North Korea is reneging on its denuclearization deal.
Supply lines to Afghanistan through Pakistan are becoming more and more unreliable as that country disintegrates.
Russia is imperialistically resurgent, to monopolize Europe's energy.
And Iran's nuclear program speeds ahead.
And the media is all a-tingle with the Obamamessiah.
Musings from Belmont Club's Wretchard:
North Korea has decided to suspend the decommissioning of its nuclear facilities because the United States has insisted on verification before removing it from the list of the state sponsors of terrorism. This new crisis comes on the heels of Georgia and events in Pakistan. About the only good news is ironically from Iraq. What’s going on? The question is whether we are still in the End of History, at “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal,” or whether the stars are veiled; a sleepless malice is stirring, and a new menace is taking shape, not for the last time but in our time.Whatever else we do, we need to immediately begin to:
...
It appears the public no longer thinks it is our “mission” to save the poor Afghanis, the noble Iraqis, the wonderful Darfurans or die for the Zionists and S Koreans - but to save America and our way of life - instead.
Suppose we take this as a starting point. What are the givens? A large dependency on Middle Eastern energy. A large European dependence on Eurasian and Central Asian energy. A declining Western demographic. A political culture that is obsessed with trivia, political correctness and pointless celebrity.
How does a civilization with these givens respond to a challenge?
Can it?
Admittedly the challenges are still in rinky-dink places, but that’s only because they’ve just gotten started. Although still based in these hick places, their targets are already downtown New York and DC. If the problems on the periphery were going to stay there, then fine. But they’re not. September 11 should have shown us they are not — because of the weaknesses outlined in the paragraph above. What’s there to keep them out?
The West is extraordinarily vulnerable and the fight can move from the periphery to the center, I think, with shocking rapidity. What really scares me is what people in Denver are talking about; how the media is treating it like an entertainment extravaganza. That’s what is truly frightening. Not what we see out the window, but what we see in the mirror.
...
The truly unthinkable today is to imagine that something bad could really happen. September 12 was an exception. But that’s history now. The generation of the 50s and 60s understood that really, really nasting things could occur. They had a human memory of it. But now survival is assumed to be assured. We talk about reproductive rights, gay rights, the right to immigrate illegal and so on.
Civilization has forgotten what it is like to eat its pets from hunger.
And as so often happens when disasters can no longer be imagined, they most often occur.
History is supposed to protect us from forgetfulness; curb arrogance; guard against complacency. But who have we put in charge of our altar to memory? Open your TV sets and watch the talking heads.
Maybe it was always thus.
(1) raise at least 12 more combat brigades of volunteers
(2) build more nukes
(3) ready the public for the actual use of (1) and (2)
Interestingly, the Green insistence against expanded, vigorours drilling for oil and natural gas in this country, as well as building more coal and nuclear power plants, virtually guarantees we will be required to spend more blood for oil to maintain our way of life.
