America is living in a strange, weird, and delusional time; unparalleled in its social inability to deal with History or the Future.
How do we know this?
Look at how the Elite is preparing its children for this century of fraught, and perhaps existential times; look at the roster of Commencement Speakers at Elite Universities.
The 2023 Harvard Commencement Speaker was Tom Hanks; what can Tom Hanks tell the crop of new Elitists? That the best way to jump start your career is by wearing drag?
Dartmouth had award winning film makers; Duke had the NBA commissioner. In an age in which America cannot find enough volunteers to fill the ranks of its defenders; this Blogger did not find one war hero, or veteran among the Commencement speakers at major colleges or universities.
Nor a student of the Greek historian, Polybius.
Readers, trust this Blogger, in this age, America needs to discuss Polybius.
Polybius was a great friend of the grandson of Scorpio Africanus; the Roman military genius, who defeated the military demigod, Hannibal. He had access to Roman and Punic (Carthagian ) records. Polybius coined the concept of "Anacyclosis”, the evolution, decay and death of constitutional republics.
Polybius was very interested, and very insightful about Rome’s nemesis, Carthage.
If we apply Polybius’ Carthage analysis to Joe Biden’s America, the similarities are eerie.
a)Only the wealthy could obtain power in Carthage; no talent was acknowledged; unless that talent had been born to wealth, or had achieved wealth before.
b) Carthage was multicultural; what this Blogger’s Trotskyite Father would call “decadent bourgeois cosmopolitanism.” Rome was monocultural; which Polybius believed made Roman patriotism more resilient in the face of crisis.
c) Carthage would not impose conscription on its citizens; Carthage’s key to its political stability was not citizen sacrifice but a fat, lazy, show business dominated lethargy.
d) Since Carthage’s citizens would not fight in its army; Carthage hired mercenaries. That caused two problems: when Carthage ran out of money, or could not raise its debt limit; it would not pay the mercenaries. That caused a mercenary war; citizens may fight for free, not mercenaries.. Carthage paid new mercenaries to fight old unpaid mercenaries.
Secondly, the mercenaries were from so many different cultures and spoke so many different languages, unit cohesion broke down. Orders had to be translated two or three times. The polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire ran into the same problems with its Imperial Army, so many nationalities, so little cohesion. The Imperial Army developed a special language, Army Slavic, forty command words; which, all troops needed to know. The Imperial solution did not work. In America, in 2023, Open Borders and mass Migration mean that over 200 different languages are spoken in the recruit pool.
This Blogger began studying Polybius, when he realized the Biden Administration was serious in its attempt to force feed America’s Military into a cosmopolitan, Imperial, woke, mercenary military.
Joe Biden’s America is at the apex of multicultural decay; its arch nemesis, Communist China, is a single-minded monoculture. This Blogger believes that Polybius would believe Communist China has the destiny.
Military theorists, planners, thinkers and strategists are also keenly aware of the Sukhomlinov Effect".
“The "Sukhomlinov Effect" states that in any military conflict between a uniformed and non-uniformed army, the guys with uniforms will lose.” Armies with garish uniforms will lose every time, because those armies care more about their uniforms than winning wars.
Joe Biden has mutated the Sukhomlinov Effect into the “Joe Biden effect.” Under Joe Biden, a commanding officer is more valued; if he caters to every grievance of every minority on earth, versus his ability to win wars, with minimum loss of life to his own troops, whether they ne minority or majority.
Joe Biden appointed a Black General, Lloyd Austin, as his Secretary of Defense; he has done more than a credible job managing the decay inherent in a woke military.
Now, Joe Biden has appointed a Black Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing the nincompoop, Mark Milley.
General Brown is a very competent general; however, History will force him into the unenviable position of answering the seminal question facing this Woke Military:, How badly does it want to win a war? Enough to violate wokeness by giving command to a racist?
It is an unfortunate irony of American History that some of its greatest military commanders have been racist.
This Blogger does not find that surprising; many, perhaps most of the greatest military leaders are, by temperament, misanthropes. Misanthropes don’t mind sending men to kill or be killed. And what can be a greater misanthrope than a racist?
In the film about America’s Revolutionary War, THE PATRIOT, the character played by Mel Gibson, invented the battlefield tactic of a battlefield ambush to defeat the British. That battle scene was based on the actual battle of Cowpens; that battlefield ambush was invented by the slaveholder Daniel Morgan. His defeat of the British forced them to retreat to Yorktown, and allowed slaveholder George Washington to end the war, with victory.
The finest General in American History, Winfield Scott, was a slaveholder.
When Confederate General Lee decided to break out of General Grant’s Union encirclement; he sent General Gordon down a road to pave the way. General Gordon rode to the crest off a hill to scout the terrain; all he saw was the gleaming bayonets of the Union Army of the Shenandoah, led by Phil Sheridan. There would be no breakout; Lee and the Confederacy were doomed to defeat.
Sheridan was described by Abraham Lincoln as :“A brown, chunky little chap, with a long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him.”
In this Blogger’s opinion, in America's Civil War, only Sherman was a finer Union general than Sheridan. When Grant sent him to devastate the Shenandoah Valley; so that it could no longer feed the Confederate Army; he did so. So thoroughly, that a crow flying over it, had to carry his own rations.
After the Civil War, Sheridan was instrumental in protecting Yellowstone National Park.
Sheridan fought slave holders and he was ecologically aware; how woke is that?
He was also a flaming racist: “Comanche Chief Tosahwi reputedly tells Sheridan in 1869, “Tosahwi, good Indian," to which Sheridan supposedly replies, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead"
Military talent is very rare; the ability to win battles, to win wars militarily is extremely rare. 60 million men fought in World War I, and only one general of genius was produced, the Turk, Mustafa Kemal.
Since Sargon the Great invented organized warfare; there has been less than a baseball team’s roster of great military geniuses, 25.
This Blogger would like a Senator at General Brown’s confirmation to ask:
a) What is your opinion of General Sheridan as a military leader?
b) Is he a racist?
c) Would you give him command in time of war, if you needed a victory? Is the talent to win more important than the defect of racism?
" “".....Joe Biden has nominated Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to succeed Army Gen. Mark A. Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.In a White House Rose Garden announcement, Biden called Brown "a proud, butt-kicking American airman" and an operational leader with intimate knowledge of how the U.S. joint force operates. Brown is currently Air Force chief of staff. If confirmed by the Senate, Brown will become the 21st chairman; he would be the first chairman from the Air Force since Gen. Richard B. Myers held the position in 2005. .....Biden said Brown "doesn't play for second place, he plays to win." He said that mindset is an enormous asset to the commander-in-chief.
The president also spoke about Brown's signature approach, which he summarized as "accelerate, change or lose."
"We're celebrating the root of our national strength, the most American of ideas, most self-evident truth, that all women and men are created equal," Biden said. "There is no more powerful testament to this than the armed forces of the United States of America. The steps we've taken over the decades, to harness the full diversity of our nation have grown our armed forces into the greatest fighting force … in the history of the world."….white house.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Designate, General Brown and Joe Biden
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