THOUGHT LEADERSHIP INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - CounterStrikeMedia

AUTHORITARIANS ON THE RISE

11/10/2019

Larry Diamond has made it his life's work to secure democracy's future by understanding its past and by advising dissidents fighting autocracy around the world. Deeply attuned to the cycles of democratic expansion and decay that determine the fates of nations, he watched with mounting unease as illiberal rulers rose in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, and beyond, while China and Russia grew increasingly bold and bullying. Then, with Trump's election at home, the global retreat from freedom spread from democracy's margins to its heart.

Ill Winds' core argument is stark: the defense and advancement of democratic ideals rely on US global leadership. If we do not reclaim our traditional place as the keystone of democracy, today's authoritarian swell could become a tsunami, providing an opening for Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and their admirers to turn the 21st century into a dark time of despotism.

We are at a hinge in history, between a new era of tyranny and an age of democratic renewal. Free governments can defend their values; free citizens can exercise their rights. We can make the internet safe for liberal democracy, exploit the soft, kleptocratic underbelly of dictatorships, and revive America's degraded democracy. Ill Winds offers concrete, deeply informed suggestions to fight polarization, reduce the influence of money in politics, and make every vote count.

In 2019, freedom's last line of defense still remains "We the people."

A WINDOW IN MODERN IRAN

11/10/2019

THE JEW WHO IDENTIFIED HITLER'S TEETH AND STAYED QUIET ABOUT IT

11/1/2019

Hitler’s Teeth
Alexandra Popoff
The remarkable tale of Elena Rzhevskaya, the Jew who identified the fuehrer’s remains—and sat on the secret for decades
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FORBES

ASIA TIMES: CHINESE LEAD RESEARCH IN ANIMAL-HUMAN HYBRIDS

A LOOK AT THE AMERICAN FOUNDING & THE NOBEL

10/30/2019

ARTHUR MILIKH
1776, not 1619
America’s Founding was not defined by slavery and white supremacy—quite the contrary.

GUY SORMAN
The Grandest Trinket
Evaluating the Nobel Prize

EAT LIKE A BUSHMAN: TRAINING FOR SWAT, RANGER SCHOOL AND SEAL TRAINING

10/29/2019

Maxing the ACFT: How to fuel your body for the test
(Army Times) Out with the old, in with the new: Starting this month, the six-event Army Combat Fitness Test is beginning steps toward replacing the three-event Army Physical Fitness Test as the physical assessment of record.

1965: THE YEAR THAT BROKE AMERICAN INNOCENCE

10/28/2019

https://www.amazon.com/Eve-Destruction-1965-Transformed-America/dp/0465013589/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1572217214&sr=1-2

At the beginning of 1965, the U.S. seemed on the cusp of a golden age. Although Americans had been shocked by the assassination in 1963 of President Kennedy, they exuded a sense of optimism and consensus that showed no signs of abating. Indeed, political liberalism and interracial civil rights activism made it appear as if 1965 would find America more progressive and unified than it had ever been before. In January 1965, President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed that the country had “no irreconcilable conflicts.”

Johnson, who was an extraordinarily skillful manager of Congress, succeeded in securing an avalanche of Great Society legislation in 1965, including Medicare, immigration reform, and a powerful Voting Rights Act. But as esteemed historian James T. Patterson reveals in The Eve of Destruction, that sense of harmony dissipated over the course of the year. As Patterson shows, 1965 marked the birth of the tumultuous era we now know as “The Sixties,” when American society and culture underwent a major transformation. Turmoil erupted in the American South early in the year, when police attacked civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. Many black leaders, outraged, began to lose faith in nonviolent and interracial strategies of protest. Meanwhile, the U.S. rushed into a deadly war in Vietnam, inciting rebelliousness at home. On August 11, five days after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, racial violence exploded in the Watts area of Los Angeles. The six days of looting and arson that followed shocked many Americans and cooled their enthusiasm for the president's remaining initiatives. As the national mood darkened, the country became deeply divided. By the end of 1965, a conservative resurgence was beginning to redefine the political scene even as developments in popular music were enlivening the Left.

In The Eve of Destruction, Patterson traces the events of this transformative year, showing how they dramatically reshaped the nation and reset the course of American life.

THE IMPACT OF PHENOMENOLOGY ON CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

10/28/2019

Phenomenology’s Influence in the West
by Graham McAleer
Phenomenology has been just as important to Catholic theology as to philosophy. Read More »

WHY POLITICAL ISLAM IS DECLINING IN THE MIDDLE EAST & KISSINGER ON KISSINGER

10/18/2019

Political Islam Is Declining in the Middle East
By Prof. Hillel Frisch, October 18, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The lack of a reaction to the death of former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi and the absence of religious demands by protesters in Algeria, Sudan, and Iraq suggest that political Islam is waning after the defeat of ISIS three years ago.
Continue to full article ->

Kissinger on Kissinger
By Thomas Alan Schwartz, Strategy Bridge: "In dealing with one of the less successful aspects of his diplomacy, Kissinger defends his conduct of the negotiations that brought an end to the American role in the war in Vietnam. Had Congress not undermined the 1973 Paris peace agreement by cutting economic aid and forbidding any military reaction to North Vietnam’s continuing aggression, he insists, South Vietnam would have had a “genuine opportunity to survive.”"

women of the gulag: slaves of slaves & A HISTORY OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN CHARTS

10/15/2019

Looking back at the remarkable history of the Nobel Prize from 1901 to 2019 using maps, charts, and tables
Mark J. Perry | AEIdea

http://www.kinokultura.com/2019/65r-gulag-women.shtml?fbclid=IwAR1T-kP6BvueCPKSF_R2Rq_8R5anJ2ZzeneGnu7PkEyOnj_LYkEQy2FvDNk
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AMERICAN MILITARY GENERALS: COMMAND DURING WAR

10/4/2019

a_failure_in_generalship_-_usatoday.com.pdf
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SMALL WARS JOURNAL

The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today, by Thomas E. Ricks
news.usni.org . . . Fiasco [an earlier book by Thomas Ricks] contributed to a reassessment of military strategy in Iraq and focused attention on the failures of American military leadership in that war. One of the most pointed indictments came from inside the Army when my friend Lt. Col. Paul Yingling published an essay entitled “A Failure of Generalship.” Yingling noted the Army’s failures to prepare for the Iraq war and to adapt to its requirements during the course of the conflict; his most damning line noted that, “As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.”

In response to Yingling’s j’accuse and similar indictments, Tom Ricks has written a must-read book that explains why America’s generals now lose wars with impunity. In The Generals, he argues that the decline in the performance of the Army — from the triumph of World War II to stalemate in Korea through defeat in Vietnam to the fiasco of the early years of the Iraq war — can be attributed to failures in how the Army manages its senior officers. Gen. George C. Marshall, the architect of victory in America’s greatest war, relieved subordinates regularly and with gusto. Since that war, Ricks argues, the Army has abdicated its responsibility to police its own ranks, failing to hold senior officers accountable for their actions. Instead, it has fallen to presidents to relieve generals, as Harry Truman did to Douglas MacArthur for rank insubordination during the Korean War or Barack Obama did to Stanley McChrystal for indiscrete political comments.

In a cascading litany of failures, this book presents more villains than heroes. Other than Marshall, generals who receive high praise include Matthew Ridgway, who turned around a losing war in Korea, and David Petraeus, who performed a similar task in Iraq. Marine Maj. Gen. General O. P. Smith earns praise for his exceptional performance at the 1950 Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, where his inspired generalship saved a Marine division from a Chinese onslaught. Smith’s success is contrasted with US Army generals who left their units exposed and subject to devastating defeats.

Others are not so fortunate. Generals Maxwell Taylor and William Westmoreland earn scathing criticism for their performance in Vietnam. Gen. Tommy Franks is faulted for his leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan and for his post-Army conduct, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is described as “in over his head” for his leadership during the first, horrible year of the Iraq fiasco.

There is much truth in Ricks’s description of flawed Army generalship. Since Vietnam, the Pentagon and civilian administrations have too often failed to hold general officers accountable for their actions in war. The admiration that the American public rightly proclaims for the soldiers of today’s conflicts should not automatically extend to their superiors, despite the hard tasks they recently have been given. America’s major wars of the past four decades (other than the brief and almost completely conventional Operation Desert Storm) have been the sort of protracted counterinsurgency campaigns that have tested generals since the Roman Empire. While Rome’s legions could simply lay waste to rebellious provinces, modern morality has rendered that technique untenable.

Instead, success in modern counterinsurgency campaigns demands a precise calibration of military force along with an integrated campaign to improve governance, spur economic development, and create effective local security forces—formidable tasks for which military service is seldom good preparation. Only a few generals have shown the ability to successfully integrate these tasks; Creighton Abrams in Vietnam and David Petraeus are the best examples, although their talents were applied to the conflicts they led late in the day — after many damning mistakes had been made by their predecessors. Ultimately, the failures of American generalship in Iraq, as in Vietnam, resulted from failures of imagination and the ability to adapt to changed conditions in the Army over several generations.

Ricks notes that, “Of all the nation’s armed forces, the Army arguably is the dominant service, the one around which the national defense still is constructed.” This has been true for the past decade, which saw more soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan than Marines, sailors, and airmen put together. However, there is no guarantee that this state of affairs will continue, and it is therefore essential that this book be widely read outside the Army. The Navy and Marines have much to gain from a careful consideration of the lessons with which Ricks concludes the book. The rise of China and U.S. pivot to Asia, along with an American population weary of protracted ground wars in Asia, likely signal an increase in the prominence of the sea services during the next few decades—and it is worth noting that both the current and incoming commanders of the Afghan effort are Marines rather than Army generals. One hopes that the naval tradition of relief for ship captains who run aground (literally or figuratively) has properly shaped the men and women America will need on point in the Pacific for the next generation.

HOW GERMAN POW'S SAW THEMSELVES AFTER DEFEAT: NEW SECRET ARCHIVES

10/1/2019

https://www.amazon.com/Soldaten-Fighting-Killing-Dying/dp/B009GBXXU8/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

THE SPY LEFT BEHIND

10/1/2019

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CRITICISM: LIFE, ART, LOVE AND AESTHETICS

10/1/2019

With penetrating insight and warm humor, Scott shows that while individual critics - himself included - can make mistakes and find flaws where they shouldn't, criticism as a discipline is one of the noblest, most creative and urgent activities of modern existence. Using his own film criticism as a starting point - everything from his infamous dismissal of the international blockbuster The Avengers to his intense affection for Pixar's animated Ratatouille - Scott expands outward, easily guiding listeners through the complexities of Rilke and Shelley, the origins of Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, the power of Marina Abramovich and "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

Drawing on the long tradition of criticism from Aristotle to Susan Sontag, Scott shows that real criticism was and always will be the breath of fresh air that allows true creativity to thrive.

"The time for criticism is always now," Scott explains, "because the imperative to think clearly, to insist on the necessary balance of reason and passion, never goes away."

THE PERSIANS & OTTOMANS CONQUER ARCHEOLOGY

10/1/2019

The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory or Kurgan model) or steppe theory is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe, Eurasia and parts of Asia. It postulates that the people of a Kurgan culture in the Pontic steppe north of the Black Sea were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). The term is derived from the Russian kurgan (курга́н), meaning tumulus or burial mound.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis#/media/File:IE_expansion.png

Map of Indo-European expansion 4000–1000 BC, according to the Kurgan hypothesis. Even within the Kurgan hypothesis, there is considerable uncertainty, mainly depending on assumptions about the Tocharians, the Corded ware culture, and the Beaker culture. The central purple area is supposed to show early Yamna culture (4000–3500 BC); the dark red area could show expansion to about 2500 BC; and the lighter red area,expansion to about 1000 BC.

THE ESSENCE OF LENIN & ALLIANCES

10/1/2019

Alliances: Past, Present, And Future
by Williamson Murray via Military History in the News
In the 1930s, the British military pundit B. H. Liddell Hart argued vociferously that traditional British conduct of war in the seventeenth and eighteenth had represented a strategy of minimal commitment to the wars on the European Continent while focusing on a blue-water strategy to attack the enemy on the periphery. Thus, Britain’s effort in the First World War with its emphasis on the British Expeditionary Force in France had been a terrible mistake. He could not have been more mistaken.

The Essence Of Lenin
by David R. Henderson via EconLog
Lenin did more than anyone else to shape the last hundred years. He invented a form of government we have come to call totalitarian, which rejected in principle the idea of any private sphere outside of state control. To establish this power, he invented the one-party state, a term that would previously have seemed self-contradictory since a party was, by definition, a part. An admirer of the French Jacobins, Lenin believed that state power had to be based on sheer terror, and so he also created the terrorist state.

DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE & COUNTER-TERRORISM

9/13/2019

Development assistance and counterterrorism
Jessica Trisko Darden | American Enterprise Institute
US counterterrorism policy must draw on all available tools to succeed. A refined development approach to counterterrorism should more effectively target at-risk populations, address local governance concerns, and shape economic conditions in ways that support America’s counterterrorism goals.

THE 10TH AMENDMENT, TRUE FEDERALISM

9/13/2019

The 10th Amendment: A Clear, Firm Boundary Between Congress & the States
By Joerg Knipprath on Sep 12, 2019 10:00 pm
To introduce a Bill of Rights for the protection of states’ legislative powers was to protect expressly the rights of the people from intrusion by the general government into their liberty. Unfortunately, initial fears about the reach of federal power and the erosion of state sovereignty have come true. A recurrent theme during the ...
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4 CENTURIES OF JOYOUS REVOLT

9/12/2019

https://www.amazon.com/American-Fun-Centuries-Joyous-Revolt/dp/0307908178/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1567886578&sr=8-1

AL-MONITOR REVEALS STATS ON MIDEAST LOBBYING IN DC

9/12/2019

Al-Monitor launches Mideast lobbying rankings
Check out our new and improved lobbying series to find out how 22 Middle East countries and territories fared in their efforts to influence Washington this year. Register for free to access our award-winning series and receive our weekly newsletter of all the latest updates.

ISAIAH BERLIN ON LIBERTY

9/6/2019

Isaiah Berlin's Many-Sided Concept Of Liberty
by Peter Berkowitz via Real Clear Politics
Speaking in praise of freedom has fallen out of fashion in American politics. That throws public discourse out of step with the country’s constitutional system, which puts a premium on protecting individual liberty.

GEORGE KENNAN'S DIARIES

9/5/2019

George Kennan’s Diaries
By Chuck Chalberg on Sep 04, 2019 10:01 pm
George Kennan was—and remains—an important, even compelling, figure in the early history of the Cold War. But these selections from his voluminous and often overwrought diaries reveal him to have been something other than what this honest, if not always moderate, this calm, but not always cool, and detached professional diplomat took himself to ...
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What Has Athens To Do With You?

MAD CATASTROPHE: WWI BEGINS, THE END OF HABSBURG DYNASTY

9/1/2019

The Classicist: Versailles At 100
interview with Victor Davis Hanson via The Classicist
How the treaty that ended World War I shaped the modern world — and why it’s so often misunderstood.

https://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catastrophe-Outbreak-Collapse-Habsburg-dp-B00N53LUN0/dp/B00N53LUN0/ref=mt_audio_download?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

AUTHOR'S AMAZON PAGE

@GeoffWawro

HOW ARISTOTLE IS THE FOUNDATION FOR THE WEST

8/28/2019

Aristotle Versus the Aristotelians
by Glenn Ellmers
Ed Feser’s evident belief that Aristotle is all-but-interchangeable with his Catholic interpreters leads him astray. Read More »

STALIN'S ENGLISHMAN: THE CAMBRIDGE SPIES AND GUY BURGESS

8/22/2019

THE GEOPOLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

8/19/2019

IN DEFENSE OF US GENERALS
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WHEN GENERALS FAIL
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ARAB SPRING & POLITICAL REFORM
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Introduction to Eric Hoffer's Classic "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements".

ISLAM & DANTE
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FEMINISM: HOW WOMEN BETRAYED WOMEN

RESOLVING WORLD DISORDER

POLICY FRAMEWORK FOR MIDDLE EAST

HOW ISRAEL WINS

THE TREASON OF INTELLECTUALS: JULIEN BENDA

HAYEK & THE INTELLECTUALS

US STRATEGY FOR WINNING WORLD WAR IV

POLICY PAPERS FOR US GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

COMPOSITION FOR THE LONG WAR

PROSPECT MAGAZINE

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EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ACE VENTURA

PAUL RAHE: REALISM IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SPARTA

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POSITIVE LAW vs. CONSCIENCE