Why Putin Must Be Defeated

by Guy Millière
July 24, 2022 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18740/putin-must-be-defeated

• The Ukrainian military urgently needs long-range air defenses and longer-range artillery. It does not have them.

• [Zelensky] said he wanted the war over before Russia could rebuild its forces, and that each additional day of war meant more death and destruction. Above all, he said, not only Ukraine is at stake, but the security and values ​​of the West.

• "History teaches that prolonged conflicts bleed both sides, but dictatorships have an advantage over democracies. They are not accountable to their societies and can pay the price of blood, even with opposition from their citizens.... Does the transatlantic free world still want to occupy a position of leadership? Do we still believe in the universality of values ​​such as freedom and the right of national self-determination?" — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Politico, June 27, 2022.

• The almost total destruction of entire cities... has no precedent in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Neither do the horrific war crimes committed in Bucha and other towns on the outskirts of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Nearly two million Ukrainians have been deported and sent to Russia, with some in detention camps in Siberia.... The invasion of Ukraine without a declaration of war is itself a war crime.

• The Baltic states, Finland, Sweden and Poland have every reason to feel threatened: if Putin is not defeated, he will not stop at Ukraine.

• Russia, in 1994, signed the Budapest Memorandum, committing itself to respect the borders of Ukraine. Twenty years later, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and created secessionist militia in the Donbass. In 2022, Putin showed that the Budapest Memorandum had absolutely no meaning for him.

• Putin is leading a campaign of annihilating Ukraine's infrastructure and industrial base. He appears to want Ukraine to become a ruined, non-viable country, virtually impossible to rebuild because the costs would be too high. The more time passes, the higher the costs.

• To achieve his ends, Putin is apparently perfectly willing to hold hundreds of millions of innocent people hostage, and even sentence them to death by starvation. Meanwhile, his propaganda services cynically claim to the countries concerned that the risk of famine results from the Western sanctions against Russia.

• Failing to give Ukraine every means to win... or letting a stalemate set in -- or even worse -- rewarding Russian aggression by ceding Ukraine's Donbass and declaring that Russia had "won", would effectively be announcing to China and all the enemies of the Western world that the power of the West and its ability to command respect belong in the past. Such an outcome would also be telling them that the rules of international law established after the Second World War, and the values ​​that the Western world claims to embody, are now rules and values ​​that the West is incapable of defending.

• A war only ends when there is a winner and a loser. In the present situation, Putin is the ruthless aggressor who tramples all the rules and values of the West. He must be defeated. If he is not, the consequences will not be limited to Ukraine. They will be devastating.

• The Russian military is not invincible. On the contrary, it has shown itself to be extremely deficient and vulnerable. It is the army of a weak state: Russia's GDP is lower than that of Italy. The Russian army can be crushed and the murderous destruction inflicted on Ukraine can end. What is missing is the clear and concrete will from the West. The United States must lead.

• In Madrid, Biden said, "We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to, in fact, make sure that they are not defeated". He did not say what he should have said, had he wanted to show some strength: Ukraine must win. If it receives the required armaments, Ukraine will win.

• Only an American president has the political and military means to show strength in a credible way. It is tragic that the United States has a weak president just when the future of the world is threatened by so many predatory regimes -- all doubtless aware of the small but irresistible window they have at this time.

• "We must aid Ukraine, for to do so in part is our first duty to America and to Americans.... By supporting Ukraine, we prevent larger European conflict. A war that would almost certainly involve America's military because we have a deep commitment to the NATO treaty and Article Five therein." — Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

• "Putin will not stop, unless he is stopped... if the West is aware of what is at stake and sees this war as its own, then this price is not too high. After all, Ukrainians are paying a much higher price. Ukrainians have no choice, since they are defending their country. But the West has no choice either—it is about its future as a community, driven by values ​​and the ability to project these values ​​globally." — Iryna Solonenko, Senior Fellow at the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod), Berlin, Internationale Politik Quarterly, April 13, 2022.

The almost total destruction of entire cities in Ukraine has no precedent in Europe since the end of the Second World War. The Ukrainian military urgently needs long-range air defenses and longer-range artillery. It does not have them. Pictured: A Ukrainian soldier passes by a destroyed building in the Ukrainian town of Siversk, Donetsk region on July 22, 2022. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images)

May 9, Moscow. The annual military Victory Day Parade was held in Red Square, but with fewer soldiers and military vehicles than in other years. The parade had been cut by 35%. Russian President Vladimir Putin's short, sober speech tried to justify the war of aggression he had launched against Ukraine on February 24.

Putin seemed on the verge of defeat. A month earlier, in an apparent debacle, the Russian Army had hastily left the Kyiv area. Countless Russian soldiers had been wounded and killed; the loss of military equipment was unimaginable. A report from the UK Ministry of Defence on May 15 said that Russia had lost a third of its combat forces and much of its heavy equipment.

On May 14, Russian troops withdrew from ​​Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city; they had been pushed back by Ukrainian forces to the Russian border. Russia's only "victory" was the total destruction of the city of Mariupol, by the Sea of ​​Azov. Communications intercepted by American intelligence services showed that the Russian military had a low morale and that cases of insubordination, mutiny, and refusal to obey orders had multiplied. Russian generals had been killed at the front.

Russian forces then began concentrating their efforts on the Donbass and has been waging a war of attrition ever since. Much of Russia's modern military equipment has been destroyed; its older equipment dates from the 1960s, but Putin has lots of bombs. Russia has now been bombing Ukrainian positions for weeks. It advances just a little but destroys everything in its path. It has razed not only much of Mariupol, but also Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

The Ukrainian Army courageously resists, but does not have enough heavy weapons to end the destruction, stop Russia's offensive or carry out an effective counter-offensive.

Putin seems to be counting on time; he seems betting that the Western world will lose interest in Ukraine and turn to other matters.

The Biden administration at first seemed ready endorse regime change in Kyiv, and US officials even offered Zelensky safe passage out of the country. Zelensky famously answered, "I need ammunition, not a ride."

When it appeared that the Russian Army was failing and that Zelensky had succeeded in mobilizing the opinion of the Western world, Biden finally supported Ukraine -- but certain categories of American weapons that Ukraine had asked for were supplied late or not at all. Ukraine, for instance, had requested HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) -- essential to countering Russian artillery -- as early as March. Biden sent four units, but before sending them asked that their range be limited to 50 miles. Recently, four additional HIMARS units were sent, and four more are reportedly to be sent soon. That makes 12 units in all -- far too few to reverse the balance of power on the battlefield. The Ukrainian military urgently needs long-range air defenses and longer-range artillery. It does not have them.

European NATO member countries also supported Ukraine and sent weapons, but no European country has a sufficiently powerful military or a significant amount of materiel. While the countries of Central Europe, the Baltic states and the United Kingdom took a firm stand from the start and said that Putin had to be defeated, the large countries of Western Europe -- France, Germany and Italy -- initially sought to appease Putin. They gave Ukraine only part of the materiel and with extreme reluctance. French President Emmanuel Macron opined that Putin should not be "humiliated," although Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled to Kyiv on June 16 supposedly to show support.

Two international meetings recently took place. The leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States -- meeting in Germany on June 27, reaffirmed their support for Ukraine "for as long as it takes". A NATO summit was held two days later in Madrid, Spain, where the summit's Final Communiqué stated:

"We condemn Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. It gravely undermines international security and stability. It is a blatant violation of international law... Russia must immediately stop this war and withdraw from Ukraine... We reiterate our unwavering support for Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders extending to its territorial waters... The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies' security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area."

The Communiqué also defined Ukraine as a "close partner" of NATO.

An international conference was organized on July 4 in Lugano, Switzerland to envision the reconstruction of Ukraine. The destruction perpetrated by Russia has so far been valued at $750 billion. Discussing reconstruction when the war is not even over is, to say the least, a bit premature. The destruction continues.

The statements made in Germany and Spain, albeit important, will remain just statements if they do not lead to acts fully consistent with their words.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at both the G7 and NATO summits. He said he wanted the war over before Russia could rebuild its forces, and that each additional day of war meant more death and destruction. Above all, he said, not only Ukraine is at stake, but the security and values ​​of the West.

Similar ideas were recently expressed in a June 27 column written by Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki:

"Without more forceful intervention in Ukraine's war, the consequences for the U.S. and Europe could be devastating....

"History teaches that prolonged conflicts bleed both sides, but dictatorships have an advantage over democracies. They are not accountable to their societies and can pay the price of blood, even with opposition from their citizens...

"The war in Ukraine puts before us one crucial question: Does the transatlantic free world still want to occupy a position of leadership? Do we still believe in the universality of values ​​such as freedom and the right of national self-determination?"

The security and values ​​of the Western world are unquestionably at stake, as are the leadership of the transatlantic free world and values ​​such as freedom and the right of national self-determination. If they are not defended with force and conviction in Ukraine, they may well not survive.

The near total destruction of entire cities, along with civilian homes, has no precedent in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Neither do the horrific war crimes committed in Bucha and other towns on the outskirts of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Nearly two million Ukrainians have been deported and sent to Russia, with some in detention camps in Siberia, thousands of miles from their homes and country. The accumulation of crimes committed by Russia since February 24 has led legal scholars to say that Russia is committing genocide, and the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in America and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Canada published a damning report on the subject. The invasion of Ukraine without a declaration of war is itself a war crime.

Putin, in a recent speech, compared himself to Tsar Peter the Great and equated Russia's invasion of Ukraine with Peter's expansionist wars three centuries ago. The Baltic states, Finland, Sweden and Poland have every reason to feel threatened: if Putin is not defeated, he will not stop at Ukraine.

The statements made by propagandists of the Putin regime on Russian state television daily, in a hateful tone, evoke extremely bad associations -- as, to deter the West, they are doubtless intended to do. They imply the destruction and enslavement of the whole of Europe, as well as nuclear attacks against France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went so far as to say that Russia can end the existence of mankind.

Russia, in 1994, signed the Budapest Memorandum, committing itself to respect the borders of Ukraine. Twenty years later, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and created secessionist militia in the Donbass. In 2022, Putin showed that the Budapest Memorandum had absolutely no meaning for him.

Putin is leading a campaign of annihilating Ukraine's infrastructure and industrial base. He appears to want Ukraine to become a ruined, non-viable country, virtually impossible to rebuild because the costs would be too high. The more time passes, the higher the costs.

Putin is preventing the export of Ukrainian wheat and is threatening to create widespread famine and major unrest in many of the poorest countries in the Arab world, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. He is exercising unprecedented blackmail, telling Western countries that he will allow the delivery of wheat only if the sanctions on Russia are lifted. To achieve his ends, Putin is apparently perfectly willing to hold hundreds of millions of innocent people hostage, and even sentence them to death by starvation. Meanwhile, his propaganda services cynically claim to the countries concerned that the risk of famine results from the Western sanctions against Russia.

China did not and will not intervene militarily in Ukraine, yet it remains Russia's helpful ally. Chinese President Xi Jinping does not hide his ambitions of world domination and servitude for the rest of us. The agreement signed by Putin and Xi on February 4 in Beijing, three weeks before Putin attacked Ukraine, draws the contours of a new world order within which the notions of freedom, democracy and rule of law would no longer have any meaning. The enemies of the Western world are watching. Several of them -- North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran – have allied with Russia and China.

The Biden administration, since coming to power, has shown little but weakness; America's spectacular debacle in Afghanistan revealed extreme weakness. The Western world is losing ground. In 1975, when the G7 was created, its members accounted for 70% of the world's GDP. Today, they represent just over 40% of it.

The words spoken in Germany and Spain were filled with strength. Failing to give Ukraine every means to win, however, or letting a stalemate set in -- or even worse -- rewarding Russian aggression by ceding Ukraine's Donbass and declaring that Russia had "won", would effectively be announcing to China and all the enemies of the Western world that the power of the West and its ability to command respect belong in the past. Such an outcome would also be telling them that the rules of international law established after the Second World War, and the values ​​that the Western world claims to embody, are now rules and values ​​that the West is incapable of defending.

A war only ends when there is a winner and a loser. In the present situation, Putin is the ruthless aggressor who tramples all the rules and values of the West. He must be defeated. If he is not, the consequences will not be limited to Ukraine. They will be devastating.

The Russian military is not invincible. On the contrary, it has shown itself to be extremely deficient and vulnerable. It is the army of a weak state: Russia's GDP is lower than that of Italy. The Russian army can be crushed and the murderous destruction inflicted on Ukraine can end. What is missing is the clear and concrete will from the West. The United States must lead.

In Madrid, Biden said, "We are going to stick with Ukraine, and all of the alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to, in fact, make sure that they are not defeated". He did not say what he should have said, had he wanted to show some strength: Ukraine must win. If it receives the required armaments, Ukraine will win.

That Biden could show some strength is far from certain. Only an American president has the political and military means to show strength in a credible way. It is tragic that the United States has a weak president just when the future of the world is threatened by so many predatory regimes -- all doubtless aware of the small but irresistible window they have at this time.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an inflection point in the post-Cold War politics", former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said.

"Vladimir Putin's utter lack of basic humanity ensures that as long as he remains in power, Russia will be virtual prison and no nation that borders its expanse will ever be safe... We can do what President Zelenskyy has asked. We must aid Ukraine, for to do so in part is our first duty to America and to Americans.... By supporting Ukraine, we prevent larger European conflict. A war that would almost certainly involve America's military because we have a deep commitment to the NATO treaty and Article Five therein. By helping Ukraine, we prevent Russia's reconstitution of the Soviet Empire... In 2005, Putin declared the demise of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest tragedies in history. In 2007, he enunciated his rationale for conquest in terms that would be familiar to dictators who ruled Europe almost 90 years ago. Putin's been consistent. He's been consistent in his revanchist objectives. In Grozny in 1999. In Georgia in 2008. And in Ukraine in 2014... A mass murderer is someone who kills a large number of people at one time. A serial killer murders sequentially. Only in war therefore can a man be both a mass murderer and a serial killer. Putin is that. I pray that Russia will reclaim its soul, its country's soul. But it cannot do so as long it is led by a man who does not evince any concern for the horrific carnage he has wrought, or any concern for his own people."

"Ukraine's fight is also a fight for the West's future...", wrote Iryna Solonenko, Senior Fellow at the Zentrum Liberale Moderne (LibMod) in Berlin.

"Putin will not stop, unless he is stopped... Economic inconvenience and stress, resulting from the need to go beyond the usual bureaucratic procedures, are part of the price that needs to be paid. Yet, if the West is aware of what is at stake and sees this war as its own, then this price is not too high. After all, Ukrainians are paying a much higher price. Ukrainians have no choice, since they are defending their country. But the West has no choice either—it is about its future as a community, driven by values ​​and the ability to project these values ​​globally."

Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.

 

 

Is the Jewish Democratic Council Really Jewish - or Just Democrats?

by Alan M. Dershowitz
August 3, 2022 at 9:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18772/jewish-democratic-council

• This organization -- the Jewish Democratic Council -- is misnamed. It recruits members and solicits money based on false advertising. It promotes itself as comprised of pro-Israel Jews. But the reality is that its leadership consists mainly of progressive Democrats who just happen to be Jewish. For them Israel, Iran and anti-Semitism are peripheral issues.

• That is increasingly true of many Democratic Jewish voters who prioritize other concerns over Israel, over the growing threat of anti-Semitism from the hard left and hard right, and over other issues that directly affect the Jewish people.

• [T]hey obviously do not want to hear the perspective of this Jewish Democrat, because the organization is more united behind social policy issues -- abortion, gun control, the environment and the Supreme Court -- than they are about Israel. I was told by two people who attended the event that the word "Israel" was never even mentioned....

• I shake my head in frustration at why so many left-wing Jewish Democrats are willing to abandon Israel and continue to vote blindly for their grandparents' Democratic Party without demanding that it marginalize its anti-Israel extremists.

• We have no loyalty to the current Democrat Party, just as many of its most prominent officials seem to have no loyalty to so many of their Jewish supporters. We certainly should have no loyalty to organizations such as the Jewish Democratic Council that hides its true priorities behind the misleading label "Jewish." There is nothing Jewish about their agenda, which is to elect Democrats regardless of their views on issues of direct concern to the Jewish community and Israel.

The Jewish Democratic Council is misnamed. It recruits members and solicits money based on false advertising. It promotes itself as comprised of pro-Israel Jews. But the reality is that its leadership consists mainly of progressive Democrats who just happen to be Jewish. For them Israel, Iran and anti-Semitism are peripheral issues. (Logo source: Jewish Democratic Council of America/Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 4.0 with modifications)

As President Joe Biden was returning from his productive trip to the Middle East, the Jewish Democratic Council was holding a fundraiser on Martha's Vineyard to support Democratic candidates in the 2022 midterm elections and to help elect a Democratic president in 2024. Former President Bill Clinton and former Senator Hillary Clinton were the guests of honor and speakers, thus suggesting that this organization purports to represent mainstream Jewish Democrats.

But it does not. It represents the left wing of the Democratic Party. It certainly does not represent mainstream Jewish voters who care about Israel and the growing threat of anti-Semitism.

At this so-called "Jewish" event, there was no discussion of Israel, or the existential threat it faces as Iran comes closer to constructing a nuclear arsenal. Nor was there any discussion of the increasing anti-Semitism within the so-called "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party, or of the decreasing support for Israel among some younger Democrats and among some Democratic office holders.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently predicted that Biden might be the last pro-Israel Democratic presidential candidate. Among those being considered to replace Biden either in 2024 or 2028 are several who are stridently anti-Israel and some who are lukewarm. Current Democratic Members of the House include some who wrongly regard Israel as an apartheid state akin to South Africa until 1993, and others who would cut off military assistance to the nation state of the Jewish people. Still others, including some Democratic Senators, are hyper-critical of Israel and want to see a reassessment of United States policy toward our strongest ally in the Middle East.

Had I attended the Martha's Vineyard event, I would have expressed my concerns about the growing abandonment of Israel by the left wing of the Democratic Party. But they obviously do not want to hear the perspective of this Jewish Democrat, because the organization is more united behind social policy issues -- abortion, gun control, the environment and the Supreme Court -- than they are about Israel. I was told by two people who attended the event that the word "Israel" was never even mentioned, although Biden's recent visit to Israel was headline news. The omission of Israel was confirmed by the organization's own website.

It is difficult to imagine any other ethnic or other group of Democrats -- Blacks, Arabs, gays -- that would not even mention the issues of direct concern to that group at a large fundraiser. Why are Jewish Democrats different?

This organization -- the Jewish Democratic Council -- is misnamed. It recruits members and solicits money based on false advertising. It promotes itself as comprised of pro-Israel Jews. But the reality is that its leadership consists mainly of progressive Democrats who just happen to be Jewish. For them Israel, Iran and anti-Semitism are peripheral issues. That is increasingly true of many Democratic Jewish voters who prioritize other concerns over Israel, over the growing threat of anti-Semitism from the hard left and hard right, and over other issues that directly affect the Jewish people.

I shake my head in frustration at why so many left-wing Jewish Democrats are willing to abandon Israel and continue to vote blindly for their grandparents' Democratic Party without demanding that it marginalize its anti-Israel extremists. I understand the reluctance of some traditional Jewish Democrats to vote for Republicans who oppose liberal social policies. I share that reluctance. Hence my frustration.

More and more Jews are expressing this frustration by voting for candidates who support Israel without regard to their party identification. To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan: they do not believe they have left the Democratic Party; they believe the Democratic Party is leaving the millions of Jews who think more like moderate Republicans such as Mitt Romney than radical Democrats such as Bernie Sanders.

Many, like me, will continue to vote for and contribute to the candidates who we think are best (or least worse) for our country, for the world and for Israel. We expect that these candidates will generally be Democrats. But if they are not, then we will vote for their opponent. We have no loyalty to the current Democrat Party, just as many of its most prominent officials seem to have no loyalty to so many of their Jewish supporters. We certainly should have no loyalty to organizations such as the Jewish Democratic Council that hides its true priorities behind the misleading label "Jewish." There is nothing Jewish about their agenda, which is to elect Democrats regardless of their views on issues of direct concern to the Jewish community and Israel.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of The Price of Principles: Why Integrity Is Worth Its Consequences. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow," podcast.

• Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on Twitter and Facebook

 

 

The US Must Ditch Its Incoherent Policy on Taiwan

by Con Coughlin
August 11, 2022 at 7:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18791/us-policy-taiwan

• Russia's invasion of Ukraine, moreover, provides a timely illustration of what can happen when the West does not take sufficient action to safeguard the security of its allies.

• In February, for example, the US approved a $100 million support package to improve the island's missile defences, which were designed to improve its Patriot missile defence system. But bureaucratic wrangling in Washington means Taipei has still to receive the support it needs.

• Consequently, now that Beijing has provided the West with its military template for intimidating Taiwan, this has provided the US and its allies with an indication of the military defences, such as anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-warship missiles, to thwart any future Chinese attack.

• So if Washington, as the Biden administration keeps insisting, is really serious about defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression, then it should get off the fence and abandon its confused policy of "strategic ambiguity" in favour of one that will deter future acts of Chinese aggression against this freedom-loving island state.

China's extreme military response to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan sends an unequivocal message to the US that it can no longer sustain its policy of "strategic ambiguity." Pictured: A Communist Chinese military jet flies over Pingtan island, one of China's closest points to Taiwan, in Fujian province on August 6, 2022. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

China's extreme military response to Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan sends an unequivocal message to the US that it can no longer sustain its policy of "strategic ambiguity."

At a time when the very existence of the democratic island state is under threat from China's communist rulers, what Taipei badly needs is unconditional declarations of support from its Western allies, not the diplomatic equivalent of sitting on the fence, which essentially sums up the Biden administration's inadequate response to date.

Although the Chinese military committed numerous violations to Taiwan's territorial integrity in the days immediately following Pelosi's visit, the Biden administration shows no sign of abandoning the policy of "strategic ambiguity" that has defined Washington's approach to the Taiwan issue for decades.

The origins of this policy date back to US President Richard Nixon's infamous visit to China in 1972, which eventually led Washington officially recognising the communist regime in Beijing. By doing so the US abrogated the mutual defence pact it had signed with Taiwan in 1954.

Even though Congress tried to repair the damage by passing the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979, Washington technically remains under no obligation to come to Taiwan's defence, despite its having agreed to provide Taiwan with "arms of a defensive character". That is pretty much how the arrangement has stood ever since, with the US offering vague offers of military support for Taiwan without making any concrete commitments that might upset China's communist rulers.

The obvious shortcomings of this policy were highlighted in May when President Joe Biden, during a visit to Japan, caused confusion by claiming that the US would use military force to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.

Within 24 hours the president's remarks had been "clarified" by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who insisted that there had been no change from America's commitment to the "One China" policy, which holds that the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government of China while acknowledging that Washington maintains unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan, the complicated diplomatic formula first conceived by the Nixon administration.

The extreme nature of China's military response to the Pelosi visit, though, means that, if the US really is serious about safeguarding Taiwan's independence, it must ditch its incoherent policy of strategic ambiguity, and instead concentrate its efforts on providing Taipei with the military support it needs to defend itself against future acts of Chinese aggression -- and deterrence, deterrence, deterrence. That was the main ingredient missing in the run-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and precisely what invited Putin's aggression.

Pelosi may stand accused of grandstanding over her visit to Taiwan, but no one should deny her right to visit Taiwan.

In the free world, people should be able to come and go as they please without fear of intimidation by freedom-hating despots.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, moreover, provides a timely illustration of what can happen when the West does not take sufficient action to safeguard the security of its allies.

In February, for example, the US approved a $100 million support package to improve the island's missile defences, which were designed to improve its Patriot missile defence system. But bureaucratic wrangling in Washington means Taipei has still to receive the support it needs.

This type of administrative prevarication must change if Taiwan is to receive the military support it requires to defy Chinese aggression.

From America's perspective, one of the advantages of China's recent demonstration of military strength against Taiwan is that it provides an indication of how Beijing would set about isolating Taiwan if it came to open conflict. It is well-known in Western military circles that China, despite the enormous investment it has made in recent years in its military, simply does not have the ability to launch a military invasion to seize control of the island.

China's experience, moreover, of the challenges posed by modern-day warfare is extremely limited compared with the US and its allies. The last time China was directly involved in military conflict was the Korean war in the 1950s; its military badly lacks the combat experience to conduct a successful invasion of another country, especially one surrounded by sea.

The fact, therefore, that China's military intimidation of Taiwan this month essentially consisted of deploying warplanes and warships and firing missiles indicates that, in the event of Beijing launching military action against the island, it would mainly consist of seeking to blockade Taiwan, rather than launching an amphibious landing operation, which would be an enormous undertaking and one that would most likely end in disaster for China.

Consequently, now that Beijing has provided the West with its military template for intimidating Taiwan, this has provided the US and its allies with an indication of the military defences, such as anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-warship missiles, to thwart any future Chinese attack.

So if Washington, as the Biden administration keeps insisting, is really serious about defending Taiwan from Chinese aggression, then it should get off the fence and abandon its confused policy of "strategic ambiguity" in favour of one that will deter future acts of Chinese aggression against this freedom-loving island state.

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

 

 

Forget Free Speech: Rushdie's Fatwa Is Winning

by Giulio Meotti
August 21, 2022 at 5:00 am

 https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18815/free-speech-rushdie-fatwa

• "If only more people could follow his example, instead of taking the path of appeasement in the name of cultural sensitivity, the long years of murder and mayhem wrought by the Islamists on the West might come to an end." — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Unherd, August 7, 2022.

• [A] terrible and different reality: the fatwa is gaining ground...

• Islamic extremists in 2012 published a terrifying "most wanted list", like those of the FBI. Title: "Yes we can. A bullet a day keeps the infidel away.... " What happened to the faces and names on that list? They have been killed, left the public arena to protect themselves, or died under police protection.

• We do not even know they exist: our fearful conformist press never tells their amazing stories. They live among us, in Paris, London, Oslo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam and all the other European capitals. They live according to a strict security protocol: they have to tell the police in advance what they will do during the day, who they will see and where they will go and, if any place is not considered safe, these victims are forced to change plans.

• "Anyone who criticizes Islamism must expect to be violently attacked in this country and without anyone being offended." — Jan Aleksander Karon, journalist, Tichys Einblick, August 20, 2022.

• "Give us his head," Islamists shouted outside a British school in Batley. They wanted to murder a teacher whose name we do not even know and who was forced to leave the school after heavy death threats. What was he guilty of? Having shown in class some of the Mohammed cartoons during a lesson on freedom of expression.

• All decent people should stand with Salman Rushdie and against his persecutors. Is it now a little bit clearer that radical Islam is today one of the biggest threats to Western culture and that we are not winning, but instead becoming like turkeys celebrating Thanksgiving?

"Salman Rushdie is a champion of free speech, bravely standing up for Western ideals when so many shy away from the fight. If only more people could follow his example, instead of taking the path of appeasement in the name of cultural sensitivity, the long years of murder and mayhem wrought by the Islamists on the West might come to an end." — Ayaan Hirsi Ali (pictured). Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images

"Salman Rushdie is a champion of free speech, bravely standing up for Western ideals when so many shy away from the fight. If only more people could follow his example, instead of taking the path of appeasement in the name of cultural sensitivity, the long years of murder and mayhem wrought by the Islamists on the West might come to an end... I know all too well the threat Islamism poses. After I came out as an apostate, I was forced into a bubble of protection that still surrounds me to this day. I have 24-hour security. I still receive death threats. My friend, the sweet, vulgar, brilliant Theo Van Gogh was murdered simply for making a film with me. His attacker used a knife to stab a letter into Theo's chest: it said that I would be next".

That is how Ayaan Hirsi Ali reacted to the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York.

Many of the slogans, paraphrases on "free speech" and demonstrations of solidarity to the author of The Satanic Verses hide a terrible and different reality: the fatwa is gaining ground, and more and more people have to live under protection due to criticism of Islam. In the words of the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal writing for L'Express last week:

"[T]o speak only of France, the police will soon no longer be enough, it will be necessary to recruit battalions or form a new body of bodyguards, who know Islam and can recognize under which dress it is presented."

Islamic extremists in 2012 published a terrifying "most wanted list", like those of the FBI. Title: "Yes we can. A bullet a day keeps the infidel away..." What happened to the faces and names on that list? They have been killed, left the public arena to protect themselves, or died under police protection.

The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks died with his police guards in a terrible car accident. As journalist Douglas Murray explained:

"Lars Vilks was a man and artist of enormous courage. He should never have been in this situation, and if other artists and others across Europe hadn't been so cowardly then he never would have been".

Carsten Juste, who as editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published the cartoons on Muhammad in 2005, apologized and left journalism. Flemming Rose, the editor of the Jyllands Posten who commissioned the cartoons (the Taliban put a bounty on his head), resigned and published a book with the eloquent title The Tyranny of Silence. "The drama and the tragedy is that the only ones to win are the jihadists," Rose told the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.

Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist of the most famous of the Danish cartoons, passed away in his "bunker house" where Islamists had tried to assassinate him.

Molly Norris, a Seattle Post cartoonist, became a "ghost". She changed name and disappeared. Nothing is known about her after the FBI put her in the witness protection program.

Geert Wilders is alive only because he is protected by a military unit of the Dutch army generally assigned to ensure the security of the embassy in Afghanistan. Wilders still lives in safe houses and must wear a bulletproof vest during televised debates.

Stéphane Charbonnier, editor-in-chief of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, was murdered along with eight of his colleagues.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands and sought asylum in the United States, where she is under around-the-clock protection.

Now there was the attempt to assassinate Salman Rushdie. "The lesson of this story is atrocious: Rushdie is alive, but the camp of the killers has not completely lost, it has even won a little", wrote Etienne Gernelle, the editor of French weekly Le Point. British columnist Kenan Malik told the BBC that if Salman Rushdie's critics "lost the battle", they "won the war".

The Egyptian-German scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad just recalled his meeting with Rushdie:

"'So, you are the Egyptian Salman Rushdie everyone is talking about?', Salman Rushdie said with a smile during our first and only meeting in Berlin three years ago. It was a celebration of the thirty-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and coincided with the 30th anniversary of the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie. 'Thirty years ago, there was a single Salman Rushdie in the world, today there is at least one Salman Rushdie in every Islamic country not to mention those in the western countries. That should please you', I replied".

We do not even know they exist: our fearful conformist media never tell their amazing stories. They live among us, in Paris, London, Oslo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Amsterdam and all the other European capitals. They live according to a strict security protocol: they have to tell the police in advance what they will do during the day, who they will see and where they will go, and if any place is not considered safe, these captives are forced to change plans. Often, if there is a not a new threat, they change homes, and disappear for a while to be protected by anonymity. They are not "repentants of the Mafia", mobsters turned into witnesses for the state prosecution. No, they are academics, activists, writers, journalists, intellectuals. We are talking about more than a hundred personalities in Europe. Their "fault"? They criticized Islam. Their precautions to protect themselves are never too many. Rushdie had ceased to be protected for many years.

A professor of Iranian origin and a critic of Islam, Afshin Ellian, works at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he is protected by bodyguards. On the second floor of the Law Department, where he teaches, Ellian can be reached through a corridor with electronic access and armored glass. The place looks more like a bank vault than a normal law department.

In Denmark, Lars Hedegaard, director of the International Free Press Society, who miraculously survived an attack at his home, is under police protection. An assassin dressed as a postman came to Hedegaard's front door in Copenhagen and shot at his head, missing him only narrowly.

The Turkish writer Lale Gül is under protection for having denounced Koranic schools in the Netherlands.

French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui has more bodyguards than many Macron ministers. "Zineb El Rhazoui must be killed to avenge the Prophet," reads a fatwa.

The new address of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices is secret and it has six armored doors and a safe room that the journalists can enter in case of attack. The entire editorial office of Charlie Hebdo is now protected by 85 police officers. Former Charlie Hebdo director Philippe Val lives in a house with bulletproof windows, police officers and an armored safe room where there is a special telephone line to call for help. Each Charlie Hebdo employee is always accompanied by a car with two policemen. If the need arises, another police motorcycle or armored car should arrive.

Mina Ahadi, who founded the Council of Former Muslims in Germany, does not move without an escort, and like the novelist Fatma Bläser, who was the victim of a forced marriage, is protected by the police.

Turkish-born lawyer Syran Ates, in Berlin, is protected by six police officers. "She receives three thousand threats," her lawyer said.

When Can Dündar, the bravest Turkish journalist, who as the director of the newspaper Cumhuriyet expressed solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, left Turkey for Germany, he would never have imagined that he would need the police protection. The biggest difference is that in Turkey, policemen searched his house looking for items to compromise him, while in Berlin they are guarding his home.

"Critics of Islam must fear for their lives: death threats and attacks," notes the German website Tichys Einblick.

"Anyone who criticizes Islamism must expect to be violently attacked in this country and without anyone being offended," said journalist Jan Aleksander Karon. "In Germany it is increasingly dangerous to criticize Islam".

In Denmark, the editorial office of Jyllands Posten today resembles a military bunker. With a razor wire barrier, bars, metal plates and cameras that surround the newspaper for a kilometer, the office is now protected by the same mechanism as river locks. A door opens, a car enters, the door closes and the one opposite opens. Journalists enter one at a time, typing in a personal code (a measure that did not protect Charlie Hebdo reporters). The Jyllands Posten cartoonists have escaped numerous attacks, including at home. Even after the January 7, 2015 massacre in Paris at the Charlie Hebdo office, which was targeted partly because it had republished the Danish Mohammed cartoons, Jyllands-Posten announced that, out of fear, it would not republish its own cartoons, saying:

"We have lived with the fear of a terrorist attack for nine years, and yes, that is the explanation why we do not reprint the cartoons, whether it be our own or Charlie Hebdo's. We are also aware that we therefore bow to violence and intimidation."

Also under protection is the French-Algerian journalist Mohammed Sifaoui. His photograph and name are published on jihadist websites next to the word "apostate". Many people under protection are women, such as Marika Bret, a Charlie Hebdo employee who was "exfiltrated" from home, and the French television presenter originally from Turkey, Claire Koc. Or the journalist Ophélie Meunier, the reporter from Zone Interdite who reported on the Islamization of Roubaix in prime time with the French politician Amine Elbahi, of the Républicains Party, who received threats of beheading.

Threats and intimidation demonstrate the tenacity of the journalistic work done by these courageous people. They demonstrate a commitment to show the Islamization by force and terror of sectors of French society, while the Islamists answer them: Do you disagree with me? Do you criticize me? I will kill you, slit your throat, behead you.

Meanwhile, the states and institutions, which find themselves trying to protect dozens of people, prove to be paper tigers. Terrorism works. Nobody wants to live between two cops or see his name on the internet. Meanwhile, the journalistic class goes looking somewhere less hazardous.

The French state has to protect simple teachers such as Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat, who reproached some students for not respecting the minute of silence during the homage to Samuel Paty, a high school teacher who was beheaded by an Islamist.

Imams such as Hassen Chalghoumi are included in "Uclat 2", the protection program enjoyed by the ambassadors of the United States and Israel in Paris. Chalghoumi, protagonist of many battles in favor of the French Republic and against Islamic fundamentalists, told BFMTV that he has not slept more than three nights in the same place and that he wears a bulletproof vest during prayer:

"I never talk about it, but I have been wearing it for years. I take care of my life. I have responsibilities towards my family and myself. I continue to fight at a very high price. I cannot be at my mosque every day, it is impossible".

Professor Didier Lemaire recounted his last visit to Trappes for a TV documentary:

"I was only allowed a five-minute filming in front of the police station, surrounded by a dozen officers. The rest of the time I had to stay hidden in the car. One of the policemen told me: 'If they bring out the Kalashnikovs, we have nothing to answer with, so we won't stay long.' The reporter wanted me to say a few words in front of the school, but the police refused for security reasons. I was allowed to pass by without stopping. I was escorted to a hotel, whose entrance was guarded by four police officers, to conduct the interview".

"Give us his head," Islamists shouted outside a British school in Batley. They wanted to murder a teacher whose name we do not even know and who was forced to leave the school after heavy death threats. What was he guilty of? Having shown in class some of the Muhammad cartoons during a lesson on freedom of expression. He now lives in a safe house with his wife and children, out of fear of being killed. The threat is deemed so serious that not even the family's relatives know where they live. "The windows of the house where the teacher lived for more than eight years are covered with white sheets".

All decent people should stand with Salman Rushdie and against his persecutors. Is it now a little bit clearer that radical Islam is today one of the biggest threats to Western culture and that we are not winning, but instead becoming like turkeys celebrating Thanksgiving?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

 

 

The "Great Reset": A Blueprint for Destroying Freedom, Innovation, and Prosperity

by J.B. Shurk
August 26, 2022 at 5:00 am

 https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18825/great-reset-wef

• Notice that no nation has managed merely to print money and tax its citizens on the path to prosperity. Real wealth cannot simply be conjured from thin air. There must be recognized value in what a nation and its citizens possess.

• More than any other source for national wealth, however, one towers above the rest: innovation. The ability of the human mind to create something new and valuable provides society with endless wealth creation.... Innovation is the magic sauce for generating wealth.

• Humans struggling merely to survive in the world do not waste time, labor, or resources on projects that offer no prospect for future reward. Humans working as servants to the state under centrally controlled economies have no incentive to innovate. Only when private ownership and personal liberty combine can human innovation flourish. Freedom is the secret ingredient to innovation's magic sauce for increasing wealth.

• A country whose institutions do not respect property rights or whose customs do not value freedom will remain a barren desert for human innovation. In this way, nations have a great incentive to liberalize over time. Should they not, they quickly become financially and militarily vulnerable to more innovative and wealthier nations. Observing this simple truth, classical liberals have always understood free markets as the gateway to human emancipation. Economic self-interest, in other words, ultimately leads to expansive human rights and liberties across the planet.

• Nothing about Western politicians' embrace of the World Economic Forum's "Great Reset" or "Build Back Better" paradigms protects property rights or liberty in the slightest. The WEF's agenda promotes radically anti-liberal programs... [that] will smother human innovation by first depriving Westerners of their freedoms.

• Wealthy free nations are a threat to the WEF's New World Order. If censorship must be embraced to control the "narrative," then so be it. If citizens must be denied freedom of movement under the guise of a "health emergency," no big deal. If private bank accounts must be seized to intimidate protesters, then such threats are the price for ensuring compliance. In this way, the WEF's plans for a controlled economy intentionally reverse centuries of liberal progress. Political leaders today are dragging the West into the past.

• First, individual liberties will continue disappearing. Then, the greatest economic engine of all, innovation, will dry up. Finally, wealth will return solely to the hands of a small "ruling class" minority. This is the future the World Economic Forum hails as "progress." It is not. It is a recipe for human bondage.

Notice that no nation has managed merely to print money and tax its citizens on the path to prosperity. Real wealth cannot simply be conjured from thin air. A country whose institutions do not respect property rights or whose customs do not value freedom will remain a barren desert for human innovation. The World Economic Forum's agenda promotes radically anti-liberal programs that will smother human innovation by first depriving Westerners of their freedoms. Pictured: WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab in Davos on May 23, 2022. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

How do nations become wealthy? Many are blessed with abundant natural resources. Others conquer foreign lands. Some specialize in unique trade skills and crafts. Timber, mining, fishing, sugar, rum, narcotics, cotton, silk, agriculture, conquest, human slavery, manufacturing, oil, industry, banking, and so on — depending on the century and the region, nations have attained tremendous wealth in myriad ways. Notice that no nation has managed merely to print money and tax its citizens on the path to prosperity. Real wealth cannot simply be conjured from thin air. There must be recognized value in what a nation and its citizens possess.

More than any other source for national wealth, however, one towers above the rest: innovation. The ability of the human mind to create something new and valuable provides society with endless wealth creation. Unlike central bank quantitative easing and other monetary tools (or tricks?), the brain really is a money-printing machine. Whether an innovator alters existing farming, mining, or manufacturing techniques to make production cheaper and more efficient, or an inventor designs something entirely unique, value that did not exist yesterday materializes the next. Innovation is the magic sauce for generating wealth.

If innovation produces wealth, why aren't all nations wealthy? Because too many nations fail to value innovators or encourage innovation. Without fundamental property rights, strong social institutions, and a dependable legal system, potential inventors have few incentives to build anything new. Humans struggling merely to survive in the world do not waste time, labor, or resources on projects that offer no prospect for future reward. Humans working as servants to the state under centrally controlled economies have no incentive to innovate. Only when private ownership and personal liberty combine can human innovation flourish. Freedom is the secret ingredient to innovation's magic sauce for increasing wealth.

When economists crunch gross domestic product numbers to see whether a nation's economy is rising or sinking, a measure of innovation becomes quantifiable. Embedded within that number is something that encapsulates human ingenuity, personal freedom, and property ownership. In this way, economic innovation directly reflects the human condition at any point in time. It provides a measurement of a nation's freedom.

Now "liberalism" as it is classically understood — as a political philosophy embracing natural rights, limited government, free markets, political and religious freedoms, and freedom of speech, all promoted and protected by an impartial and just rule of law — has always grasped this fundamental truth. Liberty and property rights spawn creativity. Where both are soundly valued, great writers, artists, and inventors produce novelties that would not otherwise exist. It is why medieval Florence birthed at once both modern-day banking and the European Renaissance. The personal freedom to create, build, invest, and own property generates tremendous innovation and national wealth.

Conversely, when today's central planners argue for socialized control over markets and the substitution of "collective rights" in place of "individual rights" while calling their agenda "progressive liberalism," they co-opt and subvert liberalism's historic meaning.

From this recognition that a nation's freedom directly affects a nation's wealth arises an even more remarkable truth: any nation that fails to embrace and protect human liberty will be the poorer for it. A country whose institutions do not respect property rights or whose customs do not value freedom will remain a barren desert for human innovation. In this way, nations have a great incentive to liberalize over time. Should they not, they quickly become financially and militarily vulnerable to more innovative and wealthier nations. Observing this simple truth, classical liberals have always understood free markets as the gateway to human emancipation. Economic self-interest, in other words, ultimately leads to expansive human rights and liberties across the planet.

Now with all that as a bit of rudimentary background, how is it that today we have entities such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) pushing for a radical "Great Reset" of Western society that promises to handcuff free markets with economic regulation while concentrating power into the hands of a small international coalition of central economic planners — most notably their own? How could promising a future where people will "own nothing and be happy" possibly be conducive to a free and productive society — or even a happy one? How can a future in which all energy is controlled by international governing bodies and multinational corporations possibly provide individuals with the institutional building blocks for endless innovation? How can farmers sustain larger and more prosperous populations when Western governments continue to stifle agricultural production through regulation and eminent domain?

The questions answer themselves. The WEF's agenda promotes radically anti-liberal programs such as the use of artificial intelligence to censor dissent, regulate free speech, and even erase ideas from the Internet. Its repressive efforts to control all hydrocarbon energy and cattle and crop farm production will smother human innovation by first depriving Westerners of their ability to create, invent, and grow food. Its policies betray millennia of Western civilizational advancement by replacing respect for individual choice and free will with top-down management of human activity through the blunt instruments of force and coercion. Its motivations are indisputably anti-human at their core because each individual human life is treated as nothing more than a cog or input that can be manipulated as part of a centrally-controlled social machine. When Westerners are reduced to ones and zeroes that are sorted and shifted by the WEF's social programming codes for a "better future," builders obey but no longer create.

Whereas personal liberty has unleashed the human mind and generated tremendous Western prosperity, the World Economic Forum's push for a centrally controlled economic system will crush rights, stifle creativity, and mass-produce poverty and servitude. Its proponents, in fact, seem mostly committed to using a combination of pandemic, famine, and fear to centralize dominance for themselves.

In order to persuade Westerners to give up more and make do with less, the WEF and its globalist allies promise Westerners a future Utopia. As with every similar lie ever told to justify the extraordinary acquisition of power, though, they will fail to deliver. No society, after all, was ever promised more than in Stalin's 1936 Constitution of the USSR — or subsequently treated more abysmally. Despite its claims to the contrary, the WEF's mission directives intentionally reverse Western trends toward greater human freedom, social mobility, and more broadly obtainable wealth — or what, in another era, would have been rightly regarded as true, liberal progress.

Although the WEF and its sister organizations claim to be "saving the planet," their efforts seem primarily an ignoble design to control the planet. "Clean" energy, after all, is controlled energy; and the more that energy is controlled by centralized governments, the more completely once-free markets become centrally controlled. If every potential entrepreneur must first receive permission to use electricity before producing anything new, then no entrepreneur can thrive without the central authorities' blessing. If all manufacturing is viewed as a "threat to the planet," then no independent upstart can innovate or build wealth without first seeking and obtaining government approval. If consumers are forbidden from buying anything unless it is first pre-approved, then free markets are transformed into controlled markets.

Taking this trend to its logical yet communist conclusion, private property becomes antithetical to the state's goals. We already see the ominous subversion of private ownership today with so-called ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) standards used to strong-arm industry goals and manipulate free markets. Because control over information makes control over markets more manageable, the more economic uncertainty that results from market manipulation, the more censorship we'll continue to see. Recently, even a senior economist who correctly stated that the American economy had entered into a recession found his research "fact checked" and "corrected" by the U.S. government's friends at Facebook. Where free markets are under attack, free speech is inevitably under attack, too. The individual blessings of liberalism are not easily dissected from the body politic without inevitably rendering liberalism's death, as a whole.

The issue today may be "climate change" or COVID-19 or "sustainable food supplies," but the stated issue never seems anything more than a public relations campaign for fooling the masses. It always appears to be merely a disposable excuse designed to seduce Westerners into handing a small cabal of "elites" power and control over everyone else. Convincing mankind to believe that free markets will inevitably lead to some kind of apocalypse increasingly looks like the only policy goal that matters. It may well be the most diabolical trick those with power have ever played against those with no power at all. Fear is used expertly as a torturer's tool to convince Westerners to forsake willingly their own freedom. The innocent mantra whispered into their ears is simple: Trust us, humanity, we will save you. The implication, however, is far more sinister: For your own good, you must be made to enjoy your new chains.

Notice that for the World Economic Forum to succeed in its mission to control all human activity, it must first destroy the sovereignty of nation states. Why? Because, as noted above, liberal nations that embrace freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and free market entrepreneurship foster innovation and great wealth. Any nation not encumbered by the WEF's market proscriptions will most likely continue to prosper, while those shackled to the "Great Reset" will most likely languish. This is why Western politicians have worked so hard together to push their "Build Back Better" proposals irrespective of the wishes of any one nation's voting citizens.

Wealthy free nations are a threat to the WEF's New World Order. If censorship must be embraced to control the "narrative," then so be it. If citizens must be denied freedom of movement under the guise of a "health emergency," no big deal. If private bank accounts must be seized to intimidate protesters, then such threats are the price for ensuring compliance. In this way, the WEF's plans for a controlled economy intentionally reverse centuries of liberal progress. Political leaders today are dragging the West into the past.

First, individual liberties will continue disappearing. Then, the greatest economic engine of all, innovation, will dry up. Finally, wealth will return solely to the hands of a small "ruling class" minority. This is the future the World Economic Forum hails as "progress." It is not. It is a recipe for human bondage.

JB Shurk writes about politics and society.