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The Coming War of Civilizations
The American Mind ^ | 15 Jan, 2024 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 01/16/2024 6:23:34 AM PST by MtnClimber

America’s decline is not irreversible.

Media coverage of world events focuses on one crisis at a time, as if each was a separate phenomenon. But Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, the assaults on shipping in the Red Sea, China’s threats on Tawain, the closing of the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis, and even Venezuelan plans to conquer much of oil-rich Guyana are not separate events, but highly related.

All follow patterns laid out in Samuel Huntington’s 2011 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order which predicted the rise of “revanchist” powers seeking to recover perceived past glory. The most critical struggle will be with China, whose stated aim is to emerge as the leading global superpower by 2050. Yet China’s rise as a totalitarian surveillance state is just one part of the ascendency of autocrats who seek to topple the long-standing liberal capitalist order and replace it with something more feudal in nature, essentially a world dominated by absolute rulers and their satraps.

To be sure, each of these malefactors, including China, suffers significant weaknesses that could limit their ambitions and leave an opening for a strong Western response. Yet the West’s current power structure seems to lack the will, much less the way, to fight back. Attacks on innocent civilians, particularly in Europe, and assaults on American military bases and commercial shipping, not to mention the use of social media to undermine Western resolve—most evident with the rise of TikTok—are met with weak responses.

Realpolitik Trumps Moralism

The response to the Ukraine war epitomizes the shifting power dynamic. As the West, particularly the traditionally pacifist Left, has rallied with dollars and heightened emotions to the Ukrainian cause, the rest of the world, including rising economic powers like Vietnam, has showed little interest. Virtually no power outside the West has stood by the Ukrainians, except the democracies of East Asia, notably Japan and South Korea, which now have reason to think they too will be abandoned eventually by the West as well.

Many countries have benefited from the war as Russian resources, notably oil, flow to their economies at reduced rates. China uses Russia’s oil, and that of allied states like Iran, to build the world’s most formidable industrial economy. Seeking a way around sanctions on Russia, China uses its considerable financial leverage to develop an alternative credit card system and lead a growing movement away from dollar dominated commercial transactions to ones based on currencies such as the yuan.

The war seems to have increased the sentiment in many emerging countries to free themselves—not from tyranny, but Western domination. This can be seen clearly in the expansion of the BRICs group of developing countries, which extends to China and Russia to Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey, and, most importantly, India, itself increasingly a Hindutva autocracy. Many African countries, highly dependent on China and some with long standing ties to Russia, also have decided to ignore the West’s campaign for Ukraine....


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: bric; russia; ruzzia; ruzzians; ussr
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1 posted on 01/16/2024 6:23:34 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

The left has done this to the USA. They defy common sense.


2 posted on 01/16/2024 6:23:44 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
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To: MtnClimber

Lucky for us we have a firm grip on border securi......... Oh!? 🔓


3 posted on 01/16/2024 6:29:05 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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To: MtnClimber

“The left has done this to the USA. They defy common sense.”

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

The Left would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.


4 posted on 01/16/2024 6:38:47 AM PST by Eccl 10:2 (Prov 3:5 --- "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding")
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To: MtnClimber
And somehow the EU is not autocrats in Brussels with the various EU countries behaving as it's satraps?

And somehow the US is not the autocratic Deep State in DC with the various Blue states acting as satraps?

It's not democracies vs autocrats as the Neocons would have us believe. It is oligarchs vs oligarchs as it has ever been. When our oligarchy was Christian in nature it was worth supporting and fighting for. Now, not so much.

5 posted on 01/16/2024 6:39:58 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
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To: MtnClimber
The Elites’ managed destruction of the United States continues as planned. Globalism can only survive and thrive when the United States (and all countries) are reduced to a Hunger Games like sectors, interdependent with other sectors for survival and especially dependent upon the Elites. Globalism is Satanic…

Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
6 posted on 01/16/2024 6:43:09 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: MtnClimber

Other Nations see Ukraine war as Deep State’s quest for Uni-world order and global domination. They are rejecting the tyranny of Leftist Deep State and its quest for global hegemony.


7 posted on 01/16/2024 6:49:10 AM PST by kp2hot
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To: MtnClimber

“The war seems to have increased the sentiment in many emerging countries to free themselves—not from tyranny, but Western domination. “

___________________________________________________

Ohhh, the self-righteousness and arrogance...


8 posted on 01/16/2024 7:00:36 AM PST by Bishop_Malachi (Liberal Socialism - A philosophy which advocates spreading a low standard of living equally.)
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To: MtnClimber
"To be sure, each of these malefactors, including China, suffers significant weaknesses that could limit their ambitions and leave an opening for a strong Western response. Yet the West’s current power structure seems to lack the will, much less the way, to fight back."

The people of the Western nations are preoccupied with flagellating themselves over past and present imperfections.

Imperfections notwithstanding, the USA is the greatest, most just nation in history and the American Dream the greatest light.

Americans who yield to the demands to destroy the USA because of its imperfections are fools and the useful idiots of the evil.

9 posted on 01/16/2024 7:02:42 AM PST by Savage Beast (Where truth, joy, love and beauty converge, there is enormous strength and wisdom. Strive for it.)
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To: Savage Beast

People in general are too stupid to realize that a world without America will be a lot like the world before America, only this time, there will be no place to flee from the tyrants.


10 posted on 01/16/2024 7:05:34 AM PST by Joe 6-pack
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To: MtnClimber
"Virtually no power outside the West has stood by the Ukrainians"

Nonsense!

The weakness of the USA, including its military but of greater importance the weakened resolve of the American People and their confidence in the American Dream, emboldened adventurism.

Putin would never have made so reckless a move had Donald Trump remained in power.

Had the American People not allowed the USA to become so dangerously weakened, it would not have been necessary for Donald Trump to be in power.

Had the American People not allowed themselves to succumb to the Decadence of Western Civilization, the USA would never have been so dangerously weakened.

11 posted on 01/16/2024 7:14:31 AM PST by Savage Beast (Where truth, joy, love and beauty converge, there is enormous strength and wisdom. Strive for it.)
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To: MtnClimber
"Many countries have benefited from the war as Russian resources, notably oil, flow to their economies at reduced rates."

And where are America's enormous resources?

Tied up in the woke nonsense, such as "global warming", approved by half the US public and serving America's enemies, such as Biden's puppet-masters, whose objective is the destruction of the USA.

Where are America's oil reserves? Why is America's oil not flowing?

Unused because millions of morally and intellectually confused Americans have allowed themselves to succumb to the Decadence of Western Civilization and to allow America's enemies, domestic and foreign, to paralyse the USA as a prelude to destroying her.

12 posted on 01/16/2024 7:24:24 AM PST by Savage Beast (Where truth, joy, love and beauty converge, there is enormous strength and wisdom. Strive for it.)
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To: MtnClimber

“increased the sentiment in many emerging countries to free themselves—not from tyranny, but Western domination”

Interesting turn of phrase. Suggests being dominated by the west is positive?


13 posted on 01/16/2024 7:26:12 AM PST by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI)
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To: MtnClimber
"The West’s military power is also fading."

America's trannie Army is a joke.

Millions of Americans refuse to realize how dangerous the weakening of the USA really is.

14 posted on 01/16/2024 7:32:45 AM PST by Savage Beast (Where truth, joy, love and beauty converge, there is enormous strength and wisdom. Strive for it.)
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To: MtnClimber
"countries like India and Vietnam do not want to become clients of Xi."

Maybe not, but they could well conclude that it would be better than being clients of a self-destructive, suicidal West.

"We need to make clear to developing countries that allying with the West promises them a better economic future and more security."

Okay, a good idea, but the ONLY way to convince them of it is for that promise to be real, and, with the USA and the rest of the West rapidly sinking into moral and intellectual weakness and confusion and decadence, such a promise is going to be a hard sell.

The best thing the USA can do--at this point--is to re-elect Donald Trump with a solid majority of Trump-supporting Republicans in both house of Congress and follow Trump's excellent advice for Making America Great Again.

In the past, there were other avenues of approach, but in the dangerous world of today, this is the ONLY practical approach available.

Pray that the American People awaken to reality and save the USA and themselves.

15 posted on 01/16/2024 7:44:27 AM PST by Savage Beast (Where truth, joy, love and beauty converge, there is enormous strength and wisdom. Strive for it.)
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To: MtnClimber

“Coming”?

islam has been at war with Western Civilization (and everything else, and each other) since its founding.


16 posted on 01/16/2024 8:02:45 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever https://www.timesofisrael war again.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

(Not to discount the additional malefactors cited in the article)


17 posted on 01/16/2024 8:05:00 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever https://www.timesofisrael war again.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

18 posted on 01/16/2024 9:46:44 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: MtnClimber

Developing countries

Don’t want post civilization metrosexualism

Post communist Marxist countries

Like Russia don’t want it too

Gay gog usa

Gay Magog nato

Have both become a global pariah

Rev 13


19 posted on 01/16/2024 10:06:06 PM PST by Firehath (Quackery - An irrelevant simplification / undetected Complex problem - attacking symptoms)
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To: MtnClimber
The war seems to have increased the sentiment in many emerging countries to free themselves—not from tyranny, but Western domination. This can be seen clearly in the expansion of the BRICs group of developing countries, which extends to China and Russia to Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey, and, most importantly, India, itself increasingly a Hindutva autocracy. Many African countries, highly dependent on China and some with long standing ties to Russia, also have decided to ignore the West’s campaign for Ukraine....

Game changer...

20 posted on 01/17/2024 1:07:00 AM PST by GOPJ (FoxNews Lawrence Jones needs to visit Black, Hispanic and Asian breakfast places too.Let's get real)
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