Håndtér dog banderne efter principperne for moderne oprørsbekæmpelse!


Efter skyderiet

Vi ved, at banderne er rekrutteringssted for islamistiske krigere.

Vi ved, at folk fra IS og andre terrororganisationer kan vende tilbage til dem.

Vi ved, at banderne og rockerorganisationer ser sig som separate uden for vores samfund og har deres egne normer og “rets”-system.

Vi ved, at de virker på tværs af landegrænser, også fordi det fremmer de kriminelle muligheder.

Vi ved, at de anvender pres og vold til at opnå deres mål.

At opfatte banderne som et begyndende oprør har væsentlige fordele.

Det er dog væsentligt først at understrege, at det ikke betyder, at der skal anvendes militært personel mod banderne. Det ville nemlig være indlysende skadeligt, fordi inddæmning og undergravelse at et oprør må ses som det, det er: et politisk efterretningsdrevet politiprojekt.

Det, som det betyder, er, at alle involverede klart forstår, at indsatsen må være efterretningsdrevet for at virke effektivt uden at fremprovokere negativ reaktion. Efterretningerne, der kan føre til politiindsats, skal være bygget på et stadig bedre efterretningsbillede.

Efterretningerne må som under ethvert oprør først og fremmest hentes fra lokalsamfundet, som “opmuntres”, presses eller købes til at bidrage – og derefter beskyttes effektivt mod hævn.

Efterretningerne skal også komme fra tidligere eller aktive bandemedlemmer, der presses/købes til at bidrage, og derefter beskyttes. Fængselophold for de straffede og ureformerede bandemedlemmer skal gøres maksimalt belastende gennem korte ophold og mange flytninger mellem institutionerne.

Endeligt skal efterretningerne suppleres igennem en tæt tilstedeværelse og monitering (med alskens moderne midler) fra politiet side i bandernes områder.

At man skal lade sig inspirere af erfaringer fra moderne oprørsbekæmpelse betyder også, at politiets magelige rutineoptræden – ved patruljering og visiteringszoner – må forstås som groft ineffektiv. Det er den af den simple grund, at modstanderen også kan tænke og straks tager højde for disse skridt, der så mister deres effekt. De er ligeså dumme og ineffektive, som hærens forudseelige kontrolposter og patruljering fra stadigt Taliban-moniterede baser i Helmand var det.


Forudseelig og derfor ineffektiv patruljeproduktion i Helmand

Overborgmester Frank Jensen har ret, der skal straks etableres mobile politistationer på Nørrebro og i Nordvest.

De skal bemandes med en kombination af uniformeret og civilklædt personale, hvoraf nogle har rødder i lokalområdet eller andre tilsvarende ghettoer. Stationerne skal have delvis skiftende bemanding for at undergrave bandernes mod-efterretningstjeneste.

Ledelsen af efterretnings- og politiindsatsen skal, som under oprørsbekæmpelse, gives klart og entydigt og have delegeret myndighed.

Som ved oprørsbekæmpelse bør også indsatsen mod banderne styres af politisk logik.

I mulig udstrækning skal der tages politisk-økonomiske skridt, der mindsker risikoen for rekruttering og loyaliteten til banderne, og man skal se og indrette sig på, at der er tale om en informationskrig om lokalbefolkningens og ikke mindst børnenes sjæle.

Observationer af debatten op til næste danske forsvarsforlig: Forsvarsinnovations-organisationsentreprenør-reformator-konsulentens korte grundbog

Forsvarspolitik bygget på den selvfølgeligt ahistoriske kombination af naiv og arrogant intuition, der VED, at:

Organisationer (som specielt Hæren) er:
> Øsle med menneskelige og økonomiske resurser
>> Ubegavet reaktionære
>>> Dovent forsvarende egeninteresser

Fordi disse ikke-innovative ikke ved/vil indse, at vi, der har ret, derfor ikke vil argumentere for det åbenbart rigtige, nemlig:
1) At andre i udlandet eller i den civile verden har smartere løsninger, som kan kopieres direkte [selvfølgelig skal man søge inspiration overalt, men anvendeligheden i dansk militær sammenhæng er langt fra givet, og kopiering uden udnyttelse af professionel erfaring og indsigt vil med stor sikkerhed undergrave den militære effektivitet]
2) At fortiden er irrelevant for fremtiden, hvilket bl.a. gør det indlysende, at danske styrker aldrig kommer i krig igen [en helt utroligt arrogant og overfladisk holdning]
3) At dette også, fordi hæren nu er beskåret til et minimum, hvor den kun lige kan klare Livgardens Blå Vagt og Gardehusareskorten, så der er blokeret for, at fremtidens politikere igen kan sende den til et sted som Irak eller Afghanistan [betyder blot, at de, der sendes alligevel af regeringerne – nu som “rådgivere” – er langt dårligere forberedt og støttet]
4) At dette er godt, fordi det er indlysende, at danske hærstyrker ikke kan løse nogen reel forsvarsopgave [håber vi, men allerede nu gælder det kun for Danmark vest for Bornholm og hvis vi nægter at bidrage substantielt til det fremskudte forsvar af NATOs østgrænse]
5) At dette heller ikke er nødvendigt, for NATO er meget stærkere end Rusland [kun korrekt, hvis en konflikt bliver lang, global og ikke optrappes til generel kernevåbenkrig; Rusland har en klar overlegenhed indledningsvis i Europa]
6) At det er indlysende, at idéen om at retablere danske reservestyrker viser mangel på innovationsevne [inden for rammen af realistiske forsvarsbudgetter er opbygningen af reservestyrker med kadrer og materiel den eneste vej til at sikre fleksibilitet og udholdenhed af strukturen]
7) At det er indlysende, at kontraktansatte soldater er både billigere, mere motiverede og dygtigere end værnepligtige på grund af, at de er lønnet for 37 timers tilstedeværelse pr. uge, dette selv om enhederne sjældent er samlede pga. afspadsering efter øvelser, m.m. og i fremtiden for at kunne få civil erhvervsbevis under tjenesten [som så meget andet bygger dette synspunkt ikke på erfaringen; de eneste ulemper ved værnepligtige er, at deres uddannelse kræver hårdt arbejde og engagement af kadrerne så uddannelsen er indlysende meningsfuld, at man derfor kan forklare dem, hvorfor vi tager deres tid, dvs. at der er et klart behov for den styrkestørrelse og den adgang til også den bedste del af ungdommen giver]
8) At da vi ikke skal i krig mere, er det indlysende, at militær ”ledelse” og professionalisme ud over sjakbajsniveauet er både unødvendigt og anakronistisk for Danmark, og vi vil nødigt præsenteres for argumenter, vi ikke kan forstå [men præmissen er jo desværre tvivlsom]

Fordi behovet er så indlysende, er det spild at tid at forstå og undersøge grundlaget for den eksisterende organisation

Da andre innovations-organisationsentreprenører-reformatorer-konsulenter med videnskabelig statskundskabsteoretisk baggrund allerede igennem tyve år har demonstreret deres evner inden for andre dele af den offentlige sektor, herunder SKAT, er der ingen grund til at forholde sig kritisk til virkningen på Forsvaret. Forsvaret fik allerede nær-dødelige doser af indlysende forsvarsinnovationsreformer i 2004 og 2013. Der er her ikke engang behov for at anvende penge på endnu en konsulentrapport, for alt er jo fortsat indlysende, ikke?

Desværre er disse generalistiske, indsigtsblinde organisationsentreprenører ikke alene, når vi taler om Forsvaret. Al for mange – også af organisationens højeste grader – er kun professionsbærere i den forstand, at de optræder i uniform som kejserens nye klær. De har overset, at en profession ikke sikres gennem det par teoretiske kurser, der stempler ud til forfremmelse. Den opretholdes for officerer som for læger kun gennem livslang kritisk og åben nysgerrighed, konstant flid og studier, hvor egen og andres praktisk erfaringer og voksende modenhed giver grundlag for stadig større indsigt. I deres skadelige selvtilfredshed følte de aldrig behov for faglig debatdeltagelse, klarede sig ved at tilegne sig Alliancens og Finansministeriets skiftende buzzwords og sikrede gennem deres destruktive eksempel, at den efterfølgende generation er blevet som de selv. De har nu specielt i hæren skabt en træg masse, der ikke har bevaret evnen til faglig genopbygning. Forsvaret er takket være dem og deres samarbejde med den første gruppe af “innovatorer” langt mere ødelagt og mere demoraliseret, end hvis en udenlandsk fjende havde gjort det under en besættelse.

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Et konkret resultat af de to gruppers samarbejde er følgende: For 25 år siden havde Danmark det bedste officersuddannelsessystem i landets historie, og den resterende generelle videregående uddannelse var – selv efter lukning af et niveau for at spare penge – så god, at den søgtes af udlandet, selv om eleverne skulle kunne dansk eller et andet nordisk sprog for at gennemføre den. Det centrale resterende problem var, at man ikke havde vilje til at begrænse elevskaren til de motiverede og kvalificerede, hvilket gjorde uddannelsen dobbelt så dyr og fraværsbelastende for enhederne, som den burde have været, og de uegnede og umotiverede hæmmede den fulde udnyttelse af rammen.

Nu er den grundlæggende teoretiske officersuddannelse på niveau med uddannelsen til menig politibetjent, men i modsætning til i politiet indeholder forsvaret meget begrænsede rammer for den relevante praktik, der skal konsolidere fagligheden. Nødvendige efteruddannelser er ved at blive fjernet. Den videregående uddannelse er nu blevet en professionsfjern og substansløs samling af teoretiske moduler, gennemgået uden, at der stilles krav om reelle adgangsforudsætninger, hårdt arbejde eller fordybelse. Tilbage er en blanding af fjernundervisning og tilstedeværelse til lidt orientering og diskussion. En uddannelse, der hverken kvalificerer til professionel indsats eller til relevant civil beskæftigelse. I politiet vil både efteruddannelser og muligheden for at tage en juridisk akademisk uddannelse være fagligt meningsfuldt.

Men når den evige fred er på vej, er det jo ligegyldigt, bortset fra de mange milliarder der spildes og den øgede risiko for landet, de ansatte og deres familier, og ligegyldigheden over for vores mere udsatte allierede, som tabet af faglighed indebærer, indtil dette mål nås.

On the accelerated Russian Military Build-up: the strategy history perspective

It happens in all fields:
* In the modernisation of large stocks of good late Cold War equipment to make them better than the majority of Western systems and less vulnerable to these.
* In massive exercises such as the current Zapad 2017.
* In the creation of new forward deployment bases.
* In the consolidation of ever more effective bastions in places such as Kaliningrad Oblast and Crimea.
* In the effective and self-critical lessons-learning from the Syrian experience.
* In the comprehensive testing of both strategic cyber warfare and tactical reconnaissance-strike systems in the Ukraine.
* In the creation of new large formation and the re-focusing of the conscript based reserve element to make the forces robust.
* In the creation of large heavy lift tank transporter units to make fast and flexible forward deployment possible.

The dynamic military reformer Nikolai Ogarkov, who tried to adjust to the Western Surge and his current successor Valery Gerasimov, who can benefit from a Russian military military reboot that has still not inspired the West to take the challenge seriously.

What Valery Gerasimov is doing now is similar to what Nikolai Ogarkov did during his years as General Staff Chief from 1977 to 1984 with his Operational Manoeuvre Group and enhanced readiness package: Not preparing for an inevitable war, but for a “Victory in Europe”-chance if war becomes inevitable or necessary for the state.

This is the key duty of any serious armed forces’ leader … in case the reader has forgotten.

The accelerated Gerasimov effort requires “full spectrum” preparations in all fields – geo-strategic, information, cyber warfare, conventional operational and logistic, etc. – as always built on the Military Doctrine’s scientific analysis of enemy’s and own developing strengths and weaknesses in all fields.

The correlation of forces is presently in Russia’s favour and shifting even further in that direction:

1) Compared to 35 years back, the U.S. armed forces are unable to maintain the number of units. The costs of replacing existing platforms and systems – especially but not only in the USN – have become prohibitively high. No matter what Trump does to change the trends by am increased Pentagon budget, he cannot find funds for approaching what Reagan and his Naval Secretary did then. The life extension potential for many platforms is limited, and the sums required for just maintaining all systems and reach what Russia has achieved since 2008 are staggering. Western catching-up with what has been lost in the last twenty years in the electronic warfare field and in high intensity warfare professionalism in officer command cadres may take a full decade (if we started, now which we don’t).

Unfortunately Gerasimov will not allow his navy to build a “luxury fleet” such as Gorshkov’s that might have triggered a bout of USN creativeness to maintain quantity at a “good enough” platform level rather than insisting on the prohibitively costly sublime.

2) The U.S. can no longer pull forces from the Pacific. It cannot concentrate to Europe and the Atlantic in the way in did after the Vietnam War. Now China is likely to take advantage of any concentration towards the east of the far more limited forces. The American situation is that of 1941-42.

3) Then the U.S. had far more militarily robust allies in Europe. It was before the German Armed Forces were reduced to under-trained remnants counting working hours waiting for weapon systems in various private workshops to prove willingness to out-sourcing/before the conventional British Forces dropped all focus and capabilities for conventional deterrence and fighting/before the French conventional Armed Forces lost the remaining ability beyond internal security at home and in the former colonies. Even smaller NATO member states had meaningful forces in the 1980s. That is no longer the case.

So where Ogarkov’s task was tough, Gerasimov’s is less so. However, both were limited by the lack of economic sustainability of his Military Doctrine. Ogarkov’s window of opportunity was closed in autumn 1983 and he was moved by Andropov’s frightened successor early the next year. If or when Gerasimov’s window is closing is an open question.

Putin’s physical and political health seems to be a good deal more robust than his predecessor Andropov’s was in autumn 1983.

So far NATO members have tried optimistically with some flimsy window dressing. Cannot do much more with the resources available.

A Simple Model for National Strategy Discourse

Just for information my latest fully “Clausewizian” version of a total strategy model … as a framework for understanding what has been missing in Western strategy making in a quarter century.

The original – more naïve – version below was used in my strategy and military doctrine development lecturing for many years. It had been developed three decades back from Général André Beaufre’s classical total strategy model.

Why Russia Cannot be Appeased … and What Then

In order to find a way to co-operate with Russia, one has to understand how the present and coming elite have come to see, reject and counter the West.

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In the present Russian leaders’ understanding the Soviet Union Empire did not only collapse in 1991 as a result of the economic crisis and the leadership’s loss of belief in their project’s future. They believe that it also happened due to deliberate actions of hostile forces in the West, mainly the U.S. They exploited the weak – and thus bad – Soviet leaders and illoyal small nations such as the Baltic peoples and – much worse – the Ukrainian nationalists to achieve their aim of depriving Russia of her rightful place in the World. These hostile forces continued their work until finally found out and confronted by Vladimir Putin, the new strong and thus good Russian leader that joined the former great rulers that pulled a weakened country out of crisis and moved it towards revival such as Ivan Grozny, Peter the Great, Katherine the Great and Josef Stalin.

The present Russian leaders consider a state and its leaders as hypocritical or naïve if not built on power and not exploiting all tools to enhance its position in its region and the world. The idea that human beings or states can work in equal partnership for common good is a false mirage exploited by the stronger, as the U.S. did with Russia in its period of weakness.

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In domestic repression this includes employment of such types as the Chechnyan dictator Ramzan Kadyrov and his henchmen

All relationships are built on power between the dominant side and the dependent client. Thus the EU and NATO are just intelligently manipulated fronts of U.S. power employed to weaken Russia and other states that stand up to it. The whole concept of democracy, the liberal civil society and its trimmings of equality of opportunity, justice and a free press is meant to undermine opposition to America gaining world power. The notion of such positive values are employed in a hybrid tandem with open and unilateral use of own or client military power to enhance U.S. power as against Serbia in 1999 and against Iraq in 2003. What happened in Ukraine in 2014 was a successful Russian response to an American attempt to move the Ukraine from the natural, historically rightful Russian client status to that of the U.S. Here the U.S. initially used non-military means in the spectrum of total, hybrid warfare, employing the “front” of Western sponsored NGO.

The whole set of liberal ideas of truth and historical truth is seen as fundamentally naïve and false. The truth is what furthers the aims and power of your country and the internal power of the leader group. The Soviets were basically limited in their propaganda by their commitment to the class struggle where something was just and right – others actions unjust and wrong. Not so the present Russian leaders.

What serves the promotion of relative Russian power and leadership control is justified. This includes suppression of the free press and any political opposition. It also justifies the full exploitation of the media plus any opposition in the naïve Western societies to further division there and undermine the influence of the U.S. establishment and its allies in the rest of the West.

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Actually the Russians have never fought the I.S. Her actions in first Chechnya and thereafter Syria have nourished and worsened the Islamic problem of especially Europe. In spite of this Putin has been successful in presenting Russia as the natural anti-Islamic and fellow xenophobic ally of right-populist forces such as UKIP, Front Nationale, Alternative für Deutschland, Viktor Orbán’s version of Fidesz and Denmark’s “Dansk Folkeparti“. That Putin actually agrees fully with Islamic groups’ contempt and rejection of our ridiculous, anti-macho, and naïve progressive societies cannot be formally recognised by these allies as this will expose their less than full commitment to the values of their societies.

The Russians consider themselves at war with the West, a total if still not open fighting war that we started as already described. Therefore any means to undermine our already weakened cohesion is legitimate, as it will change the correlation of forces in Russia’s favour. A simple and often effective means is to corrupt our leaders by offering personal economic benefits for acting in support of Russia rather than in the interest of your country. The German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a notable example. Others can be found in both Eastern and Western Europe.

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Since late 2011 Russian-speaking minorities have been targeted in a constant propaganda and disinformation campaign meant to develop and strengthen their inherent pride in Russian resurgence and undermine their loyalty to their state of residence.
Aggressive military body-language and explicit threats to use military force to support Russian interests are routinely employed, including the threat of nuclear weapons. The de facto open use of the Russian military in 1999-2000 in Chechnya, 2008 in Georgia, after 2014 in Crimea and the Donbass and since 2015 in Syria has underlined Russian determination to change the world order in Russia’s favour.

During the last years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. tried constantly to reset the relationship with Russia in a positive direction, including by deliberately limiting the American support of the Ukraine to further the progress towards a compromise with Russia. However, at the same time as pressing the Ukrainians to compromise, both the U.S., Canada and the EU has worked hard to reform Ukraine into a Western type of country by confronting the rampant corruption and creating transparent economic and government structures.

By strengthened civil society in the Ukraine, the West has emphasised its hostility to Russia, because by spreading the naïve notion of fair, free, just societies, we have been doing just what the Russian leaders want us to stop because it is the continuation of the “hybrid warfare” campaign that rolled back Russian control over its empire from 1988 until 2008.

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The forward basing of symbolic NATO forces in the Baltics and elsewhere as agreed at the Warsaw Summit should not be seen as a hostile military act, even if is presented as such by the Russians to both the always fairness-seeking, anti-military Westerners and the Putin-supporters that apparently long for the adoption at home of his model repression of the liberal and permissive anti-macho societies. The deployment is a hostile act from our Russian perspective because it will reinforce local determination to resist pressure to enter into the traditional, corruption nourished client relationship that Russia considers natural.

In order to deal with Russia in the future, as we have to do to avoid a misunderstanding that can lead to catastrophe, we have to understand that what Russia considers a threat are the liberal institutions and values that we have spent hundreds of years to consolidate. That is what the Russian leaders work so energetically to destroy, because they correctly senses our loss of focus and will. Russia will seek to undermine our remaining defence cooperation in NATO, not to reduce any military threat, but to gain freedom to roll back the civil liberties in the neighbouring states by all required and suitable means and thereby recreate the corrupt and illiberal great power environment that existed before the First World War.

Let us understand that Russia’s objective is to poison liberal democracies to remove the threat they present to his power and Putin’s country’s ambitions. Let us face that this is incompatible with our interests. Giving the Russians what they really want, appeasing them by no longer being a visible systemic threat, will require the self-destruction of our democratic political system. Even making the superficially limited concession of allowing them to corrupt and crush the aspirations for freedom and justice of such peoples as the Ukrainians will mean that we have quietly surrendered what we should stand for and created dangerous doubt about whether and when we will be willing to stand-up for anything.

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(Finnish soldiers)

If we understood and accepted this and gathered the will to act accordingly, then we could develop and follow a policy of peaceful coexistence with Russia, formally respecting her as the world power she continued to be.

If we found that will, we could base such a policy on a minimum nuclear deterrent and robust defensive conventional military posture with an area denial capability like the Finnish. We would then follow a policy that would include co-operation against common threats in such fields of climate change, nuclear proliferation and common real action against Islamic and other terror.

On NATO Burden Sharing to an old Estonian Friend

He suggested that it was understandable that Americans such as Trump were critical of the defence spending of nearly all European Allies. I agree, but also underlined both that the situation had a background in recent history of the Alliance and that a rise it defence spending east of the Atlantic because of that history would not necessarily help in the real requirement, namely of creating capable militaries out of the present inert, over-staffed Potemkin Villages:

From the start of NATO during the Korean War, the U.S. paid the most. The Continental European partners did something else: they committed their full manpower as conscripts and prepared their economies for defence support within the framework of “total defence”. They also took the risk of making their countries available as the main East-West battlefield and thus faced the total destruction.

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The U.S. also paid more because as now it was a global power that also had the Pacific theatre to worry about.

In NATO the U.S. was “paid” by having the near total power to decide what happened, and it earned money on producing nearly all hardware of the Allies.

When the Cold War ended, the U.S. (and UK) used that dominating influence to declare that history had ended and the maintenance of conscription was both anachronistic and waste of money. T Keeping conscription was incompatible with membership of the Alliance. Total defence preparations were therefore unnecessary and improper in the globalised liberal economies of the future.

Of the new Central and Eastern European NATO Member States only Estonia kept conscription. The background was the Finnish example that influenced the main architect of the defence forces, former Soviet tank Polkovnik, later Estonian General, Ants Laaneots. This strong character professional convinced his friend Andrus Ansip and the rest of Reformerakond, the Liberal Party, that he was right, because history might not have ended after all.

Most European Allies were happy to comply, advised by shallow-thinking civil servants convinced that history was irrelevant in this Post-Modern Era. The Ministries of Finance applauded. Now the important part of Alliance solidarity was a willingness and to send your soldiers into harm’s way on American Campaigns.

This both your and my country did, and in Afghanistan both Estonia and Denmark had a higher percentage of their contingents killed than the rest, because we served in the Helmand Province where the U.S. avoided striking the Taliban bases in the Quetta area not to offend Pakistan.

We both showed the required solidarity in campaigns devoid of sound and realistic U.S. strategies for success. The result of the loss of conscription and the adoption of U.S.-type grotesquely over-officered peace time staffs meant the loss of balance between number of cadre and number of units with practical service experience opportunities, the loss of combined-arm balance as well as capable logistic units and the disappearance of reserve structures. All European members concentrated on learning and applying the latest NATO (ex-U.S.) buzzwords in the running of their forces. They forgot that in military organisations what counts is the output in capable and sustainable war structure forces, not the defence budget percent of GDP.

If you have unsound structures such as the Continental NATO members now, a budget increase does not necessarily lead to more military effect.

Now we realised and are told that history did not end, that Article 5 is relevant after all, and that the U.S. expect us to have the initial defence forces that the U.S. and Brits told us to abolish in the 1990s. Suddenly solidarity is no longer a matter of symbolic presence in American campaigns, it is about a budget contributions. This Burden-Sharing balancing that amateurs in and without uniforms ask for will not give defence or deterrence without a fundamental re-booting of structures developed since the end of the former Cold War.

History Repeated to Threaten Our Future …. Again

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Franco and Hitler, formerly the preferred Allies of populist nationalists in both Europe and America (such as Charles Lindberg) against the perceived main threat. As with Putin now, they could underline that Franco acted in support of the Church and Christian values.

During the Interwar Period, Western liberal democracies were threatened by totalitarian/authoritarian forces from both left and right, but very few were willing confront the double challenge (with the core parts of the Nordic and German Social-Democratic Parties as the notable exceptions).

One example: During the mid-1930s the Danish Social-Democratic led Government asked the State Security Police to report on the threats to the Denmark from both the totalitarian Right (Nazi Germany) and from the International Communist Movement and the Danish Communist Party. The report underlined the different character of the two threats, but saw both as extremely serious.

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The Social-Democratic Party parliamentary election poster from 1935, the year of the State Security Police two parallel threats report, showing the Prime Minister, Thorvald Stauning. The text reads “Stauning or Chaos. Vote for the Social-Democratic Party”.

Large parts of the Centre-Right forces allied themselves with the totalitarian Right. Communists, and democratic Socialists were grouped together as enemies. In the same way Centre-Left forces allied themselves with the Communists and Popular Front movements against both democratic Conservative and Fascist Forces.

Now we see the same destructive hunt for dangerous simplicity. In their hatred and fear of the destruction of their way of life by Muslims and other Migrants, Centre-Right political forces (both fundamentalist economic Liberals and Conservatives) want to ally themselves with Putin’s Russia, incapable of realising that she is as hostile to their safe future as the Islamists. Actually the Russian view of individual liberty is a mirror of that of the Islamic forces. The urge for simplicity that formerly meant that Communist and democratic Socialists (and Jews) were grouped together means that all Muslims and other migrants and other foreigners are seen and treated as enemies, thereby threatening to make this an unmanageable reality.

Unfortunately the populist Danish People’s Party spokesmen and supporters have now joined Front National, UKIP and the White Power part of Trump’s supporters.

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A later use of the same motive from a “Dansk Folkeparti” election poster, the populist Centre-Right Party that now have joined their fellows in “understanding” and support for Putin.

On other side we see the Left being incapable of seeing and treating Radical Immigrants as a problem and challenge to their future. Thereby they mirror the self-destructive naïvity of the former Popular Fronts.

The only positive sign is that some Social Democrats seem to realise once more that two evils have to be confronted at the same time. However, the Social Democratic movements are far less powerful than 80-90 years back, and the media’s Facebook-reinforced hunt for Red/Left-Blue/Right simplicity undermine the move towards what is now desperately needed.

With the Leukemia of Lies in the Blood

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We are being exposed to classical campaign of misinformation and deliberate lies meant to undermine both national political effectiveness by radicalisation and the ability to cooperate in Europe and with the Americans. Classical in the sense that it mirrors what the Bolsheviks did in the 1920s, the Nazists did in the 1930s, the North Vietnamese did from the later 1960s and what Islamists have done to our Muslim minorities the last quarter century.

Accelerating with Russia’s Crimea coup invasion and her creation of a Ukrainian bleeding ulcer in the Donbass, the West and especially Europe became exposed to a both massive and flexible campaign that uses both the traditional media and the opportunities created by the internet and social media.

The campaign is both supplemented and supported by direct political and when possible economic support to radical nationalists and brother semi-Fascists such France’s Marine le Pen, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Greece’s “Golden Dawn“, opportunistic power-seekers as Donald Trump, normal separatists such as the Scottish National Party and anti-American old-leftists as Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn.

The point here is to argue why the campaign is so effective.

The first reason that the Post-Modern part of our academic elite that grew out of the radical left-wing intellectual movement of the 1970s rejected and successfully abolished the national and common Western narratives of The Second World War and the Cold War. The narratives had nourished the development of the EU and kept the Western Alliance together during the extreme stress of the early 1980s. What followed was a loss of a common moral history and an open-minded emphasis that all views and narratives had equal and legitimate value. There were no real fact, positions were academic constructions. There no longer existed a common framework of reference. Putin and Lavrov were probably as right as everybody else, and it is legitimate to agree with them without any seeking an irrelevant and elusive “truth“.

The second reason is derived from the first. History is no longer a warning of what might happen if we act stupidly. Global Warning is seen as certain if we do not act now, but progress and common sense is considered to mean that we have learnt that international war between will never happen again, at least not in Europe. Not only will war not happen, but our leaders agree the only problems we may meet are those of recent years: a temporary collapse of economic growth due to unrestricted greed, some terror that is not likely to hit you personally and masses of migrants. With the loss of history comes the loss of ability and will see and address awkward painful “hypothetical” developments such as the likelihood that the egoistic departure from cooperation in the EU would lead to the erosion of the the obvious benefits all have enjoyed.

As all will be OK no matter how stupidly and uninformed we act, there is no real reason not to keep our open-minded and liberal attitude to lies and misinformation. Aren’t lies and misinformation just words?

Even if the EU erodes, benefits must remain. Surely?

Even if Great Britain exits with Putin’s support, Scotland will remain to enjoy the more free rule from London. Right?

Even if Scotland leaves with Russian encouragement, Rump Britain will somehow remain as a military power, at least until Old Labour takes over with Russian blessing. Certainly?

By a miracle NATO must survive and Russia be prevented from exploiting the regression into the situation of the late 19th Century?

And there can be no regression into something as anachronistic as international war. Definitely?

My only problem is that logics and sense of history makes me unable to see how. So maybe its a good idea to return to a less relativistic concept of truth.

ostrich

Sorry that I have to worry you even more

Our main problem in Europe is now that some key member states of the alliance are already moving towards political profiles that match what Putin would like to see: de-democratized, countries ruled by ever more corrupt self-interested leaders that would hate “colour-revolutions” as much as he, leaders that rule by opportunistic manipulation of own populations, using regressive nationalistic propaganda.

This is quickly undermining the unity of purpose the drove the NATO and EU expansion of 2004.

Erdogan’s Turkey is quickly becoming an autocratic clone of Russia. The country’s foreign policy under him in relation to Russia is as unstable as it was in relation to the Middle East, where it has now suddenly returned to the traditional alliance with Israel after years of opportunistic confrontation. This development may be considered positive, but the shifts took place within a framework of autocratic-kleptocratic manoeuvring to stay in power like that of Milosovic.

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are all on the way to follow the tracks of the 1930s away from democracy towards nationalistic “guided” democracies. Fortunately the Balts have not been infected so far.

Both France and Britain are on unpredictable trajections towards selfish isolationism intoxicated by delusions of former grandeur, and Germany is quickly losing the political stability and sense of purpose that has lasted six decades.

After Sander’s last victory we have a very clear impression of the fundamental character of the political crisis in the U.S. Even when Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she will be tainted by having to move left in an opportunistic attempt attract Sander’s supporters as well as both left and right to address the challenge from Trump. We still lack good analyses of how the basically unfocused, anarchistic popular reaction against the political and economic elite will affect the post-elections’ Congress.

The military intellectual and physical weakness outlined in the previous blog article is mirroring a loss of purpose of the Western world. We are fast self-destructing before Putin’s (and Erdogan’s) eyes.

The West is experiencing a combination of the spring 1914 optimism that a great war would naturally be avoided and the fast collapse of popular and elite belief in modernity and international co-operation we saw in the mid-1930s.
The main problem avoiding an even worse rerun of what happened then is that both politicians and their civilian and uniformed advisors seem to have lost the ability and will to foresee the more likely outcomes of trends and decisions.

That ability used to be the core of strategic decision-making and crisis management preparations. Now all react to events as if they were natural disasters that could not be foreseen or averted. The military have lost the ability to make campaign planning that is not a one-sided procedure driven, linear logic activity, and the civilian advisors are theoretical political scientists, corporate lawyers or economists.

Those few who do react miss the disturbing over-all picture and focus on details such as countering trolls and developing fancy new technologies that may become an answer in a decade if the opposition does not act or react in the meantime.

So we are a-historical sleep-walkers, who have lost the ability to plan and act on the strategic level.