Generational Dynamics World View - Printable Version +- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum) +-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Theories Of History (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-7.html) +--- Thread: Generational Dynamics World View (/thread-51.html) Pages:
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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 11-15-2020 (11-15-2020, 07:47 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-13-2020, 08:33 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Tsk tsk. As usual, I'm the only person in this generational theory forum who actually considers generational theory to be valid. I recognize the significance of boundary conditions. It is a good way to avoid getting pulled into a trap. Obviously it is essential to consider what is not the result of the generational theory (technology? natural disasters? brilliant creative people? random luck?) from what is. Generational theory can't explain the Krakatoa eruption (although it seems to divide the Missionary and Lost generations). Coincidence? Maybe, and I am not going to go further with that argument. Time in which one is born is environment. Obviously one sees very different worlds if one is born in 1877, 1897, 1922, 1937, 1952, 1977, 1992, or perhaps 2012. Maybe we have better means of forcing people to see the salient events of the past, so just because one is born in 1955 doesn't mean that one can't see such shocking images as newsreel footage of Nazi murder camps as if they were a part of one's conscience even if those date from ten years earlier. Video is one way of preserving historical reality for its effect upon consciousness. It will be a long time -- maybe never -- before the Nazis get any redemption in history. On a less sordid theme, we have sound and video recordings of musical and theatrical performances, so we can all get to see Gene Kelly's climactic dance in An American in Paris and hear the very different performances of Bach's suites for solo cello by Mstislav Rostropovich and Pablo Casals. Those cellists may be silenced, but their performances live on. In opera, Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti live on. Institutional changes happen, and some of them stick. Some changes are at most ephemeral fads, like fins on cars in the late 1950's or 'mod' clothes in the 1960's. Some, like the near abandonment of smoking, seem likely to stick. Successful habits stick. I expect elderly people to remain physically and intellectually active as long as possible, which is good for extending a lifespan and a life with some quality in experience -- as long as they can get away with it. I see Boomers doing this for grand principle as opposed to GI rationality or a Silent zest for life... and figure that retirement age will soon overtake the first wave of Generation X. Staying active intellectually and physically may only be 'pragmatic' for X... people may find different reasons for doing the same thing. The recursion of history is the forgotten lessons therefrom. Consider as an example at the speculative bubbles of the 1920's and the Double-Zero decade. Speculative bubbles look like easy money and are more profitable than 1. starting new shoe-string businesses 2. long-term thrift 3. investment in plant and equipment 4. streamlining operations in business 5. technological innovation 6. development of human capital Easy money has always been one of the most obvious temptations. Some very easy ways of making money fast, like commercial fraud, stock scams, trading on insider information, drug trafficking, and outright robbery, do much fraud. The other ways have some lag between investment and pay-off, low returns to the investor, risk, or a requirement of skill and involvement. So let's look at how the generations saw the temptation of a speculative boom based on paper profits around 1915: GILDED: this will never turn out well. PROGRESSIVE: if it goes wrong, I won't be around. MISSIONARY: maybe it will work. LOST: deal me in! GI: (baby talk) Fast forward to 1925, on the brink of the disaster: GILDED: (dead people don't say much) PROGRESSIVE: if it goes wrong, I won't be around. MISSIONARY: maybe it will work. LOST: deal me in! GI: it's just too complicated for me to understand. SILENT: (baby talk) Fast forward to 1945 as Americans are at war with Hitler and Tojo: PROGRESSIVE: (dead people don't say much) MISSIONARY: we could have done better. LOST: I got burned and had to start over. GI: Had it not been for the Big Crash, I might not be in this damned war. That made Hitler possible. SILENT: I don't understand it. Boom: (baby talk) Let's really fast forward to 1990: LOST: (dead people don't say much) GI: don't do it! just don't do it! SILENT: we have better systems in place this time. BOOM: this is easier than saving for retirement. X: finally the secret of easy money! MILLENNIAL: (baby talk) ...and 2005 GI: (dead people don't say much) SILENT: nobody is going to stop it. BOOM: it might be shaky but I will know when to sell out X: finally the secret of easy money! MILLENNIAL: I don't understand it, but I could never invest. Too much student debt. HOMELAND: (baby talk) Do you see how it works? It is possible to learn from the worst. Indeed, the worst, like the Holodomor and the Holocaust, can remained ingrained for centuries. Consider that Grimm's fairy tales are found among all peoples who speak Indo-European (but not Finno-Ugric, Semitic, Turkic, Dravidian, Sinitic, or Austronesian languages. They might seem like obvious old wives' tales, but only in certain contexts. Those tales can be grisly, but they are obviously very old. Maybe people can learn some lessons: don't look for scapegoats when things go wrong. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-15-2020 *** 16-Nov-20 World View -- Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Ethiopia civil war escalates sharply as Tigray Region attacks Eritrea **** Map of Horn of Africa showing Tigray Region of Ethiopia (VOA) The ethnic civil war in Ethiopia escalated sharply on Saturday when the army of the Tigray ethnic group fired missiles at the airport in Asmara, the capital city of the Eritrea, bringing Eritrea into Ethiopia's civil war. The Tigray ethnic group occupies the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, with Eritrea on its northern border, and Sudan on its western border. Ethiopia's federal government, headed by prime minister Abiy Ahmediat of the Oromo ethnic tribe, is located in the capital city Addis Ababa in central Ethiopia. For the last few weeks, government forces have been attacking Tigray with missiles and militias. The militias are mostly ethnic Amharas. The Amhara region is directly south of the Tigray region. Over 20,000 refugees from Tigray have abandoned their homes and belongings and have fled into Sudan to refugee camps along the border to escape the violence. Sudanese officials have said that as the fighting escalates, they expect to see 200,000 refugees. At the same time, terrorist groups from ISIS and al-Shabaab have been entering Ethiopia from Somalia and, according to Ethiopian officials, plotted to attack various parts of the country, seizing the window of opportunity opened by the conflict in the Tigray region. Ethiopia is a hotbed of tensions between different ethnic groups. There are already growing clashes between other ethnic groups in other parts of Ethiopia, and there are fears that waves of refugees will cross into Kenya and Somalia, possibly destabilizing the entire region. The Tigray attack on the airport in Asmara, Eritrea, was something of a surprise, and puzzled analysts since it seems to have no purpose except to provoke a retaliatory attack by Eritrea on Tigray. However, Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), says that the airport was a "legitimate target," since it was being used by Ethiopian forces. "As long as troops are here fighting, we will take any legitimate military target and we will fire. We will fight them on all fronts with whatever means we have," he said Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmediat, launched military operations in Tigray two weeks ago after he accused local authorities of attacking a military camp in the region and attempting to loot military assets. The TPLF denies the charge and has accused the prime minister of concocting the story to justify deploying the offensive. On Sunday, the Abiy government rejected any calls for a ceasefire: <QUOTE>"With unwavering commitment we will see this project through to the end ... As a sovereign nation, Ethiopia reaffirms its capability and resolve to manage ... its own rule of law operation without any external intervention. ... The Federal Government of Ethiopia is asserting its constitutional mandate to uphold the rule of law according to the laws of the land."<END QUOTE> With Abiy unwilling to consider a ceasefire, with the Tigrays attacking Eritrea, and with tens of thousands of refugees pouring into neighboring countries, observers are concerned that this could escalate into a full-scale war in the Horn of Africa. **** **** The rise of prime minister Abiy Ahmediat **** Map of Ethiopia showing internal Regions (Bloomberg) Ethiopia's last generational crisis war (1975-1991) was a protracted war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against the vicious Marxist Derg military government in Addis Ababa, which climaxed in 1991 when they finally toppled the TPLF. The Tigrays are only 6% of Ethiopia's population but they dominated Ethiopia's government for decades, following the 1991 victory. The Oromo ethnic group, of which Abiy is a member, and the Amhara ethnic group are the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia. During the generational Awakening era, mass protests by these two groups targeted the Tigray coalition government, resulting in a "velvet coup" that brought Abiy to power as prime minister. At the same time Ethiopia and Eritria signed a peace deal ending a bitter border dispute between the two countries. Shortly after that, Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize, which is always laughable these days. The TPLF says that, since then, Abiy's government has systematically persecuted Tigrays since he took office. After Abiy became prime minister in April 2018, several high-ranking TPLF officials were prosecuted for human rights abuses and corruption. The TPLF responded by accusing Abiy of targeting them in a politically motivated campaign. When Abiy’s government delayed this year’s general elections until 2021, citing Covid-19, the TPLF accused the prime minister of using the pandemic to hold on to power beyond his mandate. The TPLF then unilaterally held regional elections in September. The federal government refused to accept the results, and this led to the federal government's military attack on Tigray. Abiy apparently expects a quick victory against the Tigrays, but analysts point out that the TPLF remains a fighting force of up to 250,000 battle-hardened troops. Furthermore large elements of the Northern Command leadership of the national Ethiopian army are Tigrays, meaning that Abiy cannot expect full loyalty from the army. **** **** Generational history of Ethiopia and Eritrea **** Horn of Africa These two countries have been linked since at least the second century AD. Ethiopia adopted Christianity in the 4th century, and was a tribal society ruled by emperors until the 1800s. However, a split between Ethiopia and Eritrea occurred in the 700s with the rise of Islam and the Arab trade along the Red Sea, and what is now Eritrea became part of the Islamic Empire, and later the Ottoman Empire. Italy colonized the region in the 1860s, in the so-called Scramble for Africa, so named because after it was discovered in the 1850s that malaria could be controlled with quinine, England, Belgium, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Germany all competed with each other to colonize different parts of Africa. In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, connecting the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea, and Italian shipping firms became active. Large stretches of Eritrea's coastline were acquired from the local sultans and transferred to Italian control. By the mid-1880s, the Italian army moved into Eritrea, displacing the Ottomans, and challenging the Ethiopian empire. In 1889, Menelik II rose to the position of Emperor of Ethiopia. The "Italian-Ethiopian War" (1889-1896) was a generational crisis war for Ethiopia. Menelik inflicted on Italy the most humiliating and bloody defeat ever experienced by a colonial power in Africa. In the outcome, Italy retained Eritrea as a Red Sea colony, populating it with thousands of Italian settlers, developing road and rail transport, but doing little to improve the lives of Eritreans. Ethiopia gained independence, and by 1914 and the beginning of WW I, all of black Africa except Ethiopia and Liberia were European colonies. By 1935, Eritrea was a colony of Italy, and Ethiopia had a new emperor, one who had taken the title Haile Selassie, meaning "Might of the Trinity," emphasizing the fact that Ethiopia was a largely Christian country. In October 1935, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered an invasion of Ethiopia, partly in revenge for Italy's humiliating defeat in 1896. Mussolini announced the establishment of a new Italian empire, including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, under the name Italian East Africa. Haile Selassie fled the country. When Mussolini brought Italy into World War II on Hitler's side, in June 1940, Haile Selassie won the cooperation of Britain in launching a counterattack against the Italian forces in Italian East Africa. By 1941, Haile Selassie was once again emperor of Ethiopia. After the war, the United Nations made Eritrea a part of Ethiopia, an autonomous federal province with its own constitution and elected government, something that the Muslims in Eritrea strongly opposed. From the above description, one can see that although World War II was a generational crisis war for Italy and Britain, with part of the war fought on Ethiopian soil, it was not a crisis war for Ethiopia itself. In fact, with the previous crisis war having climaxed in 1896, this was a generational Unraveling era for Ethiopia. In such an era (like America in the 1990s), there is little appetite for war among the general population, except perhaps for quick police actions. Although Ethiopia and Eritrea changed hands several times during the WW II time period, the fighting was mostly between foreign armies, and did not heavily involve the local population. In the mid-1950s, the region entered a generational Crisis era, and the fault line between Muslims and Christians began to inflame. In 1958, Eritrea's Muslim leaders formed the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), consisting mainly of students, intellectuals, and urban wage laborers. Low-level warfare continued throughout the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Eritrean independence movement took another turn with the formation of a powerful Marxist offshoot of the ELF, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF). Haile Selassie was toppled in 1974, after which factional warfare began to increase. This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress the EPLF guerrillas. The guerrilla war fought by Marxist rebels against the well-armed Ethiopian government climaxed in May 1991 with the collapse of Ethiopia's government, coincident with the collapse of the USSR. Eritrea finally declared independence. By that time, there were 500,000 refugees that had fled to refugee camps in Sudan, and they had to be resettled in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 1998, a new border war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia. This was a non-crisis war, with a quality very similar to World War I, where trenches were dug, mines were laid, and bodies of dead soldiers were strewn about. Of the 400,000 men who fought on both sides, 50,000 soldiers died. A peace deal in 2000 ended the two-year border war, but it was never fully implemented, and a new peace deal was signed in 2018. Sources:
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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ethiopia, Tigray Region, Eritrea, Asmara, Abiy Ahmediat, Oromia Region, Amhara Region, Tigray People’s Liberation Front, TPLF, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, al-Shabaab, Derg, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, Italy, Scramble for Africa, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Italian-Ethiopian War, Menelik II, Haile Selassie, Benito Mussolini, Italian East Africa, Eritrean Liberation Front, ELF, Eritrean People's Liberation Front, EPLF Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 11-15-2020 Except as a part of the Italian Empire between 1935 and 1941, Ethiopia has never been part of any other empire. Due to its isolation, Ethiopia has not gotten the respect for an early civilization complete with some sophisticated art. It was the first country to be liberated from the Axis powers (along with Somalia and Eritrea. Between the Italo-Ethiopian war and the famine that toppled Emperor Haile Selassie and established a Commie Regime is a long lifetime, at least by African standards. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-15-2020 ** 15-Nov-2020 World View: Ethiopia stone churches (11-15-2020, 10:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Except as a part of the Italian Empire between 1935 and 1941, In addition to all that, it also has those amazing rock-hewn stone churches: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/18/gallery/ RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-15-2020 ** 15-Nov-2020 World View: South Korea Burner Prime" Wrote:> If China invades Taiwan, very few Americans (but the usual John Wrote:> ** 14-Nov-2020 World View: China invades Taiwan Guest Wrote:> What do you think will happen to South Korea in this event? I wish I could answer this question for you, but there are too many possible scenarios. One scenario is an "accidental invasion." Some kind of unintended military clash occurs between Chinese and Taiwanese vessels, escalating into a war. This scenario is possible because the Chinese Communists are thirsting for war, are nationalistic to the point of insanity, and make one stupid mistake after another. Another scenario is the "lightning invasion." In this case, the Chinese launch a surprise attack and try to capture the island within a day, hoping that the US won't have time to respond. In this forum, Navigator has argued that China would never succeed at this, because the advance preparation would be detected. Nonetheless, the Chinese Communist hypernationalistic insanity makes it possible. A variation of this scenario would be a lightning invasion of Taiwan coordinated with a North Korean invasion of South Korea. The Chinese Communists, in their hypernationalistic insanity, might see the Korean situation as a distraction to the US to prevent a reaction to the Taiwan invasion. Other variations involve a massive missile attack on American cities and on American warships in the South China Sea. However, there is "good news" for South Korea. A variation involving a North Korean invasion of the South would be a distraction to the US, but it would also be a distraction for China, as the South would retaliate on Pyongyang, creating a refugee crisis into northeastern China. Therefore, the Chinese Communists may go ahead with an attack on Taiwan, but order its North Korean vassal not to attack the South. All of this is highly speculative. China has 21 border disputes with neighboring countries, which shows how insane the Chinese Communists are, and any one of those could start a war with a totally different scenario. This will be World War III, and the only real difference among these scenarios is the timeline -- the ordering and timing of events. In response to another comment, the country facing an existential threat will put aside political differences and everyone will unite behind the president. There's an issue with Joe Biden, who has been hiding out in his basement for a year, doesn't seem to know what's going on, and probably can't lead America through a major international crisis. Hopefully, Biden will appoint an army general who can take over as de facto president, and lead the country through the crisis. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 11-16-2020 (11-15-2020, 10:28 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: This might have led to a full-scale generational crisis war, but there was a major development: In 1977, the USSR allied with the Ethiopian government, took control of Eritrea's Red Sea ports, and provided Ethiopia's government with huge supplies of arms, enough to suppress the EPLF guerrillas. The Marxists were fighting the Soviets? Nice irony. This is an analysis of part of the world which deals mostly with tribal thinking, where nukes and proxy wars have not yet reshaped things. Still, you have groups like ISIS and the old Soviet Union which pull at the no proxy war environment. Asia? Things get more complicated. Ignoring the leader's and elites interests makes sticking with an age old perspective difficult. The bottom line is tribal thinking has people always hating their neighbors and initiating a crisis war whenever the last one has faded from living memory. This was pretty accurate in the old days, when tribal thinking was cost effective if you had the military advantage. Tribal thinking was cost effective then. After machine guns, nukes and proxy wars violence is not cost effective. It just guarantees poverty and strife with a potential for total destruction. It is not in the interests of the leaders and elites. Thus, constant predictions of violence when there is a dominance of tribal thinking, no crisis wars in areas where the WIERD have come to dominate. No apologies for hoping that tribal thinking will continue to fade. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-21-2020 *** 22-Nov-20 World View -- Afghan 'peace talks' threatened by terrorist rocket attack on Kabul This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Afghan 'peace talks' threatened by terrorist rocket attack on Kabul **** Taliban fighters relax after lunch (Washington Post) A terrorist barrage of dozens of rockets were fired into residential areas of the the heavily fortified Green Zone of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city, killing at least eight civilians and wounding dozens more on Saturday. The Taliban, which is engaged with the United States in so-called "peace talks" taking place in Doha, Qatar, has denied responsibility for the attack. On the other hand, ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks. ISIS is a terrorist group, imported from Syria, in competition with the Taliban to win the prize as the better terrorists. This occurs amid the backdrop of negotiations taking plac in Doha, Qatar, between representatives of Doha and the Taliban. For a long time, the Taliban refused to allow the Afghan government of president Ashraf Ghani to send representatives to the negotiations, but they've generously lifted that restriction in the last few months. However, as I understand it, the Taliban and Afghan government do not talk to each other, but only engage in "proximity talks." This hilarious phrase means that the two groups are in separate rooms, and a negotiator trots back and forth between the rooms to further the "talks." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Doha on Saturday, where he met separately with the Taliban and Afghan government negotiators. Presumably, Pompeo served as the proximity talk mediator on this occasion. According to reports, the talks have not even reached the stage for producing a timeline. The original claim was that the Taliban would end its terrorist violence, but, as I understand it, the current demand is that the Taliban "tone down" the violence. (Believe it or not, that's the phrase used by an analyst on tv.) So the peace talks are a huge joke, and have never been anything but a huge joke. But the do have one purpose: The provide political cover for the Trump administration to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, which was a campaign promise made by Donald Trump. Trump had claimed that he would get all American troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2020. He didn't accomplish that, but he did go ahead with announcement that shocked a lot of people. First, on November 9, he fired his Defense Secretary Mike Esper, apparently because Esper opposed removing any troops from Afghanistan. Trump replaced Esper with an acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who announced on November 17 that 2,000 troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by mid-January. That would reduce the troop level from 4,500 to 2,500. No one seriously believes that the Taliban will adhere to commitments made in a peace deal once the American troops are all withdrawn. The Taliban want Afghanistan to be governed by the Taliban, as it was prior to 9/11/2001, after which US forces declared war on Afghanistan, a war that's still going on. The Taliban want the war to end and want American troops gone, so that they can go back to hardline jihadist policies, such as closing girls' schools, as well as beating, raping and torturing the Hazaras and other ethnic enemies. So why did ISIS launch Saturday's terrorist attack? Since ISIS and the Taliban are enemies, they presumably wish to sabotage the peace talks, so that the Taliban can't over the whole country. We'll probably know within a few months. We may also know within a few months whether the American withdrawal will destabilize the relationships among other countries in the region -- China, Pakistan and India. These countries all have an interest in Afghanistan and have benefited from the American presence, and may now feel it necessary to fill the vacuum created if the Americans leave. **** **** Why the Afghan peace agreement must fail **** In 2007, president George Bush launched a "surge" policy in the Iraq war which, much to the surprise of many people, actually worked and won the Iraq war. So in 2009, president Barack Obama decided that what worked in Iraq would also work in Afghanistan. As I wrote at the the time, and have written many times since then, Iraq and Afghanistan are completely different situations, and a "surge" that worked in Iraq would not work in Afghanistan. This prediction has, of course, turned out to be completely correct. A summary of the reasoning is as follows: Afghanistan's last generational crisis war was an extremely bloody, horrific civil war, in 1991-96. The war was a civil war, fought between the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan versus the Northern Alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban are radicalized Pashtuns, and when they need to import foreign fighters, then can import their cousins from the Pashtun tribes in Pakistan. Indeed, it's much worse than that. The ethnic groups in Afghanistan are COMPLETELY NON-UNITED and loathe each other. Pashtuns still have scores to settle with the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks that formed the Northern Alliance, especially the Shias. These opposing groups have fresh memories of the atrocities, torture, rape, beatings, dismemberments, mutilations, and so forth that the other side performed on their friends, wives and other family members, and they have no desire to be friends or to work together. They'd rather kill each other. Obama's surge policy failed because it had to. Obama never had any clue what's going on in the world, so his multiple foreign policy failures aren't surprising. In addition, he appointed that idiot John Kerry as Secretary of State, who stumbled from one disaster to another making things worse. When Trump began running for president, it was clear that he also had no clue what was going on in the world. I once mocked him for knowing nothing about other countries except his golf courses. But then he did something that was completely unexpected and surprising: He hired Steve Bannon as his principal advisor. This is something I never dreamed would happen. I had worked off and on with Bannon over a period of years, and he's an expert on both military history and Generational Dynamics analysis. Even before taking office, Trump was educated for a year on foreign affairs by Bannon. Even after Bannon left the White House, there was still somebody left who knew what was going on in the world -- John Bolton. Bolton left the White House last year, and as far as I know, Trump no longer has anyone who can credibly inform him about what's going on in the world, beyond the catalog of facts you can find in the CIA World Factbook. By the way, Joe Biden has been hiding out in his basement for a year, and apparently knows less than nothing about anything. But he thinks that it might be a good idea to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, though he isn't sure. **** **** Conflicting American values in Vietnam **** Working on my forthcoming book on Vietnam has given me plenty of time to contemplate how American values contradict each other, and how well-meaning presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon tried to navigate through the conflicting values and were often forced to make bad decisions that led to bad outcomes. After World Wars I and II, a traumatized, exhausted America feared they would be fighting a third world war, this time against the Communists. This anxiety increased as Communism seemed to be on the march everywhere -- behind the Iron Curtain in eastern Europe, in China, in northern Korea, in northern Vietnam, and even in the United States in the form of a strong American Communist Party (CPUSA). It became the highest priority of American foreign policy to stop Communism before it led to World War III. But American values went far beyond that. America was committed to democracies, and South Vietnam was a young vibrant democracy which was being invaded by Communist North Vietnam. There was no way that the leaders who had survived World War II would have tolerated just standing by and letting the South Vietnamese democracy die at the hands of the Communists. But there was another American value that was equally strong. America had been a British colony and had won its independence from a colonial power. America valued its independence, and would not tolerate having another country, even a friendly country, interfere in its affairs. South Vietnam was a democracy that had just won its independence from a colonial power, France. America was interfering in South Vietnam's affairs to defend it from the Communists, and so was violating another American value -- not interfering in the affairs of another democracy. It was this contradiction in American values that led to contradictions in American policies that led to issues that could be exploited by the antiwar activists and American Communists, using the contradictions to sabotage the American war effort politically, leading to the final defeat, and the American betrayal of the people of South Vietnam. **** **** Conflicting American values in Afghanistan **** It's worthwhile exploring those conflicting American values in Vietnam, because exactly the same conflict exists today in Afghanistan. However, this time the enemy is a vicious Islamist terror regime, rather than communism. On the one hand, there is a strong American drive to preserve the democracy in Afghanistan, and protect it from the Islamist terror regime. On the other hand, there is a strong American drive to avoid interfering in the Afghan government. With the Americans negotiating in Doha with the Taliban, almost to the exclusion of the official Afghan government, there are major policy contradictions, as there have been for the last 19 years. These contradictions are now in full force, as Americans try to decide how aggressively to take control in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban, or to let the Kabul government make its own decisions. After almost 20 years in Afghanistan, Trump has decided that Americans can't stay there forever, and that it's time to withdraw completely, and let the Taliban take over if that's what's in the cards. There's another issue. Many American soldiers fought in Afghanistan, and many people lost fathers, brothers and sons there. The same is true of Nato countries. Was all that lost blood and treasure for nothing? Apparently so. **** **** When is a war winnable? **** As I work on my forthcoming book on Vietnam, I've also reached some conclusions about when a war is winnable or not winnable. These conclusions are based on examination of the following wars: Vietnam War, Iraq war, and Afghanistan war. What these three wars have in common is that they're all guerrilla insurgencies -- internal rebellions against the government. Why were we able to win the Iraq war, while losing the Vietnam and Afghanistan war. This analysis does not apply to wars fought by opposing armies. The insurgency in Vietnam could not be defeated because it was impossible to distinguish between the insurgents and ordinary civilians. The South Vietnamese government adopted a counter-insurgency strategy that had been successfully used a decade earlier by the UK in its Malay colony. In that case, the civilians were indigenous Malays, while the insurgents were ethnic Chinese. The British were able to segregate the Chinese from the Malay population for a simple reason: They looked different. They could easily be distinguished. The South Vietnamese government adapted this same strategy into something called "strategic hamlets," where North Vietnamese insurgents would be segregated from civilians. This worked for a while, but it had to fail because it was impossible to tell the difference between an ordinary civilian and a Communist insurgent. President George Bush's "surge" strategy won the Iraq war because the insurgents were quite distinguishable from Iraqi civilians. The insurgent group "al-Qaeda in Iraq" consisted almost entirely of fighters imported from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria. They were not Iraqis, and the Iraqis hated them. That's why the Iraq war was winnable. (See "Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq" from April, 2007.) The Afghan insurgency was hopeless from the beginning. Yes, we were able to quickly defeat the Afghan army after 9/11/2001, but after the situation turned into an insurgency it could not be won because ordinary civilians were ethnic Pashtuns, and so were the Taliban. The Afghan war turned into a guerrilla insurgency about 15 years ago, and since then it has been unwinnable. This is the justification for withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. Sooner or later, we'll have to lose. Unfortuately, that conflicts with important American values about protecting young democracies. This political battle will be fierce. Sources:
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KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kabul, Afghanistan, Taliban, Qatar, Mike Pompeo, Ashraf Ghani, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, George Bush, Iraq, surge, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, John Bolton, Joe Biden, Vietnam, France, Malay, South Vietnam Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 11-22-2020 What makes a war ‘winnable’. I might differ that we ‘won’ in Iraq. I sort of agree that bringing in outsiders hated by the local population is not the way to go. However, if you look at it from the leader / elite / racket perspective, did we win any war for oil? Is the huge embassy built by Bush 43 abandoned? The military bases he built? Did the Middle East become destabilized? Did the US become war adverse, reluctant to put boots on the ground, one of the traditional things that happens as a result of a crisis? If Iraq was a victory, it was a partial one. The local population who finds proxy support of a major power in an insurgent proxy battle has an advantage. They can keep the fight going, and generally has enough patience that the other side gives up. Major powers seldom engage in crisis wars. When they do, they can defeat regular armies often enough, but if their intent is not to support the local population the conflict soon goes insurgent. There, the major powers don’t do so well. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Warren Dew - 11-22-2020 (11-21-2020, 11:04 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: These conclusions are based on examination of the following wars: How would we test your theory against the "we do deserts, we don't do mountains (or jungles) theory? RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-23-2020 ** 23-Nov-2020 World View: Guerrilla insurgencies (11-21-2020, 11:04 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: > These conclusions are based on examination of the following wars: (11-22-2020, 09:37 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > How would we test your theory against the "we do deserts, we don't In my article, I mentioned that the South Vietnamese "strategic hamlet" program was based on a British program in Malaya a decade earlier. In the Malay counter-insurgency program, where the insurgents were ethnic Chinese, the "new villages" were built on the edges of the jungles, and the Chinese civilians were kept in the villages where the British could tightly control them, and separating them from the Chinese Communist insurgents. The insurgents, of course, melted into the jungles. But they were unable to steal food and resources from the Chinese in the villages, which made it easier for the British to defeat them. The British Malay counter-insurgency program was itself based on an earlier program during the Boer War. The following source compares the two: -- The Boer War and Malayan Emergency: Examples of British Counterinsurgency pre- and post-“Minimum Force” https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/boer-war-and-malayan-emergency-examples-british-counterinsurgency-pre-and-post-minimum (SmallWarsJournal, 20-Dec-2018) What's interesting about this comparison is that in the Boer War, the Boer population was treated very brutally, put into concentration and detention camps, with poor sanitation, overcrowding and lack of food, and were targeted with very punitive techniques for control by a colonial power. As the article describes in detail, during the time between the Boer War and the Malay emergency, British doctrine changed away from a harsh, colonial a "butcher and bolt" approach, evolving to a "minimum force" and "hearts and minds" doctrine. So in Malaya, the concentration camps were replaced by "new villages" which were much more benign. I would point out that the Malay approach could not have worked in the Boer War, and did work in Malaya because ethnic Chinese were easily distinguished from indigenous Malays. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-23-2020 ** 23-Nov-2020 World View: Winning a war (11-22-2020, 05:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > What makes a war ‘winnable’. I might differ that we ‘won’ in I guess it depends on what you mean by winning a war. Using your criteria, someone could claim that we didn't win WW II. Maybe we saved France and Belgium from the Nazis, but we lost Poland and Hungary to the Soviets, which is just as bad. Europe was completely destabilized by massive flows of refugees. America built military bases in Germany, which are still there. There was a neo-Nazi insurgency, which still exists at a minor level. So if WW II was a victory, it was a partial one. In the case of Iraq, I would evaluate it this way. We had three objectives -- first to eject Iraq from Kuwait, then to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and finally to defeat the AQI insurgency. We succeeded at all three objectives. In Afghanistan, we had two objectives -- first to destroy the Taliban government, and then to control the Taliban insurgency. We succeeded at the first, and failed at the second. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-23-2020 ** 23-Nov-2020 World View: Trump and Biden From e-mail: Quote:> Good to know you are well. I read your latest This may seem like a very dark time, since the Democrats and the media have been relentlessly vindictive assholes for four years, and continue to be, even after the election. But one thing you can look forward to is that Trump will still be around, and in a couple of months he'll be leading what he claims is a new movement formed from the 72-74 million people who voted for him. He may even say that he's running in 2024, and start holding rallies again. And those rallies always draw tens of thousands of people. Meanwhile Biden will have to start governing, as opposed to hiding in his basement. He'll blame every problem on Trump, and Trump will be right there to blame Biden. It should be interesting. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 11-23-2020 (11-23-2020, 11:19 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I guess it depends on what you mean by winning a war. World War II was fought to contain the Axis powers. We won. It is the Cold War which was intended to contain the communist powers. They are no longer communist, but the need to contain their autocratic expansionist tendency is still there, even if their eagerness to fight in crisis wars isn’t. If you bend the goals of the multiple conflicts, you are just absurdly redefining the goals of the assorted conflicts to win an argument. You have a partial list of goals in the Iraq conflicts. Bush 43 was trying for neocolonialism, for throwing his weight around as the sole superpower, for becoming the dominant and expanding power in the region. Thus, the huge embassy complex and military bases. If you edit his goals you can say they were all achieved, but no one would take you seriously. A destabilized Middle East was not one of the goals. The major goal in Afghanistan was to deny Bin Ladin a place to train for more attacks on the West. It seemed appropriate at the time. Again, you are changing the goals of the conflict to suit your position. Again, I don’t take it as serious. It is a joke, but then much of your stuff is. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 11-23-2020 (11-23-2020, 11:41 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: This may seem like a very dark time, since the Democrats and the media have been relentlessly vindictive assholes for four years, and continue to be, even after the election. The biggest scandal associated with Obama was birthersim, which was pretty much disproven when a Hawaii paper was found with Obama’s parents announcing his birth to the world. Was there cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia in working the 2016 election? Did Trump suppress funds allocated by congress for security until a foreign power provided an advantage for him political? Is Trump hamstringing his successor in ways not seen in previous transitions of power? There is a difference between the Obama ‘scandal’ being based on Trump’s lie, while Trumps continuous scandals have considerable truth to them. If you are just interested in reporting the truth, you have to report on them. The red buy into the Trump and Fox lies. You buy into the Trump and Fox lies. You have to buy into the lies designed to enable elitism and racism. The truth is just not enough. I don’t see how the old values, based on lies, are going to have staying power in a crisis. The problems at the core of the crisis are always resolved. Trump has punted on both COVID and systematic racism. He has enough believers with him to tie up anyone who tries to rebuild the Republican Party from his lies. I understand he is giving up on the ‘I won’ pretense. The GSA has acknowledged Biden as the apparent winner. Michigan has certified. His court cases have been rejected. Do you think the Republican policy of obstructionism will be a big win in the mid terms? Do you think a non elitist non racist movement can unite the conservatives with Trump rousing his base? Do you think someone else trying in the short term to take over the remnants of the party stands a chance with Trump active? In a crisis, the greatest problems facing the culture are focused on and resolved. Doing so will sink the old values. If Biden fulfills the promises made on the bug, systematic racism, and promoting the interests of the workers, the crisis - high - awakening patterns don’t leave much room for the do nothing obstructionism of the unraveling. I see the denial phase of the lame duck period as ending. We will see how much of a revenge phase there is, and how wild Trump goes with pardoning his administration. He can hurt the next administration, but if he is too blatant about it he will also be hurting America. He can throw pardons around, but doing so admits guilt. I am content sitting back and watching the turnings progress, the old values become discredited. But the bottom line is likely enough correct. It should be interesting. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-23-2020 ** 23-Nov-2020 World View: John Kerry is 'Climate Czar' John Kerry is being appointed "Climate Czar." An idiot pursuing idiotic policies. It'll be fun having John Kerry to kick around again. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Bob Butler 54 - 11-24-2020 Well, it looks like the revenge phase is underway. Trump has declared the Open Skies treaty void, without bothering with the congressional approval needed to void a treaty. This treaty allows planes to scout for things like nuclear explosions, or preparations for invasion. Trump is not only ignoring the law which gives congress the ability to nullify treaties, but is trashing the only planes designed to look for nukes or potential invasions. This is in case Biden attempts to rejoin the treaty, say by notifying everyone that Trump hasn't the authority. The only member of the treaty who has been invading people lately? Russia? Just to let you know who Trump is really working for. Now why would Putin want the treaty voided? I wonder... Now the planes Trump is destroying aren't the only recon aircraft in the Air Force inventory. Other planes can go in. Thing is, the planes being destroyed are 1950s relics, and many of the other aircraft are much newer and less expendable. I'll bet on much newer reconnaissance drones being used. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-24-2020 ** 24-Nov-2020 World View: Janet Yellen Higgenbotham Wrote:> You can see how seriously goofy Yellen is when she said during the If your core belief is MME ("modern monetary theory"), which says that the government can borrow an infinite amount of money and never have to pay it back, then this isn't nutty at all. Milton Friedman planted the seed for MME, it was taken up and expanded by Ben Bernanke, and Janet Yellen is simply driving it to its natural conclusion. As I've written many times, Milton Friedman has been proven wrong, but nobody wants to believe that. There's nothing deadlier than when a conservative icon promotes a liberal idea that's wrong. It's the worst of all possible worlds. You can't blame Yellen for having a "crack pipe," when the crack pipe is Milton Friedman. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-24-2020 ** 24-Nov-2020 World View: China after the war Guest Wrote:> Navigator mentioned the world will end up being ruled by dictators Navigator Wrote:> My belief is that after a major war, and after the collapse of the Guest Wrote:> Kissinger is back at it; leading America down the road to hell. Guest Wrote:> "Xi Jinping, the one man in China's system, is now propagating the It's interesting that Kissinger is still living in the 1970s, at the time of ping-pong diplomacy. At that time, China was flat on its back from Mao's disastrous policies -- the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. These are some of the stupidest policies of any country in the history of the world, and they so completely devastated China that China's economy still hasn't recovered. But in the 1970s, China was so desperate that at least it was possible to talk to them sensibly. That hasn't been true for a long time now, with China's contempt for international law and the rest of the world, whom they consider to be barbarians. Kissinger doesn't realize how things have changed since the Tiananmen Square bloodbath, and the question is whether Biden's relationship with China is so completely compromised that he'll adopt the Kissinger position. All the signs are that it is compromised, but we'll see. I believe that it was Toynbee a century ago who said that China would be the dominant power in the 21st century. He made that prediction based on the size and growth of China's population, which seemed irrestible. I used to semi-believe that myself, but as I've been writing about China for 20 years, I've gradually believed it less and less, and after writing my book on China, I now consider it to be impossible. I've come to appreciate how thoroughly immersed the Chinese are in Confucianism. Most Americans know Confucianism through Chinese fortune cookies, and sayings like, "Confucius say: Man with one chopstick go hungry." or "Confucius say: Man should not sleep with woman with more troubles than he have." These fortune cookie sayings give the impression that Confucianism is pleasant and benign. But I've come to understand how deadly and destructive Confucianism has been for China. Domestically, it means that any leader is automatically a dictator who cannot be contradicted, unless he makes a mistake so egregious that he loses the "Mandate from Heaven," and then a rebellion must ensue. Internationally, it means, as I said above, contempt for international law and the view of the rest of the world as barbarians whose only purpose is to serve the Chinese, in the same way that donkeys serve farmers. The West tolerated this view for decades, giving China the opportunity to take advantage of organizations like the UN, the WTO and WHO, but resulting in disastrous decisions like the annexation of the South China Sea, or the enslavement of millions of Uighurs in concentration camps. Trump has reversed some of China's most disastrous successes, but now we have to watch and see whether Biden's relationship with China is so thoroughly compromised that China will resume its contemptuous treatment of America and the west with full force. The point is that Confucianism is so disastrous for China that China can't even govern itself. Consider China's recent history. For four of the last eight centuries, China was actually ruled by other people -- the Mongols and the Manchus. And as we've seen in the last 70 years, when the Chinese do control their own government, they become extremely self-destructive. So I think that the CCP thugs do have an erotic fantasy of China taking over the world role that America currently holds, but I don't see any possibility of that, given the destructive and self-destructive nature of Confucianism. You can't lead a world of people that you think are donkeys. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - David Horn - 11-24-2020 (11-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Well, it looks like the revenge phase is underway. Trump has declared the Open Skies treaty void, without bothering with the congressional approval needed to void a treaty. This treaty allows planes to scout for things like nuclear explosions, or preparations for invasion. Trump is not only ignoring the law which gives congress the ability to nullify treaties, but is trashing the only planes designed to look for nukes or potential invasions. This is in case Biden attempts to rejoin the treaty, say by notifying everyone that Trump hasn't the authority. Just one more reason to listen to Andrew Weissman and prosecute DJT to the fullest extent possible. There are actions that go beyond the pale, and turning the other cheek only assures they will happen again if anyone of Trump's ilk is ever elected to that august office. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 11-24-2020 ** 24-Nov-2020 World View: Open Skies Treaty (11-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Well, it looks like the revenge phase is underway. Trump has More garbage. The withdrawal was announced in May, with the actual withdrawal to take place in six months, which is now. The reason is that Russia kept on violating the agreement. So it wasn't revenge, and it makes sense. Let's now watch and see if Biden appeases Russia. *** WPAFB and NASIC were key to Open Skies Treaty https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/america-no-longer-part-of-the-open-skies-treaty/W3H273QXLFHW7IMGVSXNFRSW4I/ |