Tag: war

Immigration is invasion

As Martin van Creveld observed, immigration is war.

A crowd of migrants has burst through a barbed-wire fence on the Macedonia-Greece border using a steel pole as a battering ram.

TV footage showed migrants pushing against the fence at Idomeni, ripping away barbed wire, as Macedonian police let off tear gas to force them away.

A section of fence was smashed open with the battering ram. It is not clear how many migrants got through. Many of those trying to reach northern Europe are Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

They are resorting to violence in order to force their way past the borders. How is that not war? And why is the West refusing to defend its borders with its very expensive militaries?

If the USA is not going to defend its borders anyhow, then let’s simply shut down the military, lay off all the soldiers, stop buying tanks and planes and bombs, and cut everyone’s taxes by 20 percent.

The Trumpening

It’s fascinating to see the medias, both mainstream and conservative, scurrying around to find some explanation, any explanation, for Trump’s rise that does not address the obvious: America has been the victim of the single largest invasion in human history. But Invade America Happy Time is over.

France for the French. England for the English. America for Americans. Germany for the Germans. Scandinavia for the Scandinavians. Israel for the Jews. The Dar al-Islam for the Muslims.

Nationalism is peaceful, for the most part. It is the intermingling of peoples, the expansions of territories, and the subsequent clash of cultures that results which reliably produces war.

As military historian Martin van Creveld so aptly demonstrated in There Will Be War Vol. X, immigration is a form of war in which the violence is delayed.

A lesson in combined arms

Ender and I haven’t been able to get back to Fifth Frontier War lately, but we did find the time to break out a short Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit scenario, S23: Monty’s Gamble. Ender is just learning how to use vehicles, and in this scenario, he learned a rather painful lesson concerning why tank commanders always insist on having an infantry screen when engaging enemy infantry.

The scenario is set in 1944 Holland, with a German Kampfgruppe counterattacking the British 1st Airbourne Division after the seizure of the city of Arnhem as part of Operation Market Garden. The British were attempting to hold out long enough to permit 30 Corps to reach Arnhem and reinforce them, while the Germans were hoping to cut them off from the Rhine and capture the entire division.

Interestingly enough, this scenario played out rather similarly to the historical event, where the Staffordshire regiment managed to hold off the Germans long enough to let the greater part of the 1st Airbourne to extricate itself and retreat. The Germans are attacking from the east and their objective is to exit a sufficient number of victory points (two tanks and two infantry units are enough) off the west side of the map. The British units are all set up hidden, and I’d chosen to present a false forward defense in the north while putting all of my anti-tank defenses in the middle and south. I figured that if a tank went the north route, I’d have time to turn my rear anti-tank gun and take a shot at its weak side armor before it exited.

However, Ender took me off-guard by deciding to race his first tank straight past the town using the north road. There was nothing I could do about that, so he had 7 of the 17 VP required right there. I thought that might have been a scouting move, but then he tried to run his second tank through the middle; I held my fire with the first anti-tank gun and blew it up with the second one when it came adjacent.

That made him a little more cautious, but not enough. The last tank was already following the previous one on the middle road and it managed to avoid being brewed up by the first gun, but when it turned up the road to avoid the second one, it took a PIAT up the tailpipe. Then, to make matters considerably worse for the Germans, thinking the northern route was clear, Ender moved an entire platoon, led by his best leader, adjacent to my single squad in forward defense. The paratroopers popped up, killed the leader, and broke the entire platoon.

That essentially ended the game on the first turn; although it is theoretically possible for his second platoon to fight its way past my guns and other infantry units, they can’t do that and go north to relieve the pressure my one squad will keep on the broken platoon to prevent them from rallying at the same time. We’ll play one more turn, just in case, but I’ll be very surprised if the second platoon even manages to cross the road, let alone the map.

Ender was more rueful than chagrined; now that he understands the concept of an infantry screen, I very much doubt he’ll ever make that particular mistake again. And now that I’ve taken full advantage of that specific gap in his knowledge, I can let him watch the Band of Brothers episode where the British tank commander makes the spectacularly unwise decision to ignore the advice given by the American infantry screening his tanks.

Thunder of the North

As students of military history know, large-scale military exercises are often used to mask the mobilizations that precede an invasion. That is why many observers are more than a little bit nervous about the implications of the joint Saudi-Turkish exercises called Thunder in the North, as they believe it to be an invasion of Syria meant to stop the Russian-Syrian alliance from defeating the anti-Assad rebels in Aleppo.

Saudi military spokesman Brigadier-General Ahmed al-Asiri said his country is prepared for a land war in Syria, the Saudi-backed Asharq al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

Asiri’s statement to the London- based paper comes after his country announced last week its willing to send ground troops as part of the international coalition to fight Islamic State.

The Senior Saudi defense official said that his country wants to defeat Islamic State.

He also announced Saudi Arabia would hold a large-scale military exercise called “Thunder of the North” with the participation of 21 Arab and Muslim countries. The exercise would enhance coordination and information sharing between the countries, Asiri said.

He added, according to the report, that “when participating countries feel that there are coordinated and interdependent efforts, the results of the exercise will be positive.

There is talk of “350,000 troops, 2,540 warplanes,
20,000 tanks and 460 helicopters”, which frankly sounds completely absurd to me in light of the fact that the Saudis have had to rely upon Colombian mercenaries in their largely unsuccessful effort to fight the Yemeni rebels. So, too, is the idea that the Russians would resort to tactical nukes in order to stop them. However, the Saker, who is considerably more credible than a Saudi military spokesman, has indicated that there may indeed be reason for concern, and not just because of the 18,000 troops that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has stationed near the border:

The problem for the USA is that it has no good option to achieve its overriding goal in Syria: to “prevent Russia from winning”. In the delusional minds of the AngloZionist rulers, Russia is just a “regional power” which cannot be allowed to defy the “indispensable nation”. And yet, Russia is doing exactly that both in Syria and in the Ukraine and Obama’s entire Russia policy is in shambles. Can he afford to appear so weak in an election year? Can the US “deep state” let the Empire be humiliated and its weakness exposed?

The latest news strongly suggests to me that the White House has taken the decision to let Turkey and Saudi Arabia invade Syria. Turkish officials are openly saying that an invasion is imminent and that the goal of such an invasion would be to reverse the Syrian army gains along the boder and near Aleppo. The latest reports are also suggesting that the Turks have begun shelling Aleppo. None of that could be happening without the full support of CENTCOM and the White House.

The Empire has apparently concluded that Daesh is not strong enough to overthrow Assad, at least not when the Russian AeroSpace forces are supporting him, so it will now unleash the Turks and the Saudis in the hope of changing the outcome of this war or, if that is not possible, to carve up Syria into ‘zones of responsibility” – all under the pretext of fighting Daesh, of course.

The Russian task force in Syria is about to be very seriously challenged and I don’t see how it could deal with this new threat by itself. I very much hope that I am wrong here, but I have do admit that a *real* Russian intervention in Syria might happen after all, with MiG-31s and all. In fact, in the next few days, we are probably going to witness a dramatic escalation of the conflict in Syria.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that President Obama has been very, very quiet of late. That, combined with the massive jump in the price of gold recently, seems to indicate that something non-trivial is in the works, although I can’t seem to find any information on when the exercises are scheduled to begin.

Free trade’s fundamental flaw

It is little wonder that utopians of various flavors, from Communist to libertarian, are enamored of free trade. Because it now requires a utopian-level credulity to believe that free trade is a viable option in a fallen world.

When I was growing up we were taught in sixth grade that Democrats wanted “tariff for revenue only;” Republicans wanted protective tariff to keep manufacturing – and jobs – at home. Abraham Lincoln said of tariff, if he buys a shirt from England, he gets the shirt but the money leaves the country and pays wages to Englishmen; if he buys it from a US manufacturer, he has the shirt, and the money stays in America, paying American workers. This is, according to Ricardo, far too simple an analysis; but it appeals to reason. American goods may cost more without overseas competition, but the money and jobs stay/ cheaper goods are not always appealing to those who have no jobs to give then wages, and must rely in government to pay them for not working; and a sizeable number of “workers” resent being on the unemployment role and getting welfare aid.

The US establishment went to war in 1940, and suddenly produced tanks, rifles, airplanes, trucks, bandages, ammunition, cargo ships and battleships; when the American people rose up they drowned Germany and Japan in war materiel. The German war machine used animal drawn transport to supply much of the Wehrmacht; The United States turned the last cavalry regiments into mechanized units and the Red Ball Express that supplied Patton. I used mules to plow cotton fields during World War II; but our soldiers did not depend on mules for ammunition. If all our plants had been in Frankfurt instead of Detroit, the outcome might have been different.

It’s not as if China is the enemy of the West or manufactures anything  militarily important, right?

A man ahead of his time

20 years ago, Sam Francis foresaw something akin to The Trumpening in America’s political future:

What if you dropped all this leftover 19th-century piety about the free market and promised to fight the elites who were selling out American jobs? What if you just stopped talking about reforming Medicare and Social Security and instead said that the elites were failing to deliver better health care at a reasonable price? What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society — something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America — you simply promised to restore the Middle American core — the economic and cultural losers of globalization — to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?

That’s pretty much the advice that columnist Samuel Francis gave to Pat Buchanan in a 1996 essay, “From Household to Nation,” in Chronicles magazine. Samuel Francis was a paleo-conservative intellectual who died in 2005. Earlier in his career he helped Senator East of North Carolina oppose the Martin Luther King holiday. He wrote a white paper recommending the Reagan White House use its law enforcement powers to break up and harass left-wing groups. He was an intellectual disciple of James Burnham’s political realism, and Francis’ political analysis always had a residue of Burnham’s Marxist sociology about it. He argued that the political right needed to stop playing defense — the globalist left won the political and cultural war a long time ago — and should instead adopt the insurgent strategy of communist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. Francis eventually turned into a something resembling an all-out white nationalist, penning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan didn’t take Francis’ advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years later, “From Household to Nation,” reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.

To simplify Francis’ theory: There are a number of Americans who are losers from a process of economic globalization that enriches a transnational global elite. These Middle Americans see jobs disappearing to Asia and increased competition from immigrants. Most of them feel threatened by cultural liberalism, at least the type that sees Middle Americans as loathsome white bigots. But they are also threatened by conservatives who would take away their Medicare, hand their Social Security earnings to fund-managers in Connecticut, and cut off their unemployment too.

I myself have been writing about America’s bi-factional ruling party for more than twelve years, but only recently has it seemed that people are beginning to wake up to the fact that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are genuinely on the side of the average white Americans who comprise the genuine American nation.

Sooner or later, all politics inevitably becomes tribal, because the only scenario in which so-called post-tribal politics is possible is in a formerly homogeneous nation that is in the early stages of becoming heterogeneous. In other words, there is no such thing as “post-tribal” politics, there is only pre-tribal politics.

And tribal politics is the larval form of war.

A murder in Germany

The German authorities had better respect all of the migrants back to their homelands pretty damned soon, or I expect there is going to be a second Holocaust that will make the first one look downright merciful.

GERMAN-born Iranian Muslim man kills 20-year-old German woman by pushing her into the path of an oncoming subway train in Berlin. German police say a 20-year-old woman has died after being pushed in front of a Berlin subway train by a stranger. The 28-year-old Iranian Muslim has been arrested on ‘suspicion’ of homicide. (Suspicion? Several people grabbed him after witnessing the attack!)

The shocking incident took place when the young woman was standing on the platform waiting for her train and she was pushed in front of an oncoming train by a 28-year-old Hamburg man born of Iranian descent.

After he pushed the woman, shocked witnesses ran toward him and held him back so that he couldn’t escape.

Berlin police spokesman Heidi Vogt said Wednesday that the victim and the suspect didn’t appear to have known each other and there was no indication of a quarrel. Vogt said the man, who was born in Germany but had Iranian citizenship, had previous convictions.

So much for that “innocent second-generation immigrant” idea.

ENOUGH NOW!

As I predicted months ago, the first stage of the nationalist response to the great orc invasion has begun. I am, however, somewhat surprised to see that it has begun in Sweden. It is a limited response; they’re only beating them up… for now:

A mob of black-clad masked men went on a rampage in and around Stockholm’s main train station last night beating up refugees and anyone who did not look like they were ethnically Swedish.

Before the attack, the group of 200 people handed out xenophobic leaflets with the message ‘Enough now’.

Swedish media reported that the thugs, allegedly linked to Sweden’s football hooligan scene, were targeting unaccompanied minors with a ‘foreign’ background.

The mob, wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, ‘gathered with the purpose of attacking refugee children’ Stockholm police spokesman Towe Hagg said.

If the Swedish authorities are foolish enough to attempt to crack down on the anti-immigrant fighters rather than focus on respecting the “refugee children” back to their homelands, the slaughter is going to begin soon. As I warned five years ago, Anders Breivik was the harbinger of things to come.

And before the Swedish authorities decide upon their response, they should probably keep in mind that it isn’t only the migrants who will be attacked by the nationalist forces if they decide that it is the nationalists, and not the migrants, who are their enemies.

The leaflet, as translated by the Daily Mail:

ENOUGH NOW!

All over the country, reports are pouring in that the police can no longer cope with preventing and investigating the crimes which strike the Swedish people.
 
In some cases, for example, in the latest murder of a woman employed at a home for so called ‘unaccompanied minor refugees’ in Molndal, it goes as far as the National Police Commissioner choosing to show more sympathy for the perpetrator than the victim. But we refuse to accept the repeated assaults and harrassment against Swedish women.’
 
We refuse to accept the destruction of our once to safe society. When our political leadership and police show more sympathy for murderers than for their victims, there are no longer any excuses to let it happen without protest.
 
When Swedish streets are no longer safe to walk on for normal Swedes, it is our DUTY to fix the problem. This is why, today, 200 Swedish men gathered to take a stand against the north African ‘street children’ who are running rampage in and around the capital’s central station.
 
Police have clearly showed that they lack the means to stop their progress and we see no other way than to hand down the punishment they deserve ourselves. The justice system has left walk over and the contract of society is therefore broken – it is now every Swedish man’s duty to defend out public spaced against the imported criminality.
 
Those who gathered today are neither your politician, your journalist or your policeman. We are your father, your brother, your husband, your colleague, your friend and your neighbour.
 
Swedish men and women deserve safety in their everyday life and we are therefore calling on all others who also see the problem to follow in our footsteps, both in Stockholm and in other places around the country. For a better future together.

The three top-rated comments at the Daily Mail:

  • This is going to become more common across Europe as the weeks go by.
  • It’s inevitable, when politicians are unable to provide solutions, the people will.
  • If the government don’t act then of course the people will!

However, the initial indications are that the European authorities are going to double down. It appears that they either want a civil war or they have an astonishing faith in their ability to redefine observable reality.

EU leaders insist there is ‘NO LINK’ between the migrant crisis and New Year sex attacks in Cologne – and vow to bring about an end to ‘false accusations’. European Commission wants to ‘unconditionally reject’ link, minutes show. Officials are also growing concerned about possibility of a public backlash.

“Possibility”, the Lacedaemonians said.

    Mailvox: PEGIDA rising

    This is from a reader in Germany. It demonstrates how things are definitely heating up there regardless of what the mainstream media reports.

    Stationed in Germany.  Not being fluent I don’t understand all of the news commentary, but have been talking with my few German friends.  Most are definitely opposed to the mass migration that is occurring. Our area is rural and most of the Germans are blue-collar types. Think of it as the “fly-over” region of the US.  Anyway, this is the first I have heard of any demonstrations outside of the major cities of Germany.  These are right in my back yard, and if these people are stirred to action, the dominoes are falling.

    The authorities are distributing the following warnings:

    • The following areas below are to be avoided in Kaiserslautern due to the possibility of violent demonstrations this coming Saturday.  Although the assessment indicates a low possibility of violence by the Polizei, past PEGIDA events have quickly turned violent whenever counter demonstrations were also planned/present. 
    • On Saturday, 30 January 2016, precise time not yet known, the Kaiserslautern “Patriotische Europaer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes” is planning a demonstration march through downtown Kaiserslautern, rallying at the “Alte Post am Hauptbahnhof”.  Preceding the march, a self-appointed “vigilante force” will patrol the downtown area.  At approximately 1300 on the same date, left wing activists will demonstrate at Am Altenhof, in front of Stiftskirche //MGRS: 32UMV1094977581// in Kaiserslautern against right-wing demonstration.  After the demonstrations in Kaiserslautern, left-wing activist planned to travel to Homburg, Germany by train to disrupt a demonstration in Homburg, further information in Paragraph 2.B. below.  HNLE expectation of violence at both events was assessed as LOW.
    • At approximately 1700 on 30 January 2016, the group “Saarlaender gegen Salafisten” will demonstrate in the area surrounding the Hauptbahnhof.  The purpose of the demonstration is “Protect our women from sexual assaults”.  Expectation of violence was unknown.  

    Musings on Immigration III

    This is the third part of a guest post on the European migrant crisis:

    In part II of this series, I considered ways the German and European authorities could attempt to handle the Migrant Crisis.  However, I rather doubt that the European Governments will have the nerve to embrace such measures.  They would have to cope with howls of outrage from the Left while balancing the suspicions of the Right that the measures utilized would eventually end up aimed at them.  Giving the government a vast amount of power may well mean, eventually, that the government will wind up using it in a manner you dislike.

    Regardless of either intentions or morality, there is a further problem.  Germany, and almost every other European Governments, has been making alarming cuts in both its police and its deployable military forces.  Even if the German government works up the nerve to order draconian measures, it may find itself unable to actually enforce them.

    Furthermore, as morale sinks within the police forces – it is unlikely that the German police very much enjoy the idea of putting down protest marches against rapist invaders – there may be a vast exodus of trained and experienced policemen. 

    Therefore, it behoves us to study the three major possibilities for Germany’s future: Fascism, Balkanisation and Caliphate.

    1. Fascism.

    Let us assume, as I expect to happen, that Merkel’s government fails to both come to grips with the crisis and convince the vast majority of Germans that it is capable and competent.  As I said in the previous article, definite proof of a government cover-up ensures that the government will not be believed by the ordinary people.  As has been noted elsewhere, that which is half-seen is all the more disturbing to the imagination!  The government’s failure will both encourage the rise of vigilante groups of the streets of Germany and, almost certainly, empower politicians who intend to ride the crisis into power.  In times of crisis, voters tend to head to the right; a competent right-wing politician (a German version of Donald Trump) may well have a good chance of being elected into power.

    He will be called a second Hitler, of course.  But how badly will that hurt his chances when Germans start asking themselves what Hitler would have done, faced with a howling mob of invaders?

    Assuming this individual gets elected, what then?

    Such a government will have few restraints.  International opinion rarely means squat to fascist dictatorships.  I imagine he would start by building up the police and security forces, then rounding up vast numbers of migrants and sealing them away in detention camps.  If there is nowhere else to put them, he may well open up the gas chambers and slaughter the migrants in job lots.  And if the situation in Germany continues, he may well be cheered as the migrants are summarily exterminated.

    He will also purge Germany of everyone he considers politically undesirable.  The thought of Merkel standing trial for treason is quite a pleasing one, along with many other left-wing morons who somehow managed to climb into power.  However, it probably won’t stop there.  The technology available to the modern world for population control and surveillance would make the Spanish Inquisitors wet their pants.  Anyone who has expressed a politically-unsound opinion on Facebook (for example) would be targeted. 

    Longer-term, he would need to come to terms with Germany’s demographic crisis.  I would expect ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ to be the order of the day for German womanhood; those babies have to be born!  General freedoms would probably be strongly limited; a smart fascist wouldn’t interfere too much with personal freedoms, but political freedom would be gone, once and for all.

    There are people who would probably see this as a dream come true.  It isn’t.  The fascists might achieve their first set of objectives, but what then?  Staying in power would become a desperate imperative.  Why would anyone show them mercy when they have shown none?  Getting rid of a fascist government is far from easy.  Removing Saddam took a full-scale invasion.

    Internationally, of course, a resurgent Germany with more than a whiff of Nazism would be a nightmare reborn.  And that’s about as far as I dare take this one.

    2. Balkanisation

    If we assume that the flow of migrants is not stopped, and the government fails to contain the situation, we may see, instead, the rise of a balkanised Germany.  The original no-go zones would expand rapidly to contain the newcomers, linking up into larger and larger communities where the original law no longer runs.   Without a strong police presence, real power would come to rest in the hands of radicals, men who will paint themselves as defending their communities against very real threats.  (By this point, there will probably be constant low-level fighting on the streets of Germany, giving them a genuine cause.)  Women will be forced under the veil; children will be taught to hate the surrounding German society.

    Young German girls will be kidnapped and enslaved inside the communities.  There will be no hope of saving them from a life of rape and forced childbirth.

    And any previous accommodation with the natives will be blown away.

    This will probably cause a mass exodus of German civilians, either to safer parts of Germany (if they exist) or somewhere beyond German borders.  (The Poles might find it amusing to take German refugees, if they’re willing to behave; Putin might see advantage in doing the same.)

    Or, alternatively, ‘German’ enclaves will fight to defend themselves against both the Islamic enclaves and the government (or what remains of it).  German soldier and policemen will desert to join their communities, bringing weapons and training with them.  Muslim soldiers within the German military will probably do the same, in the other direction.  Both sides will work desperately to build up their stockpiles of weapons, as the government’s ability to do anything crumbles.

    There will be a great deal of fighting before matters settle down, particularly as the various sub-states start to form successor nations.

    Each enclave will need to control its own food supplies – although it might be possible to starve an immigrant enclave into submission – and other issues arising from its separation from Germany.  We would be looking at scenes out of the Thirty Years War, perhaps worse.  Modern society is just not organised to support a large population during a time of major disruption.  I would imagine a truly fearsome death rate as society breaks down completely.

    Long-term, who knows what will happen?

    3. Caliphate

    Tom Kratman’s Caliphate predicted a unified Islamic Empire controlling most of Europe, apart from Britain and Switzerland.  As chilling as his predictions were, there were a number of issues with them.  Muslims do not have one vast hive mind.  Different groups of Sunni terrorists/insurgents (a category that includes both ISIS and Al Qaeda) have different ideas about how best to govern territory when they finally take it.  The differences between Sunnis and Shias are far greater, with both sides determined to destroy the other.  (There is something to be said for pulling out of the Middle East and letting them kill each other.)  Finally, Arabs are often extremely racist towards other Muslims, which causes far more friction in the Muslim World. 

    A united Caliphate, therefore, is actually the least likely scenario.  I would say that it is rather more likely that there is an Islamic France and an Islamic Germany that hate each other fully as much as the natives did, between 1870 and 1945.  To have a united Caliphate would require a group that managed to gain control of the political levers without either fracturing or provoking resistance before it was too late.  In my experience, large-scale conspiracies rarely work out in practice

    Remember, neither Hitler nor Stalin had  a solid plan from Day One to take total power for themselves.  Instead, they were opportunists.  In both cases, they were riding tigers.  One slip and it would have been the end of them.

    But let us imagine, for a moment, a powerful and charismatic ‘moderate’ Muslim who manages to work his way into a position of power.  Perhaps he’s the leader of a ‘reasonable’ Islamic Party that claims to believe in the rights of everyone, even non-Muslims.  His words are enough to soothe tensions on the streets, a process made easier by steadily replacing senior police and military officers with his own men.  A handful of radicals who are too noticeable even in a tame media environment get stoned to death, just to bolster his ratings.  His party even works its way into the EU and different national politics, making it clear that they’re the good guys.  See?  Accommodation works!

    And then, one day, the coup.  The remaining non-Muslims (and Muslims who won’t toe the line) in government get rounded up.  Borders are closed, new security forces appear on the streets, Islamic Law is imposed, the nightmare begins….

    Plausible?  I hope not.

    Barring a major change in mindset, the Caliphate will rapidly start to decay, whatever happens.  The Middle-Eastern mentality is not suited to running a modern state.  However, they will inherit control of both a reasonably-modern military force and a nuclear arsenal.  Would they fire on the United States?  Or Russia?  Or Israel?

    I don’t know how Kratman envisaged his Caliphate coming into existence, but maybe it was a little like that.

    I think it’s fairly clear that none of these possibilities are very good ones.  Long-term, Germany and Europe would be in deep shit.  Even the ‘best’ of these outcomes, a fascist government, would be a nightmare on a hellish scale.  It would probably take a joint American-Russian invasion to put a stop to the reoccurrence of a historical nightmare, but almost certainly they would be too late to stop millions upon millions of people from dying, or worse.

    And considering that the Americans and Russians cannot even cooperate in the relatively smaller matters of Ukraine and Syria, how likely is it that that they will be able to act in concert regarding the fate of Germany or Europe?

    But no matter what, one thing is clear: Merkel Must Go!