Future War
Democracies don’t like war. They are squeamish about casualties and in the modern world, with its globalised news organisations, the internet and near instantaneous communication, when they go to war they see a lot of casualties. Jihadists understand this and have devised their assault accordingly. Terrorists’ media orientated attacks strike at the heart of the Western “centre of gravity”, i.e. its political will and motivation. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to protect this centre of gravity because of the inherent openness of Western society. And because of the inherent closed-ness of Islamic society (lack of a free press, little history of self-criticism, parallel cousin marriage, etc), because non-state or sub-state actors (Hamas, Hezbollah, Quds, etc) are being protected but not controlled by sovereign nation states and because of the proliferation of international terror networks (al Qaeda et al), clandestine by nature, it has also proved impossible for the West to locate and strike the terrorists’ centre of gravity. Bad news for the free world.
Terrorist tactics have evolved with the emergent “cyber-“ or “network-“ paradigm (globalised information channels and associated technologies, so radicalised youth in Beeston can be watching jihadist footage of IED attacks on American soldiers the very next day) and in reaction to the extreme discrepancy between their own and Western (especially US) forces. In short, jihadist terrorism is a response to the western way of war, utilising, ad hoc but with much success, western technologies. Whilst obviously medieval in their political and religious philosophies (and utterly barbaric on the battlefield: mass slaughter of civilians, revenge rapes and so on way past the point of nausea), jihadist terrorism nevertheless represents the utmost in modernity in terms of warfare.
There are numerous prescient examples of the superiority of the jihadist netwar or fourth generational warfare (4GW) approach (Iraq obviously), but perhaps the most relevant is the recent Israeli offensive in Lebanon. Hezbollah will never succeed in defeating Israel in open battle, but using 4GW methods and tactics managed to repulse Israel, inflicting heavy casualties and winning important military victories, to further damage Israel’s reputation on the international stage, to improve their own image on the Arab street, and to emerge in a stronger position than before as the most powerful terrorist organisation in the world.
Clausewitz noted that defensive war is easier than attack, and surely neither Hamas nor Hezbollah will be rolling the tanks through the streets of Jerusalem. However, success in open battle is not necessary (or feasible) at this stage. What we are witnessing is engineered shifts in the balance of power. Israeli Defence Force doctrine states that one of the goals of the IDF is to project the image of overwhelming force in order to discourage further attacks by Israel’s many enemies. But Hezbollah have made the IDF look weak: defeatable. That is an important victory in itself, for jihadism in general and not just for Hezbollah in particular.
Hezbollah utilised highly committed soldiers, unafraid of causing mass civilian casualties (on any side), created a network of short range artillery and fighters dispersed and concealed across the whole of mountainous southern Lebanon, and of course probably most importantly, through its media wing, al Manar, was adept at using mass media and modern communications networks to manipulate public opinion both in the West and the Middle East. The group was able to fire its automated rockets at large civilian targets in Israel, shutting down cities as their inhabitants hid from the random attacks in bomb shelters, whilst hiding its firepower near civilian targets in Lebanon. They skilfully pounced on any civilian casualties of Israel’s response, and used the furore to erode public support for Israel and to generate an international movement to halt the Israeli offensive. That is to say, Hezbollah mobilised an international pro-jihadist network, a fifth column dedicated to attacking Israel’s centre of gravity, its political will. Hezbollah successfully dilated the battlefield and won a defensive fourth generation war.
War continues to evolve, and the diverse dispersal of jihadist centres and networks, its cells and its media, forms a vast architecture: a rhizomatic web dedicated to fighting this new, future war. Hezbollah is but one part of this structure and its success in the Lebanese theatre last summer provides an important model of how a jihadist group, relatively well funded, armed and lead, can defeat a nominally much superior modern western military machine. And a victory for jihadism anywhere is a victory for jihadism everywhere in the ongoing cultural war, helping to form the ongoing narrative of jihad. In order to win the War on Terror the political will to do so must be generated and protected; oppositional narratives must be formed and inscribed upon the cultural landscape. The West must locate and reach out to the terrorists’ own centre of gravity: public opinion in the Middle East and in the wider Muslim Diaspora. The West needs its own fifth column, and its own fourth generational warriors capable of fighting the future war.
As it stands, no terrorist group, no state or non-state actor, could fight and win a conventional war with the West. However, according to standard insurgency principles (by now: see Mao for the origins of this theory), and looking at jihad as the “long war”, we are at Phase I of its attack on the West: the Strategic Defensive. Jihadism will continue to build strength politically and militarily, wage asymmetrical 4GW, attack the political will to confront it, and try to shift the balance of power until it is strong enough to engage the West in conventional open battle.
******
The future is armed to the teeth and is highly motivated, it is dispersed across an ever wider landscape, and it is not waiting for us to arrive: it has begun its relentless assault regardless, chanting the ancient slogans of religious bigotry and blood for a vengeful god. Unless we step into it and learn to fight the future war more effectively than our enemies, we have already lost. For just as he who controls the past controls the future, he who controls the future, also controls the past.
vimothy said,
May 16, 2007 at 1:20 pm
For discussions of the disastrous Israeli campaign in Lebanon 2006, see
Peters in AFJ: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/10/2069044
Brecher in eXile: http://www.exile.ru/2006-August-11/a_hezbollah_upon_all_of_thee.html + http://www.exile.ru/2006-August-25/gophers_by_tko.html
Lind, from his “On War” column: http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_8_17_06.htm
And Hammes in his recent 5GW piece: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/hammes_5gw.pdf
phil said,
May 20, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Nice post.
“The West needs its own fifth column, and its own fourth generational warriors capable of fighting the future war.”
This is absolutely right. One of the limitations of many of the discussions of things like 4GW has been a narrow focus on how our adversaries will use asymmetric methods to attack us and how our government should respond. But for me the most interesting aspect is how ordinary citizens in the West can organize their own non-state actors and wage 4GW, meme war, information war etc against our adversaries. This has become one of the main themes of my thinking; I’m glad to see someone else thinking along these lines too.
Reynardine said,
June 3, 2007 at 12:18 am
Ah, but if “we” organize ourselves into “non-state actors” to wage 4GW war, the question arises: who is “we”? Are you joining the same 4GW group as I? Will we possibly be fighting each other? Absent the State, what is our organizing principle, which moral compass shall we follow?
The formation of 4GW groups is itself symptomatic of the degeneration of the State. This is not to say that what you are proposing is wrong, but it is more fraught with complexity, and possibly undesired results, than you think. Not that it matters. Like van Creveld, I’m a Hegelian, and I don’t think that the course of history will be affected by your decision (or mine) to join some “non-state actors”–or to refrain from doing so.
Reynardine said,
June 3, 2007 at 1:00 am
Poppycock!
I hardly know where to begin…except perhaps at the beginning:
” Democracies don’t like war”. I have no idea why anyone would assert such a completely silly thing. Democracies like wars as much–or as little–as any other form of State. Or perhaps you forget the enthusiasm with which the Western democracies marched into the inferno otherwise known as the “Great War”? Or a more recent example when Britain went to war with Argentina over a few dozen sheep? I hardly think such a vacuous statement merits scholarly rebuttal, but if you want one, consider Martin van Creveld’s comparison of the “warlike” nature of the United States and Prussia/Germany in his great book, Fighting Power: van Creveld concludes that the democratic U.S. has involved itself in more warlike actions (pro-rated over the years of its existence) than Germany.
As for your statement that “Hezbollah will never succeed in defeating Israel in open battle, but using 4GW methods and tactics managed to repulse Israel, inflicting heavy casualties and winning important military victories”, I cannot make the slightest bit of sense to it. Sir, you contradict yourself: you admit that Hezbollah did exactly what you said it cannot do, for to “repulse” an attack is to obtain a victory. Moreover, this is a victory in the classical sense: when the fighting was done, Hezbollah retained control of the battlefield (otherwise known as “Lebanon”).
Hezbollah confronted the armed forces of the Israeli state and frustrated the objectives of those forces in the most crystal clear and public manner possible. The Arab world has seen it, even if you have not: Israel was defeated on the battlefield by an Islamic army, waging conventional warfare. Yes, conventional warfare, the old fashioned kind: infantry combat.
I suppose your misunderstanding of the situation is no worse than the similar response of the Israeli state: they don’t get it, either. The only sensible response to a defeat is to learn from it; if you refuse to admit that you were defeated and blame it all on some sort of trickery, then you will simply be defeated again. And again, until you are no longer willing or able to fight.
Israel might begin by purging those officers who have been influenced by American combat doctrine (a doctrine sure to lose every time). They might re-think their use of sophisticated high-tech weapons (including their air force) in situations where well-led highly motivated light infantry with good close air support would do a lot more good.
Though van Creveld seems to lose a lot of his scholarly detachment when it comes to discussing his own country, Israel would do well to listen to what he has to say when he is not commenting directly on current events in Israel. Israel wants to be strong, more importantly, it wants to be seen to be strong. It is therefore easy to suck the Israelis into a conflict that makes them look like bullies: launch some low tech rockets at a few Israeli border towns, and the world doesn’t notice–partly because the Israelis don’t like looking weak, and don’t like to dramatize their losses (a great weakness, this wanting to look strong). But the world does notice when Israel employs its air force in a spectacular bombardment of its neighbor…and Israel’s enemies have no compunction at all about showing off their wounds. When the ground forces sent in the wake of the bombardment are then forced to withdraw ignominiously…well that’s DEFEAT.
Tim Bitts said,
December 27, 2007 at 8:26 am
If you add up the whole Gross Domestic Products, of all middle eastern Muslim countries combined, to come up with an estimate of total economic value, you find a very small number, if you remove oil. Without oil, the GDP for the whole middle eastern Muslim world is about equal to a Finnish Telephone Company, Nokia.
Pathetic.
However, Muslims aren’t stupid.
The Governments of Turkey and Iran, among other Muslim governments, have political parties that are openly dedicated to encouraging large population increases, and exporting excess citizens to Europe. This plan has gone on openly, for over forty years. Muslim leaders watched family size in the West plummet during the 1960s, and they knew they had an opening, a way to fight the West and take it over, from inside. They knew the West would need more citizens in the future, since they weren’t having babies, so the mullahs encouraged large families, as a plan to take over the West. The plan is working quite well, so far.
Europeans have about 1 child per couple, which means every forty years, their population is cut in half. Muslims immigrants are taking up the slack. Their birthrate is several times the European average. Europe now has forty million Muslims. By century’s end, if present immigration and fertility trends continue, there will be 200 million Muslims in Europe, and a hellava lot less Europeans.
Their plan is working. War is being fought with the penis. Unlike the sterile pedophiles in the Vatican, Muslim religious leaders realize the value of an increase in numbers, to further the power of their religion.
So, if the West really wants to win the war with Islam, here’s my plan:
Support the Enviromental Movement! Get off oil. Even Bush said, “America is addicted to oil”. There are plenty of alternatives available, if the West has the political will. The resources are available, to get the West off oil, within 15 years.
This would collapse the economic power of Islam. The West is funding both sides in the War on Terror. We are sending money to our Saudi “friends” who promote radical Islam in mosques and terrorist groups throughout the West. The increase in the price of oil, in the past few years has put an extra 500 billion, into the coffers of the middle east. Naturally, some of that money ends up in Bin Laden’s hands. Then, having supplied them with lots of money, which allows them the means to buy weapons, so they can wage war on us, (weapons which they are incapable of manufacturing), we then spend more of our own money, fighting them.
Are we retarded?
Liberals could learn something from this. The most important part of the solution to the war on terror, is enviromentalism, and getting off oil. Take away oil money, and Muslim societies would collapse within weeks. They would be on their knees, begging, and agreeing to our conditions, for their continued existance. Without money to buy weapons, Muslims couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. If liberals want to sell enviromentalism, tell the rednecks we need to get off oil, because we are financing the enemy.
The next step is to kick the Muslims out of Europe. As the riots in France showed, this is just a ticking time bomb, ready to go off. Europe has very old societies, with long cultural histories. Integrating Muslims into this framework will not work. Eventually Europe will turn on it’s Muslims. It’s better to have a quick divorce, to avoid bloodshed.
Instead, pay Europeans to have more children. Children are the future. In a modern economy, where women can get a good job, make a lot of money, have fun, and women have a choice, as to whether to have children. Many are not having them. Women should and must continue to have that choice, but they obviously need to be bribed, just to sustain the population at equalibrium. Women who have four or five European children should get free large apartments, and subsidies for food and transportation from governments. Whoever has children, will be the future. Right now, Europe’s future is looking much browner, and much more inclined to reach for a prayer mat or a car bomb, in a hundred years. Welcome to Eurabia.
It’s either that, have more children, or hand Europe over to the Mullahs. Take your pick, Europe, because those are your choices.
So, in a nutshell, to win the war on terror, get off oil, save the earth, kick the Muslims out, buy the pregnant woman a place to live in, and start fucking!
vimothy said,
December 28, 2007 at 1:51 am
Hmm…
I disagree with much of that, Tim.
1. There is no reason to believe that population growth anywhere will remain constant. Certainly, I think that the idea that a sinister cabal, via their ordinary Muslim immigrant proxies in Europe, are intentionally engineering some sort of demographic warfare machine to breed themselves into a position of dominance (and then the Khilafa!) is pretty preposterous. I also note that you haven’t linked to any sources for your figures.
2. It is not clear who you mean by the term “Muslims”. You blur the religious and ethnic definitions of the word in a way that makes me uneasy. Are you worried about a religion or a race? If the rioters in Paris were white, we wouldn’t then describe them as Catholic, and draw conclusions about the incompatibility of Europe and Christianity. The actions of a few teens have nothing to do with any of the other Muslims throughout Europe. Rioting is a national pastime in that country. Far from being Islamic, it is entirely French.
There are a variety of different issues involving Muslims populations around the world, and you are conflating them together. The Middle East is a mass of bad governance, resentment and dead end ideologies, but there is nothing inherently Muslim about that, such that we can be confident that Muslims (whether we define them religiously or ethnically) are unable to function in liberal democracies. Europe has lots of second generation Muslims searching for a new identity, one that differentiates them from their parents. The growth of radical Islam in the UK (very much a youth phenomenon) reflects that. Some - a very small number - of them have done terrible things in the name of Islam. But it’s not the Islam of their parents. It’s not even the Islam of their friends. It’s nobody’s Islam but their own. Just as in Europe in the ’70s you wouldn’t have advocated expelling all leftists because of the actions of a few barely coherent teenage extremists, so you shouldn’t advocate the same policy here now. It doesn’t make sense.
3. Even if the US and EU refused to buy Mid East oil (and I’m not sure that it’s at all obvious that they should), there are other emerging economies, like China and India, who will pick up the slack very quickly. Furthermore, I think that the US only buys about 10% of its oil from the Mid East.
Tim Bitts said,
December 28, 2007 at 7:41 am
Thanks for your response. Actually, the stuff about taking over Europe through breeding, was in the Turkish Daily News yesterday. There has been widespread and huge populations increases all over the Muslim world. Why do you think that is? Why haven’t their leaders encouraged smaller families, like in Europe? Do some research please. I won’t do it for you. Find out a bit about demographic projections, of different groups. Look up a bit about Iran. They have huge unemployment, and their population has gone up to 65 million, doubling in a generation. Why is that?
When American settlers started taking over America, during the 1800s, the average woman had 6.2 children. Why was that? Whitey was taking over from the brown people. That’s how you take over. I myself am an old man. I come from the tale end of those pioneer days, and come from a family of ten. Looking back in my family history, there were lots and lots of large pioneer families, during that time. Whitey was taking over, and the Indians were losing their continent.
Now, the reverse is true. Brownie is taking over from the white man of Europe. Europeans are the new Indians, and the Muslims are the white settlers, only unlike the Indians of North America, who knew perfectly well what was going on, Europeans are asleep and don’t know what’s going on, and won’t wake up, till it’s too late. Same crap, different century.
When the Club of Rome issued it’s Limits to Growth Report in the late 1960s, I think it was, the leaders of Europe started to get worried about overpopulation. Since then, European culture went against family life, the population of Europe plummetted, and the population of Muslims skyrocketed. Coincidence? Only if you are asleep or unaware of the true intent of the most hardcore of Mullahs. In fact, in Norway last year, the leading Mullah came right out and said it. He said, “we are breeding like flies and will soon dominate” (you can find this in Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone, which is partly about the ongoing collapse of Europe, as Muslims take it over, and Europe walks toward the cliff, asleep.)
You say the rioters in Paris were “French” and that’s why they riot. You have to be kidding. You are very naive, on human nature. I have had many Muslim friends, in the past. They don’t assimilate well. I get along with them, but I realize from personal experience that the core of their identity, what they consider to be the most defining thing about themselves, by far, is the fact that they are Muslim. They don’t want to be French, and they detest most Europeans. Multi-culturalism won’t work in Europe.
If you study history, you’ll realize, for almost all of history, since it’s birth as a religion, Islam has been at war with Christian Europe, on and off, for over a thousand years. The only time it really slowed down was when Europe started getting a technological advantage, and Muslims couldn’t put up a good fight anymore. Lately, with oil money, they’ve gotten better, and can cause trouble again. Sorry, but the hatred from them is so strong, it will reappear, this century, as they challenge Europeans, for control of Europe. Expect much civil war there for most of this century. I’m predicting much blood, although I won’t live to see it. My grandchildren will. So, have a closer look at what Muslims believe. Study their religion a bit more. It’s frightening. It’s the power of a hate filled religion I fear, not a race.
I was a little boy, when Hitler was in power, but I remember. And I get the same feeling, watching the Mullahs. They want war. They want to kill us. They hate us. They want to dominate us. Have a nice day!
Tim Bitts said,
December 29, 2007 at 2:22 am
PS I just turned on CNN. Nick Robertson was doing a show called “Pakistan, Terrorism Central.” At the start of the show, he talked about how the London Bombers were raised in Britain, but their hearts and minds and identity were in Pakistan, and specifically in radical Islam. Much like Muslim youths anywhere in Europe, they don’t want to be part of European culture. That’s why they went back to Pakistan, to train as terrorists. Most Muslims aren’t going to be suicide bombers, but enough are, that there will be much more trouble, in Europe’s future. And the ones that are not like that watch in silent approval. Pakistan has 60 nuclear warheads, capable of travelling a long way. If the radicals get ahold of the government there, life could get “interesting”. Like Marshal McLuhan said, we live in a “global village”. Looks like the nuts, in the hut down the way, have a nuclear bomb.
War is caused by many things. One of the things, it is caused by are insane viral memes, implanted in religion, to get human beings to do crazy things. Educate yourself, and read the Qu’aran, if you want to find these. The majority of Muslims are harmless. The few radical wolves are not. Islam is like a demented computer with basically a good program, but with a deadly virus of radicalism inside, that acts up every now and then, with deadly results. Islamic radicalism will go off again and again, perhaps even in a nuclear exchange, till the virus inside is removed.
I know what a nuclear bomb can do. I know what hate can do. The Mullahs of Pakistan have both.
Wake up, world, before it’s too late!
vimothy said,
January 4, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Thanks for your response.
My pleasure, and thanks for commenting.
How many children do you have, Tim? I’m betting that it’s less than ten. My father came from a family of eleven. He had three children. None of his siblings has had more than four children. My mother came from a family of nine. None of her siblings had more than two children. These generational changes in family size are very common in the UK, and, from what I can tell, also common (though perhaps less so) in the US.
Falling birth rates occur because population growth is not constant. Consequently, there will be no Malthusian explosion of Muslims crowding the rest of us out of the country. As Muslim levels of income rise, birth rates will fall. And even under conditions of exponential population growth, it does not therefore follow with irreducible logic that all of these Muslim hordes will be jihadist radicals. Many Muslims have moved to Europe to escape repressive political regimes and have no interest in re-establishing them here.
We do have an aging population, and immigration is helping to reduce that, although I agree that it is not without its problems and social tensions. However, I do not agree (with your “static analysis” of demographic changes) that Muslims are taking over. So what if some idiot Mullah thinks that Muslims are taking over? He speaks for himself, not for the diverse groups of European immigrants originating in Muslim countries. (Post links to some figures if you have them. I am not asking you to do my research for me, BTW, only to give evidence in support of your own assertions). Increasing secular education of women leads to reduced birth rates. It happened in the past to native European populations, and will happen in the future to immigrant European populations, whether they are Arab Muslim, Russian Orthodox Christian or Chinese Buddhist.
And you leave something else out of your analysis, perhaps because you are watching this from across the Atlantic: “Muslim” means different things in different contexts. For instance, “Muslim” in the UK is like “Irish” or “Black African” — it’s an ethnic category, not a religion. But people aren’t joining Al Qaeda because of their genes; they’re joining because of their ideology. And plenty of them (20% according to Olivier Roy) are converts.
You say the rioters in Paris were “French” and that’s why they riot.
That’s not what I said. There was nothing Islamic about the riots in Paris. Riots in France are like basketball games in America: it’s what youngsters like to do. You are trying to extrapolate a characteristic applicable to all Muslims from the actions of a few (nominal) Muslims. It’s false logic. What is it that makes these rioters “Islamic” and not French?
They don’t assimilate well. I get along with them, but I realize from personal experience that the core of their identity, what they consider to be the most defining thing about themselves, by far, is the fact that they are Muslim.
Agreed, but this is no different from plenty of Christian evangelicals I know. (And I’m not trying to suggest that Christian evangelicals are a threat to the world order. The fact that they clearly aren’t proves that you can be a religious fundamentalist (of sorts) and not be a threat to the world order).
They don’t want to be French, and they detest most Europeans. Multi-culturalism won’t work in Europe.
The French don’t practice multi-culturalism. The Brits do. And yes, it’s a failing mess. I’m in total agreement.
Study their religion a bit more. It’s frightening. It’s the power of a hate filled religion I fear, not a race.
Religions change. Wahabism-Salafism, for all its talk, is a recent innovation diametrically opposed to much Classical Islam. Don’t worry so much about “Muslims” taking over Europe. Worry about fascist politicos and opportunist populists running the Middle East into the ground. Worry about Islamo-marxist teens setting off bombs on trains. Indeed, do worry about how immigrant populations can be assimilated into Europe such that we maintain our liberal political and social systems. But don’t worry about Muslims as a whole, everywhere, as a generic type, especially when you haven’t really explained what you mean by it.
Best wishes,
Vim
Tim Bitts said,
January 5, 2008 at 12:21 am
Thanks.
BIrthrates do fall with changes in level of education. That’s true. The problem is, it’s a matter of the game of “last man standing”. All groups will eventually have to reduce birthrates. But the groups that do so last will have a numerical advantage over other groups. And, all things being equal, that means they will have more power.
Birthrates are affected by religion, and are mutable. For instance, Mormons have birthrates higher than Muslims, due to the influence of the ideas of their religion, which stole much from Arab paganism, in it’s creation. I also come from an ethnic and religious group in North America which has an even much higher rate than Mormons, or Muslims. Right now, and for the forseeable future, unless something changes within Islam, birthrates will remain high.
Since I believe high birthrates and overpopulation are the biggest threat to the ecology of this planet, I am against any religion that actively promotes expansion of population, whether that religion be the one I was born into, or Mormonism, which my brother practices, or Islam, which my friend Anwar practices, with his four children. You’re right, I have two children, which I think is sensible.
Bringing in immigration to solve the problems of a crashing population is not a sensible solution to the population problem at all. If the world is to survive, populations must be stablilized all over the world. This means constructing sensible population policies that seek to stabilize existing populations. That’s what Europe should try to do. Instead of just bringing in Muslim immigrants, to make up for millions of aborted babies, Europe should look to policies that encourage native populations in Europe from having just enough children to keep the population stable.
That figure would be about 2.2 children per family. At this rate, if you exclude immigration, and rely on your native population to replenish itself, the populations remains indefinitely at the same number, until something changes.
To me, we are ruining our planet due to over population, with its accompanying overuse of resources. We will destroy the world if we keep on expanding human population. Uncontrolled population expansion leads to aggression, and wars over remaining resources, like we see in Iraq right now.
Three possibilities exist, in relation to population:
1- population expands endlessly
2-population stabilized by economic and other means
3-population crashes
Endless population expansions will not work. They are suicide, obviously.
Equally bad are population crashes, which lead to a situation where one group of people inevitably replace another, in large numbers. Any time in human history that this happened, it eventually led to bloodshed. In my opinion, This is analogous to what was, partly, a cause of the Second World War. Remember, six million Jews were sent to the ovens by Germans, in the Holocost. Why did it happen? One of the reasons was the inevitable group rivalry for dominance, and control of resources, when two incompatible intellectual systems, or religions, try to coexist, in the same space. As Jewish historian Peter Gay says in his biography of Sigmund Freud, the universities of Germany were filled with Jewish students, just before the time of Hitler. Wealth was unevenly distributed, with Jewish people being dominant, economically, and a large portion of the German population being impoverished. Then, Hitler, who was a bright, but disenfrachized and angry and poor German, tapped into that hatred and rivalry, and the Holocost and the Second World War happened. The history of anti-Semitism in Europe, as horrid as it is, makes the case for me that, when different groups, with incompatible religion or thought systems exist in the same space, eventually one will pull ahead, and then we have a dangerous situation. Group imbalanced in power are always a possible source of conflict. Humans, being what they are, are always jealous, always seeking dominance over others. It’s just human nature, and we need to understand that as a given, in any situation Rivalries and bloodshed are always a real danger in situations of large group rivalries for resources and power. By century’s end, unless something drastic changes, there will be 200 million Muslims in Europe, and far fewer Europeans. Even today, with only a few Muslims in Europe, about five percent, if memory serves, already there is trouble. Expect this to continue, and get worse. If Europeans think this changing of the guard, in the ownership of Europe can take place without blood being shed, they are crazy.
This whole problem of immigration is part of a much larger human problem, which is overpopulation, and destruction of the ecology of the planet. Planet Earth, I’m sure you’d agree, is in deep deep shit. Many of the best minds alive think we are close to ruining the Earth, partly due to over extension of the population of humans. How do we get out of this mess.
One thing that will help, an awful lot, in saving our planet, is to somehow achieve population control, in every country. Populations need to be stabilized at a set number. Population crashes won’t work. They lead to genocide at worst, and endless protracted political battles at best.. Endless expansion is obvious suicide. Only population control, at a set number, will work in the long run.
Which brings us to Europe, and the current population crash on that continent, and how it fits into the global picture, demographically.
The foolish, liberal, politically correct politicians in Europe think they can solve their population problems by endlessly bringing in Muslims, to make up for aborted babies. This is silly, if not extremely foolish. This will work, but only in the short term. That’s why people like you see no problem with it. It takes a long time for problems to show up, but they will. It’s inevitable.
Not all politicians are foolish, though. I think the French government has figured out what I am talking about. I notice, in France now, French citizens who have 3-4 children are given very generous housing and transportation subsidies. Obviously this is being done to keep France native French, because the French see the writing on the wall. In time, France will fine tune this sensible approach, and maintain their population at a fixed rate, as a matter of government policy. Once they do this, and have it fine tuned, immigration from Muslim countries can cease, and the remaining Muslims can be eventually integrated into French society. Very sensible. This will mean economists, like they do with the economy in general, with monetary and fiscal policy, will have to figure out just what are the correct inducements to convince French families to have just enough, but not too many, children, to keep the population stabilized, at a set number. Very sensible. I wish the Brits had as much sense as that, but I’m not holding my breath, waiting.
If the French experiment in population planning is successful, and if other governments around Europe quickly adopt French policies, and stablize their populations, at set numbers, then the population crash that is presently occuring, will cease, and Europe will have a better chance at having a better 21st century, than the lousy, blood filled 20th century.
On another point,
You say, religions change. Yes, they do. But right now, the dominant voices, in Islam, are either fruitcases, or nutcases. Religions change, you say? Yes, the Christian religion changed, but that took many centuries, before the venom was out of it, and we got to the point of a secularized society, and where Christian religion is not the danger it once was. I’m still waiting on substantial liberalization of Islam, and people like me have been waiting for centuries, for Islam to change. It still hasn’t. No one in their right mind would say Islam is a liberal religion. How many more centuries should we wait? The ideas I assume we both believe in, freedoms of speech, general political freedom, freedom of religions and conscience, democracy, human rights etc., all these ideas did not originate out of Islam, and have never been within the intellectual tradition of mainstream Islam. That’s why most Muslim countries remain repressive, ignorant, abusive, intellectual backwaters.
I always worry about “the wolves”. I believe, in any human population, about 5% of people determine the outcome of the group, and it’s survival. 95% of people are sheep. Now, in Islam, I don’t worry about the 95%, who are like my friend Anwar. I worry that the 5% want to destroy Western Civilization. I really think they mean to do this, they hate us, and fear us so much. They fear us, because our technology is superior, and our civilization has vastly out-achieved Muslim civilization. They seek for dominance, globally, and know we could stop them. They are a more primar civilization than ours, and Mohammed was a warrior. Within Islam there has always been a strong aggressive streak that seeks to dominate.
So, when I worry about Islam, it’s their wolves I worry about, much like Lawrence Wright worries about in the book, The Looming Tower, which traces the history of these evil Islamo-fascists, who are hell bent on destroying us. I highly recommend that book, if you want to know why people like me think as we do.
Tim Bitts said,
January 5, 2008 at 1:39 am
Have a look at this article, Vim. You asked me for references, for my opinions. I could give you dozens, but here’s one of my favorites. I referred to this guy, and one of his books, in one of my previous emails. The article is from a Canadian magazine, Macleans: “The future belongs to Islam, by Mark Steyn.” He thinks similar to how I do:
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20061023_134898_134898&sol
Tim Bitts
vimothy said,
January 25, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Tim,
Steyn is a good laugh, but one shouldn’t take him too seriously. The man is a journalist, not a scientist. Muslims still only account for 4.3% of the European population — less even than evangelical Christians.
In any case, Islam will change under the Muslim experience of a democratic society where people are free to practice their faith without government intervention.
Worry about Islamism, but don’t worry about “Eurabia”.