuclear weapons and they squabble over every single pointless and stupid thing. As a case to consider, serious minded people thought they could double their national income by widening the Panama Canal. They never appear to have asked themselves if the original builders had considered first and foremost, how much water did the interior generate from rain that it could then be used as a continuously renewing source of water to float the ships up and down the waterway through the higher elevations. 

That is the simplest and most basic calculation about any talk about expansion and it doesn't look like it ever even crossed their minds before they started building. I'm a little concerned that the neocons are trying to unlock the long range weapons they gave to Ukraine to attack Russia with so that Russia will retaliate in kind and use some of their unstoppable missiles to hit cities or other targets in England and France but I think the lassitude and moral indifference in Europe means that even if Russia did respond in kind NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN. Nothing can happen. Those countries don't have a war machine with which to make war or respond to attacks. There is no hope of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of eager young men to draw weapons and ammunition from the national armories and ammo bunkers and head out to smite bad guys. There are no weapons and their is no ammunition and it isn't that kind of war anymore and people know it now.

What is more, some of them know that all the boundaries in Europe are as fluid as water flowing in a stream and that introducing the idea that nationalism is evil has simply reduced any moral reasoning to wage war in defense of some people somewhere is gone. Flooding all those countries with millions of enemies from Islam and Africa has not simply weakened those countries, it has wrecked them.

 That's too bad really. On the gripping hand, I imagine the entire sweep of history is one of change and at the time very little of it looked like it was going to be good. Yet here we are! 

Panorama of the Great Camp 50th Reunion at Gettysburg. May embiggen.