Some thoughts on reading Israeli history

I’ve been reading an intriguing history, The Land of Blood and Honey by Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, and a thought occurred to me. One thing that comes across very, very clearly throughout the book is that contra American and European assumptions, the Israelis are not a farsighted people. In fact, by European standards, they are unstable, prone to oscillating between overconfidence and despair, deeply paranoid, and arrogant. They are also brave, creative, hard-working, and intelligent, and their military strategists are competent, if not necessarily as brilliant as their public relations would have it.

(On that note, I was particularly amused to run across Israel’s finest general, Moshe Dayan, making precisely the same observation I have made concerning the IDF’s military accomplishments. As he observed in a manner obviously intended to deflate some of the more overly excitable cheerleaders after the Six-Day War, while the IDF was massively victorious, it was Arab divisions they defeated, not German ones.)

It’s not just van Creveld’s observations that led me to these conclusions either, as I read a piece about Israeli marketing that pointed in precisely the same direction. But it is also apparent that at the highest levels, the Israelis feel they cannot do anything without at least the tacit permission of the USA, and, to a lesser extent, the European nations. This is every bit as true today as it was when they were ordered back from the Suez Canal by President Eisenhower.

So here is the thought. Many Americans and Europeans have long regarded the Jewish support for flooding their nations with third worlders, particularly Africans and Arabs, to be fundamentally aimed at destroying the white nations. And there is some evidence for that on the basis of various statements that have been made by American Jews. But after reading more about Israel, I’m not so sure that is the true target. The Chinese are probably a more dangerous long-term competitor than the Europeans and there are no similar anti-Chinese campaigns on that front. Keep in mind that Israelis are not American Jews, in fact, they often appear to be mildly contemptuous of them, as they have been tested, and continue to be tested, in ways the American Jews have not. They tend to view American Jews in much the same way front-line troops regard support troops, as REMFs whose opinions are ignorant, misguided, and irrelevant.

And on that basis, my hypothesis is simultaneously less sinister and considerably more cynical. Ever since the first intifada, a majority of the Israeli people have wanted to push the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and claim the entirety of what they call “the Land”. The religious hardliners have demanded that from the start, or at least since the 1967 war. However, Israelis know very well they can’t seriously hope to do anything of the sort without at least tacit approval from the West.

So, what better way to get approval from the West for ethno-religious cleansing than for the West to be engaged in precisely the same activity on an even larger scale? Is it not possible that Israel (and therefore AIPAC, and therefore American Jewry) has been pushing for third world invasion of the West, particularly Muslim mass immigration, in order to spark the very reconquista that more and more Westerners are beginning to demand?

If this hypothesis is correct, then we should see American Jewry gradually shifting from a pro-immigration position to a pro-deportation one. I am not, of course, saying this is correct, nor am I privy to any information on the matter one way or the other. It’s just a thought. But the more I learn about the Middle East, the more it seems to me that if Israel is ever going to successfully claim and colonize the entire Land, it is going to have to do so under the political cover of a second Western reconquista.

More strength through diversity

It’s good to know that the diverse people of Missouri can resolve their differences through peaceful, rational dialogue:

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed an executive order activating the Missouri National Guard on Monday afternoon.

According to a new release, the role of the National Guard is to “…support law enforcement during any period of unrest that might occur following the grand jury’s decision concerning the investigation into the death of Michael Brown.”

“As part of our ongoing efforts to plan and be prepared for any contingency, it is necessary to have these resources in place in advance of any announcement of the grand jury’s decision,” Gov. Nixon said.

You can’t really blame them for preparing for the expected unrest. But how can you look at this sort of thing still taking place 50 years after the civil rights movement and still think that any sort of integration is possible?

From the long term perspective, it looks a lot like trying to cure old age with band-aids.

Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War

We are pleased to be officially releasing two new Castalia House books today. The first is the novel Victoria, which is, as the subtitle suggests, “A Novel of 4th Generation War”. It is very different than our other novels, in fact, its publication might even be considered a little ironic, in light of Scooter’s recent blog post on Pink SF Propaganda vs Blue SF Storytelling. This is because Victoria can quite reasonably be described as the very sort of propaganda we detest in modern SF/F, except it happens to be against politically correctness rather than supportive of it. As one proofreader rather amusingly commented, “That was certainly an interesting work.  On a superficial level, I’ll
say it’s the most politically incorrect thing I’ve ever read in my
life.  I thought of myself as politically incorrect, and even I blanched
at a lot of it.”

I have to admit, there were moments when I found myself thinking: “he can’t possibly be going… well, I guess he is.” The difference is that Victoria is an openly and avowedly political novel, unlike Pink SF, which is politically correct propaganda marketed deceptively as science fiction and fantasy. And the secondary difference is that Victoria is more than mere traditionalist propaganda. It is also, much like Atlas Shrugged and 1984, a didactic novel. It amounts to a dramatic instruction course on how the principles of 4GW are utilized, set in a near-future fictional version of America that is unfortunately not nearly as far away from reality as one might wish. If I were to describe Victoria in a single sentence, it is as the Christian lovechild of Ayn Rand and Tom Clancy.

The same proofreader later noted, “Less than 24 hours after finishing Victoria and thinking, “Man, this isn’t very realistic,” I woke up to see that an entity named The Islamic State is moving to establish a gold-backed currency. In the same week the West landed a spacecraft on a comet for the first time in human history, but the big story today is that one of the scientists wore a shirt with girls on it and was forced to make a tearful apology to the entire world. This latter event goes far beyond anything in the book.”

Perhaps we’re the ones living in someone else’s parody. Anyhow, those who have been reading Victoria in serial at Traditional Right should be informed that the published version includes the final one-third of the book that will not be posted online. Victoria is available for $9.99 in EPUB and Kindle format from the Castalia House store and in Kindle format from Amazon.

On a thematically related note, after receiving several requests we have made the transcription of the lecture at Quantico by William S. Lind that first introduced the concept of 4th Generation War to the U.S. military available as a separate ebook in addition to the previously announced bundle with the recording of the lecture itself. The ebook/audiobook combination is still available in both EPUB and Kindle formats for $3.99 from the Castalia House store, while the ebook alone is $2.99 in Kindle format from Amazon. The lecture is only 51 minutes, so the ebook is only 24 pages, but it packs a remarkable amount of information in it and will be of considerable information to anyone who wishes to better understand 4GW in either its military or strategic applications.

And thanks very much to all the New Release subscribers who have already purchased Victoria. We hope you will enjoy it, but more importantly, we hope you will learn something from it.

Keynesian shock tactics still don’t work

Abenomics has, as predicted, conclusively failed:

Japan’s economy unexpectedly fell into recession in the third quarter, a painful slump that called into question efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pull the country out of nearly two decades of deflation.

The second consecutive quarterly decline in gross domestic product could upend Japan’s political landscape. Mr. Abe is considering dissolving Parliament and calling fresh elections, people close to him say, and Monday’s economic report is seen as critical to his decision, which is widely expected to come this week.

Rising sales taxes have been blamed for triggering the downturn by deterring consumer spending, and with Japan having now slipped into a technical recession, the chances that Mr. Abe will seek a new mandate from voters to alter the government’s tax program appear to have increased significantly.

The preliminary economic report, issued by the Cabinet Office, showed that gross domestic product fell at an annualized pace of 1.6 percent in the quarter through September. That added to the previous quarter’s much larger decline, which the government now puts at 7.3 percent, a slightly worse figure than in its last estimate of 7.1 percent.

The surprise recession underscores the difficulties faced by Mr. Abe, who won power two years ago on a pledge to reinvigorate the economy and end his country’s long streak of wage and consumer-price declines. His agenda, dubbed Abenomics, has focused largely on stimulus measures, in particular an expanded program of government bond purchases by the central bank.

When the Obama stimulus plan failed, Neo-Keynesians like Paul Krugman claimed it was because the stimulus wasn’t big enough even though it was BIGGER than Neo-Keynesians like Paul Krugman had claimed was necessary to jump-start the economy.

Then Japanese Prime Minister Abe launched the Abenomics program, which consisted of  “monetary policy, fiscal policy, and economic growth strategies to encourage private investment. Specific policies include inflation targeting at a 2% annual rate, correction of the excessive yen appreciation, setting negative interest rates, radical quantitative easing, expansion of public investment, buying operations of construction bonds by Bank of Japan (BOJ), and revision of the Bank of Japan Act.”

The total fiscal stimulus was ¥20.2 trillion, and yet even in combination with all the aggressively easy monetary policy pursued by the Bank of Japan, it hasn’t been able to grow the economy at all. The plain and simple economic fact is this: you cannot print or borrow your way out of an economic depression that is a consequence of excessive debt. No matter how many Nobel-prize winners assure you that you can.

In defense of scientists

The Mayor of London speaks out in favor of science nerd fashion:

I watched that clip of Dr Taylor’s apology – at the moment of his supreme professional triumph – and I felt the red mist come down. It was like something from the show trials of Stalin, or from the sobbing testimony of the enemies of Kim Il-sung, before they were taken away and shot. It was like a scene from Mao’s cultural revolution when weeping intellectuals were forced to confess their crimes against the people.

Why was he forced into this humiliation? Because he was subjected to an unrelenting tweetstorm of abuse. He was bombarded across the internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate, orchestrated by lobby groups and politically correct media organisations.

And so I want, naturally, to defend this blameless man. And as for all those who have monstered him and convicted him in the kangaroo court of the web – they should all be ashamed of themselves.

Yes, I suppose some might say that his Hawaii shirt was a bit garish, a bit of an eyeful. But the man is not a priest, for heaven’s sake. He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear.

As for myself, I’m not a fan of either the tattoos or the garish shirt. Dr. Taylor’s tears certainly revealed that tattoo sleeves don’t indicate any degree of toughness; he would have done far better to give that second interview in a Grand Theft Auto shirt and flipped a symbolic bird to his idiot critics.

But #ShirtStorm was a useful reminder of what we’ve learned from #GamerGate. One cannot compromise with pinkshirts because they don’t believe in compromise. They believe in taking eternal offense and staying on the permanent offensive. They are like sharks; if they are not complaining and attacking, they lose their assumed power.

I know I’ve said this several times over the last few days, but I cannot repeat it enough. NEVER APOLOGIZE. SJWs regard apologies as weakness, as leverage, and as a ritual preface to complete submission. I can assure you from personal experience, all their hatred is nothing more than sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. The only response to their attacks and their attempts to create false equivalences and assign false meanings should be to pour unrestrained scorn on their heads.

Fifth Frontier War turn 1

Fifth Frontier War prelude

The expected Zhodani invasion has begun. As I suspected he would, their High Admiral has gone with a fairly conservative, broad front envelopment that is aimed more at methodically taking control of planets than hunting down and destroying the Imperial fleets or targeting a few specific Schwerpunkts.

Of the five distinct incursions, the most dangerous fleet is the Zhodani 1st Assault Fleet, as it not only packs enough punch to have destroyed one of my colonial cruisers and driven off the 120 system defense boats guarding one of my subsector capitals at Jewell, but also contains transports that landed two field armies bolstered by several armored divisions to secure the planet. About my only accomplishment was bloodying the 1st Assault’s nose a little while extricating my colonial battleship. My hope is to use it to either wreak a little havoc behind his lines or possibly distract one of his fleets. It’s not likely, given the requirement to plot up to five turns in advance, but perhaps I can force him to tie up the 65th Fleet in pursuit of it.

Fortunately, the extra reinforcements I provided the large Jewell militia prevented the Zhodani from claiming the planet in the first turn, so hopefully that will disrupt their schedule. The planetary militia has taken 70 percent casualties and the Imperial army corps stationed there was destroyed, but with the help of the elite Marines and some mercenaries,they managed to nearly eliminate two Zhodani divisions, including one of the armored ones.

In the north, the Vargr are unopposed and have already bypassed Dentus in order to land troops and take Kinorb. Three fleets have entered the demilitarized zone, but they haven’t done more than take out a scoutship or two. And in the south, the two Sword Worlds fleets blundered by launching without waiting for their troops, which means that even though I’ve only got the minor 213th Fleet to deal with both them and the Zhodani 67th Fleet. That means the Zhodani have only taken two planets when they probably expected to claim four or five in the first turn.

Now I can begin my own plotting; I’ve got my best admiral on Regina along with my main battle fleet, the 214th. However, I dare not risk them against the 1st Assault Fleet, which I now know has more than twice their firepower. The question is whether I use them to hold Regina after Jewell falls, if I throw them forward to slow down the Zhodani assault, or if I fall back and use them to pick off the weaker Vargr fleets while I wait for my reinforcements.

This is a long game and will last at least 26 turns, with 50 being more likely. So, I’ve decided the key at this point is to preserve my forces until my reinforcement fleets begin arriving from the galactic core. So, my inclination will probably be to destroy the Vargr and reclaim Kinorb, leaving it up to the various planetary defenses and the land forces to slow the advance they cannot possibly stop.

VPFL Week 10

102 Greenfield Grizzlies (8-2-0)
86 Mounds View Meerkats (5-5-0)

93 Bane Cornshuckers (6-4-0)
49 King (5-5-0)

81 RR Redbeards (6-4-0)
79 Favre Dollar Footlongs (5-5-0)

81 Gilbert Gamma Rays (6-4-0)
54 Boot Hill Bogs (2-7-1)

79 Texas Chili Eaters (5-4-1)
64 Clerical Errs (1-9-0)

Bloody Grizzlies…. It’s good to see that it looks like the Vikings should be getting AD back soon. I have slightly mixed feelings about this week’s game, however. A friend of mine is tight with the Bears’ head coach, and I have the sense that a blowout Vikings would likely seal Trestman’s fate immediately. But honestly, if he can’t stop the Bears’ historic defensive meltdown against a rookie quarterback leading a division rival missing its star player at home, then he probably should lose his job before the end of the season.

One of the fascinating things about seeing the Bears implode is that I know for a fact that Marc Trestman is a very smart guy. He’s probably one of the smarter coaches in the league. So the whole thing has provided an object lesson in demonstrating the fact that sheer intelligence, even when combined with hard work, is not necessarily synonymous with success.

UPDATE: Sweet fake punt by the Vikes leads to a touchdown. And to think Sparklepunter tried to get Mike Priefer fired! Lesson: never listen to an idiot punter.

Aristocratic tiger-riders

In the introduction to the third edition of FA von Hayek’s A Tiger by the Tail, Austrian economist Joseph Salerno observes:

Inflating aggregate money expenditure leads to a short-run increase in employment that causes an inappropriate distribution of resources whose inevitable correction ensures another depression. Such a correction can be postponed, but never obviated, only by repeatedly neutralizing relative price changes through accelerating inflation.

Those who deny Hayek’s analysis—as all contemporary mainstream macroeconomists and policymakers do—and promote ever-increasing spending as the panacea for our present crisis live in the simplistic Keynesian fantasy land from which scarcity of real resources has been banished and in which the scarcity of money and credit is the only constraint on economic activity. As Hayek pointed out, such people do not merit the name “economist”:

“I cannot help regarding the increasing concentration on short-run effects—which in this context amounts to the same thing as a concentration on purely monetary factors—not only as a serious and dangerous intellectual error, but as a betrayal of the main duty of the economist and a grave menace to our civilization.”

Of course, as we were reminded in 2008, and again in 2014, not only does the postponed correction always eventually arrive, but the nominally palliative measures become increasingly ineffective. The Left is not entirely wrong to focus on the evils of income and financial inequality, because today they are not the result of capitalism and free enterprise, but the neo-feudal largesse distributed by the federal government to the financial aristocracy through the central bank.

I had always wonder why the Ciceronian cycle predicted the rise of aristocracy rather than the conventional expectations of post-democratic dictatorship. But in light of the post-2008 crisis events, it makes a good deal more sense.

Banning “feminist”

Men loathe them. Women are embarrassed by them. Civilized people despise them so much that TIME Magazine had to withdraw “feminist” from its “words to ban in 2015 poll” because so many people were voting for it and that made the feminists at the magazine experience the dread feelbad.

TIME apologizes for the execution of this poll; the word ‘feminist’ should not have been included in a list of words to ban. While we meant to invite debate about some ways the word was used this year, that nuance was lost, and we regret that its inclusion has become a distraction from the important debate over equality and justice.

In other words, “the important debate over equality and justice” should not involve any actual criticism of the beliefs of one side. Forget banning the word “feminist”, what would be better is to ban all feminists from the Western Civilization they are trying to destroy.

Feminism is the one ideology that makes National Socialism look merciful and Communism look viable by comparison. Regard its adherents accordingly.

How to make a monster

A Very Important Lesson from John Scalzi and the SJWs:

John Scalzi@scalzi
Kid called me out on Twitter last night for something she considered sexist. Proud of her; happy to have raised her so she knew she could.

Josh Neff ‏@joshuamneff
You’re doing parenting right.

The Inner Babysitter ‏@PSMHopkins
I literally cheered when I saw that last night.

Ben Emery ‏@JamesBenEmery
As a parent, that’s when you sit back and go, “I know I’ve made mistakes, but overall I haven’t completely failed.”

ChaosNexus ‏@ChaosNexus
I can’t imagine there would be any wilting flowers in the Scalzi household.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
@ChaosNexus There really aren’t.

Well, there is observably one wilting flower there, at any rate. Notice how the male SJW openly revels in his failure; he asserts pride in his own degradation. Now, where have I heard this sort of thing before? Ah, yes, now I recollect, in Isaiah, when the prophet speaks of the judgment of the wicked of Judah.

“O My people! Their oppressors are children, And
women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths.”
– Isaiah 3:12.

And then, of course, there is this:

“The sex impulse was dangerous to the Party, and the Party had turned it
to account. They had played a similar trick with the instinct of
parenthood. The family could not actually be abolished, and, indeed,
people were encouraged to be fond of their children, in almost the
old-fashioned way. The children, on the other hand, were systematically
turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their
deviations. The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought
Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded
night and day by informers who knew him intimately.”
– George Orwell, 1984

There is nothing new about the SJW. He is the harbinger of evil and the symptom of a decadent society in the process of collapse. But to return to this specific SJW, there is, as you might expect on Twitter, a punchline.


@scalzi “Kid called me out on Twitter last night for something she considered sexist”
So you muted her?

High-larious.