September 19, 2023
Dear Friends and Family,
At this point in the series, I think the evidence shows that our country is in decline and the trend line is one of acceleration. The weakening of our national security and the loss of American influence on the world stage is one of similar decline.
Immigration: Approximately 1.45 million known got-aways have entered the country from January 2021 to April 2023 plus 1.5 million undocumented immigrants in 2021 and 2.76 million in 2022 that have crossed through border entries. This is close to six million – a huge number in two years. In fact, it’s about 2% of the total population. As the excerpts reflect, the consequences are severe: (a) the lapse in the rule of law sends a clear message that our laws do not need to be followed, (b) the associated educational, welfare, healthcare, and processing and legal costs are huge, taking government benefits away from ordinary citizens, and (c) their presence has resulted in an increase in crime rates -- drug dealing, smuggling, sex trafficking, sexual assault, and murder.
Foreign Policy:
Harley
Dear Friends and Family,
At this point in the series, I think the evidence shows that our country is in decline and the trend line is one of acceleration. The weakening of our national security and the loss of American influence on the world stage is one of similar decline.
Immigration: Approximately 1.45 million known got-aways have entered the country from January 2021 to April 2023 plus 1.5 million undocumented immigrants in 2021 and 2.76 million in 2022 that have crossed through border entries. This is close to six million – a huge number in two years. In fact, it’s about 2% of the total population. As the excerpts reflect, the consequences are severe: (a) the lapse in the rule of law sends a clear message that our laws do not need to be followed, (b) the associated educational, welfare, healthcare, and processing and legal costs are huge, taking government benefits away from ordinary citizens, and (c) their presence has resulted in an increase in crime rates -- drug dealing, smuggling, sex trafficking, sexual assault, and murder.
Foreign Policy:
- We gained efforts toward peace in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords but more than lost the gains by ignoring follow-up. This allowed China to facilitate an alliance between Saudi Arabia and Iran which greatly increases the Middle East threat to America plus putting China in a prominent position in the region thus diminishing our influence and increasing the instability of the region.
- We lost credibility with our allies given the horrifically bad withdrawal from Afghanistan. This also appears to have emboldened some of our adversaries as the endeavor is perceived as weakness on our part.
- We took our eye off the ball on international trade and lost a valued trading partner in Brazil to China. Further, that loss dented the dollars position as the world’s reserve currency as the Brazil-China trade was negotiated to use their relative currencies thus shunning the dollar which is traditionally used for international trade.
- We continue to lose ground to China from security, economic, and geopolitical standpoints because of our continuing dependence on their manufacturing prowess for critical goods and medicines; allowing the continuance of intellectual property theft; permitting infiltration into our country through land and company purchases, universities and Hollywood gifts with quid pro quos; plus, its propaganda in our press. Unfortunately, none of the above is being challenged by our government. Worse the Biden administration has not confronted China on the million plus deaths from the laboratory leaked Covid-19 virus, the 100,000 deaths in our country per year from fentanyl, or even the spy balloon which transversed military operations across the country.
- Yesterday a prisoner swap with Iran was announced. Five U.S. prisoners will be returned to the U.S. and five Iranian prisoners will be returned to Iran – but two are electing to stay in the U.S. and a third is going to another country. Clearly the motivation for the Iranians was not the prisoners, but the $6 billion in sanction monies they received as part of the deal. The money is supposedly stipulated to only be used for humanitarian purposes. However, the President of Iran says all money the Iranian government spends is for humanitarian purposes and their government alone will determine where it is spent. Simultaneously, we are flying the Iranian President to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City with sanctioned funds on a sanctioned plane with a Joe Biden visa. We have dealt with this regime in Iran for 43 years. In that period of time, they have bombed our embassy, imprisoned a U.S. CIA official and killed him, sponsored and funded numerous terrorist organizations who are anti-American, and other atrocities. Their stated goal is to rule the Middle East and “Death to Americans.” So, how does today’s actions influence the future taking of hostages by anti-American regimes, how does it influence negotiations in their return, and how does it play out on the world geopolitical stage? Not positive, in my opinion.
- The only potential positive in the last two and one-half years might be the further solidification of NATO via the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Harley
SEEKING WISDOM FOR AMERICA – SEGMENT 11
ROMAN DECLINE #6: NATIONAL SECURITY – EXCERPTS
THE WEAKENING OF U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
IMMIGRATION: A resident of America should be easily distinguished from a citizen. “Resident” denotes the concrete fact of living in a particular place. In contrast, “citizen” entails a quality, a privilege of enjoying particular rights predicated on responsibilities. An American resident can be a citizen or subject of any foreign nation who just happens to be living within the boundaries of the United States. US citizens, however, are entitled to constitutional protections wherever they go – to the extent possible given the constraints of their hosts. In the past, the distinction between the two statuses was comprehensive and important. It once involved everything from voting and eligibility for state assistance. Today, those differences have virtually collapsed.
The politics of illegal immigration into America over the last 50 years is, in truth, not complicated at all. Simply put, corporate America wanted cheap imported labor without the bother of unionization. Hand in glove with business, the progressive Left agreed with virtual open borders. Progressives assumed either that massive influxes from an impoverished Mexico and Central America would eventually lead to a politically useful new demography or that the U.S. should use its resources to help the foreign poor by inviting them to enter America.
Once state assistance was allowed for noncitizens, the rate of naturalization fell—apparently because residents saw few further advantages in becoming citizens once state support was guaranteed. During the 2019 Democratic primary debates, almost all the candidates agreed that they would ensure comprehensive health coverage for illegal aliens, a privilege that not all- American citizens enjoy but as taxpayers would apparently fund. The holders of green cards saw few advantages in becoming citizens when, by court ruling, citizenship was no longer a prerequisite to receive welfare.
So, this late 20th and 21st century project was to “diversify” America in order to remold its political traditions along more progressive lines. Immigration now became an unapologetic political weapon of transformation by the Left. It worried little about the paradox of claiming the country was flawed by racism while inviting nonwhite foreigners to enter this dreadful place.
But how do these various changes in laws and attitudes lead to the decline of America.
Source: The Dying Citizen by Victor Davis Hanson (2021)
In truth, there are two immigrant communities in America. The one that gets the most attention in our national debate is the group that wants to ignore our laws and change our traditions. This is why so much attention is spent on granting amnesty to those illegally here. Activists and the legacy media tend to ignore or dismiss the other group, which very much resembles past immigrant communities – people who fled oppression, came legally to America looking for opportunity, and want to be American.
For this new class of illegal immigrants, America was just a place they could live for a while and earn money to send home to their families who were struggling back home. From a human standpoint, this impulse is fully understandable. But in most cases, these weren’t people who felt that they were tied to America in the long term. As a result, many immigrant communities became more insulated. It became common for children to grow up without speaking English, or to go through school without learning the history of the country to which they had immigrated. There is no grand plan to make sure our immigration system is focused on building a stronger America.
I’ve learned the hard way; the national Democrat Party simply has no interest in being an honest partner in negotiating immigration laws that make sense and can be – and will be – enforced. And we are now seeing the logical conclusion of their decade of obstruction. Our borders are wide open, and the Biden administration is granting de facto amnesty to millions every year through nonenforcement of the law.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
The empirical evidence demonstrated that when demographic change happens too rapidly, it becomes perceived more and more as a zero-sum proposition, with undue pressure foisted upon local communities. It is in fact when excessively rapid change or excessive demographic change is imposed upon a society that the seeds of prejudicial beliefs are sown and ultimately allow racism to flourish most rapidly. Abundant evidence supports this claim.
Source: American Schism by Seth David Radwell (2021)
The particular nature of America’s mass illegal immigration is almost designed to fracture the republic, and lead to enormous tracts of the country becoming entirely dysfunctional. For the corporate right, undocumented immigrants mean cheap labor. For the statist left, they mean dependents – and cheap votes. The left are right, Big Government centralists don’t mind about the cost Undocumented America imposes, because in the main it imposes them on states, cities, and school districts – and thus makes previously self-sufficient branches of government even more dependent on central authority. And just as Big Government doesn’t care about the impact on local government, Big Business doesn’t care about the impact of illegal labor on small business. This is a recipe for civil strife, if not, ultimately, civil war.
Mexican cartels account for approximately 70% of the narcotics that enter the U.S. to feed American habits. America is importing not just drugs from Mexico, but the dominant players, the municipal outreach, and the business practices.
The illegal immigration question is an interesting test of government in action, at least when it comes to core responsibilities like defense of the nation. Enforcing of the southern border? Can’t be done, old boy. Too porous. But changing the climate of the entire planet. That we can do.
Source: After America by Mark Steyn (2011).
CORPORATE AMERICA: Corporate America wants to cast off everything that makes America the most business-friendly country in the world, while moving jobs out of our nation and waging a merciless war against traditional values. So far, they’ve succeeded. Getting in bed with the CCP has opened up enormous new markets. Outsourcing jobs has been a tremendous cost saver. Bending a knee to woke progressive craziness has made CEOs more popular than ever in elite settings. As our corporate leaders care less and less about the strength of our nation, the policy advice they give lawmakers makes less and less sense for our country. Taking aggressive positions on woke cultural issues that tear at our national fabric might seem like an easy way to avoid boycotts from activists. But those of us charged with keeping America strong recognize that these positions are the greatest threat to our long-term viability.
Our nation needs a thriving economy. And patriotic business leadership has historically underwritten the American Dream. But lawmakers who have been asleep at the wheel for too long, especially within my own party, need to wake up. America’s laws should keep our nation’s corporations firmly ordered tour national common good.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
FOREIGN POLICY: Alliances are essential to American security and prosperity. Solidification of the defense of Western civilization through the formation of NATO, America’s allies have since become one of our greatest competitive advantages.
The Abraham Accords is a story of the entire Middle East. And it’s a story of alliances predicated on America being a force for good in the region in ways that greatly benefit the American people. Our administration came to conceive of the Middle East in an entirely new way. Jared Kushner, Ambassador Freidman, and Special Representative Jason Greenblatt brought fresh thinking to the problems of the region. We didn’t see things as Jews versus Arabs, or Israel versus everyone but America. We could see how the region was poised for a realignment, with the forces of peace and stability (Israel and certain Arab neighbors) opposing the forces of extremism and destruction (the Iranian regime, and Sunni jihadists such as ISIS and al-Qaeda).
In keeping with our strategy of building a counter-Iran coalition, we hoped that the time was right to push for normalized relations between Israel and certain Arab neighbors. That feat had happened only twice in Israel’s history: with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Both Bahrain and the UAE wanted to turn their nations into financial and tourism powerhouses and believed that a powerful Iran would destroy their economic gains. We also knew that a new generation of leaders in the Arab world didn’t harbor the same hard line Arab nationalists of anti-Semitic views as their predecessors did, which potentially made them more open to formal ties with Israel.
The announcement of the first normalization agreement with the United Aarab Emirates, on August 13, 2020, came as a massive surprise to the world. The despots stirred trouble at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and appealed to ancient grievances. But the leaders of the four nations – the U.S., Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain – were unmoved. They stayed the course of choosing the right allies and delivered peace. More dominoes continued to fall after that. Sudan recognized Israel, then Morocco came aboard in December 2020.
We’ve now gone from wondering whether the Abraham Accords would be possible to guessing which Arab country will join them next. I welcome the speculation because it assumes the permanency, legacy, and importance of the agreements themselves. I do think Saudi Arabia will be a part of it someday. I can also say we were breathtakingly close to having a major Asian nation sign on before we left office. It may come as a surprise to many Americans that none of the six nations with the largest Muslim populations in the world are Gulf Arab states. Four are in Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Two – Nigeria and Egypt are in Africa. Permanent peace with the Jewish homeland is in the interest of each of these nations.
Source: Never Give an Inch by Mike Pompeo (2023).
The monarchical governments of the Gulf have become increasingly wary about democracies that they view as being unable to guarantee their commitments and as having an uncertain longevity. These countries value stability and strength. This rift would not have occurred if it wasn’t for weak U.S. policy in the region. Yet the Biden administration has shown that it is more interested in pursuing an increasingly hands-off policy in the Middle East, causing the regions countries to look for guarantees of stability from other world powers, such as China and Russia.
Washington’s unclear policy in the region in the face of increasingly belligerent Iran and increased Russian and Chinese involvement sends a message that the future of the Middle East will not be dictated by the United States.
Source: Newsweek: Why the Abraham Accords Are in Danger by Joseph Epstein 3/31/2023
Finally, there is a peace deal of sorts in the Middle East. Not between Israel and the Arabs, but between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have been at each other’s throats for decades. And brokered not by the United States but by China.
This is among the topsiest and turviest of developments anyone could have imagined, a shift that left heads spinning in capitals around the globe. Alliances and rivalries that have governed diplomacy for generations have, for the moment at least, been upended. The Americans, who have been the central actors in the Middle East for the past three-quarters of a century, now find themselves on the sidelines during a moment of significant change. The Chinese, who for years played only as secondary role in the region, have suddenly transformed themselves into the new power player. And the Israelis, who have been courting the Saudis against their mutual adversaries in Tehran, now wonder where it leaves them. China’s prestigious accomplishment vaults it into a new league diplomatically and outshines anything the U.S. has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came into office.
Source: The New York Times: Chinese Brokered Deal Upends Mideast Diplomacy and Challenges U.S. by Peter Baker (3/11/2023)
Brazil: Brazil is China’s most important trading partner in South America, and a new agreement to conduct bilateral commerce in their respective currencies rather than the U.S. dollar is expected to further boost bilateral trade. In less than two decades, China has gone from being practically irrelevant to Brazil’s economy to becoming the country’s main economic partner, both in trade, and more recently, in direct investments and finance. This was unthinkable two decades ago when Argentina and the United States were Brazil’s most important trading partners.
Source: United States Institute of Peace: Brazil’s Economic Ties with China Flourish by Francisco Urdinez (4/13/23)
Afghanistan: Good planning counts for everything. This was sadly borne out in the horrifying withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred under President Biden. When we turned the keys over, the Trump administration had demonstrated an ability to draw down our forces in a conditions-based manner, without allowing the Taliban to take over. We were focused on leaving no one and nothing behind. The Biden administration ditched the conditions-based framework and rushed a complete American withdrawal to meet an idiotic deadline of September 11. It was idiotic to set a date in principle and idiotic to set a date with such potent symbolism. Once the date was made public, the die was cast. President Biden telegraphed to the Taliban that they could begin a violent campaign of coercing Afghan commanders to lay down arms because the Americans had announced their date of departure. It was a recipe for the chaos that engulfed the country, to the misfortune of Afghan citizens and to the shame of the United States.
Source: Never Give an Inch by Mike Pompeo (2023).
OUR CURRENT RELIANCE ON CHINA: We did not get here by accident. Our reliance on China – financial and otherwise – is the direct result of decades of bad U.S. policy. Beyond the story of how we helped China to enter the WTO, there is a much broader story about how we willfully misunderstood the country’s ambitions from the beginning, and how doing so allowed the relationship between our two countries to deteriorate into a state resembling open war. China exploited America’s blind ambition – ambition to open markets, ambition to spread democracy, ambition to make obscene amounts of money – and we are now paying the price. Leaders in the U.S. should have paid more attention to our own ability to make things before turning Communist China into a global superpower.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
CHINA’S AGGRESSION
America is at a crossroads. Our very existence as a free nation, in control of our own destiny, is at grave risk due to the communist government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Absolute power in the PRC is wielded by Xi Jinping, China’s leader.
Xi Jinping is employing formidable levers of power against the Chinese people, the United States, and our democracies around the globe. The PRC’s theft of intellectual property threatens our national security and that of our closest friends. Xi’s willingness to allow tons of illicit, addictive drugs to be exported to other nations endangers millions. His false territorial claims over vast expanses of open seas and the erection of Man-made islands, which are, in fact, military bastions, proved visual proof of his determination. Even more menacing are the PRC’s overt and covert actions to thwart UN sanctions against Tehran. As in North Korea, Xi’s ruthless geopolitical strategy all but ensures the ayatollahs in Iran will obtain nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Credible evidence exists that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was instrumental in the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Religious freedom in China is non-existent. Democracy in Hong Kong has been crushed. The economies in dozens of developing countries are threatened by Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative. Here at home, the PRC’s campaign of disinformation encourages Marxists and anarchist vandals to rebel openly against the principles set out in our nation’s seminal documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Infiltration: The PRC now wields substantial power in Hollywood and insinuates its control and propaganda into our press, our businesses, and our universities. Strategic purchases of U.S. businesses and the placement of Chinese companies on American stock exchanges and indexes have given the PRC enormous suasion over the avenues of American soft power. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission has reported that as of February 2019, there were 156 Chinese companies listed on the three largest U.S. exchanges. These firms had a combined capitalization of $1.2 trillion.
To name but five American businesses under full of partial Chinese ownership is to demonstrate the penetration of our economy by large Chinese companies. Motorola Mobility and IBM’s personal computer division have been acquired by Lenovo; Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer is owned by the WH Group; Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC, is owned by the Wanda Group, which also has held a significant stake in AMC Theatres, the largest chain in America. (Note: GE Appliances was also purchased in 2016 by Haier a Chinese firm).
Protections: Even without specific reference to China, the present pandemic makes clear America must adopt a manifold of new initiatives to better protect against biological as well as chemical and nuclear threats, including electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons and radiological agents. Possibly more destructive than the pandemic would be a failure of our power grid resulting in a protracted black-sky event, in which electricity is no longer available from our established infrastructure. This can be caused by cyberterrorism by an EMP, or by kinetic damage to key nodes.
Belt and Road: China has embarked on a global strategy constituting a new imperialism. The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seeks to shape connectivity and alliances on a global scale, which may include 65 other countries comprising 30% of global GDP and 75% of established energy reserves. China’s aggressive parlay in the construction of various types of power plants throughout the developing world is recognized as being inextricably tied to the BRI and is, for the PRC, imperative.
Intelligence: Of all the forces in the world today, only weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), disease, and the PRC can meaningfully affect our nation’s course. It follows therefore, these three specters should dominate the efforts of America’s intelligence community. Terrorism (that does not involve potential WMDs), Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Iran are secondary in their ability to damage the United States.
Business or Theft: America’s 2019 trade deficit with China reached $345.6 billion. What is not commonly noted is this trade deficit does not include intellectual property (IP) theft by China and by other nations. Total loses of this type to the U.S. economy far exceed two trillion dollars in the last ten years alone. IP theft does incalculable harm in reducing incentives for U.S. companies to invest in research and development, for it make little sense to invest in something that will be stolen. Losses to U.S. competitiveness are certainly immense and take many forms: in 2011, 75% of China’s $12 billion domestic software market was satisfied by pirated software, much of it stolen from American companies.
China has abused the World Trade Organizations (WTO) policy that permits countries to self-identify as developing nations. The PRC, second only to the U.S. in economic output, has declared itself to be a developing nation and thus is the beneficiary of WTO rules designed to assist such countries. This must end. The U.S., working with allied nations, must attempt to reform the WTO, to constrain China’s abuse of the WTO’s principles and agreements, which were designed to promote free trade and fairness.
Acts: Xi Jinping’s duplicity and his malfeasance during the coronavirus pandemic have brought deserved international condemnation upon China and its communist rule. The Chinese threat must not be misrepresented, for our emphasis must be to disrupt the many caustic elements of China’s geopolitical strategy. We must move to sanction the PRC. Had America done a tenth of what China has done to the world, even given the most charitable view of their acts, the PRC would do anything to make us pay.
Source: America’s #1 Adversary by John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, Richard Levine (2020)
A Quote from John Radcliffe, past Director of National Intelligence on Fox News (4/11/2023)
The Biden administration has not confronted China on anything, whether it be the million plus deaths from the laboratory leaked COVID-19 virus; the 100,000 deaths from China made fentanyl; or the spy balloon which transverse military operations across the United States. They want China to be a friendly competitor, but they are not, nor will they be. China and Iran are getting stronger, and the U.S. and Israel are getting weaker.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
ROMAN DECLINE #6: NATIONAL SECURITY – EXCERPTS
THE WEAKENING OF U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY
IMMIGRATION: A resident of America should be easily distinguished from a citizen. “Resident” denotes the concrete fact of living in a particular place. In contrast, “citizen” entails a quality, a privilege of enjoying particular rights predicated on responsibilities. An American resident can be a citizen or subject of any foreign nation who just happens to be living within the boundaries of the United States. US citizens, however, are entitled to constitutional protections wherever they go – to the extent possible given the constraints of their hosts. In the past, the distinction between the two statuses was comprehensive and important. It once involved everything from voting and eligibility for state assistance. Today, those differences have virtually collapsed.
The politics of illegal immigration into America over the last 50 years is, in truth, not complicated at all. Simply put, corporate America wanted cheap imported labor without the bother of unionization. Hand in glove with business, the progressive Left agreed with virtual open borders. Progressives assumed either that massive influxes from an impoverished Mexico and Central America would eventually lead to a politically useful new demography or that the U.S. should use its resources to help the foreign poor by inviting them to enter America.
Once state assistance was allowed for noncitizens, the rate of naturalization fell—apparently because residents saw few further advantages in becoming citizens once state support was guaranteed. During the 2019 Democratic primary debates, almost all the candidates agreed that they would ensure comprehensive health coverage for illegal aliens, a privilege that not all- American citizens enjoy but as taxpayers would apparently fund. The holders of green cards saw few advantages in becoming citizens when, by court ruling, citizenship was no longer a prerequisite to receive welfare.
So, this late 20th and 21st century project was to “diversify” America in order to remold its political traditions along more progressive lines. Immigration now became an unapologetic political weapon of transformation by the Left. It worried little about the paradox of claiming the country was flawed by racism while inviting nonwhite foreigners to enter this dreadful place.
But how do these various changes in laws and attitudes lead to the decline of America.
- Many illegal immigrants violate a number of state and federal laws: first, by entering the U.S. illegally, second, by continuing to reside inside the U.S. illegally, and third, often by impersonating American citizens in assuming a false identity, Social Security number, or Internal Revenue Service tax identification number. In each iteration, lawbreaking often has typically been excused or contextualized – rewarding those who break immigration law and punishing those who patiently wait in line to arrive legally to United States.
- The cost-to-benefit value of the citizen’s access to government services is diluted through competition from millions of noncitizens.
- Illegal immigration has resulted in a spike in crime that affects the safety and security of American citizens – in matters of fraud, drug dealing, smuggling, and sex trafficking. In 2019, 64% of all arrests by all federal authorities are of noncitizens, here both legally and illegally, even though they comprise just 14 to 17 percent of the U.S. population.
Source: The Dying Citizen by Victor Davis Hanson (2021)
In truth, there are two immigrant communities in America. The one that gets the most attention in our national debate is the group that wants to ignore our laws and change our traditions. This is why so much attention is spent on granting amnesty to those illegally here. Activists and the legacy media tend to ignore or dismiss the other group, which very much resembles past immigrant communities – people who fled oppression, came legally to America looking for opportunity, and want to be American.
For this new class of illegal immigrants, America was just a place they could live for a while and earn money to send home to their families who were struggling back home. From a human standpoint, this impulse is fully understandable. But in most cases, these weren’t people who felt that they were tied to America in the long term. As a result, many immigrant communities became more insulated. It became common for children to grow up without speaking English, or to go through school without learning the history of the country to which they had immigrated. There is no grand plan to make sure our immigration system is focused on building a stronger America.
I’ve learned the hard way; the national Democrat Party simply has no interest in being an honest partner in negotiating immigration laws that make sense and can be – and will be – enforced. And we are now seeing the logical conclusion of their decade of obstruction. Our borders are wide open, and the Biden administration is granting de facto amnesty to millions every year through nonenforcement of the law.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
The empirical evidence demonstrated that when demographic change happens too rapidly, it becomes perceived more and more as a zero-sum proposition, with undue pressure foisted upon local communities. It is in fact when excessively rapid change or excessive demographic change is imposed upon a society that the seeds of prejudicial beliefs are sown and ultimately allow racism to flourish most rapidly. Abundant evidence supports this claim.
Source: American Schism by Seth David Radwell (2021)
The particular nature of America’s mass illegal immigration is almost designed to fracture the republic, and lead to enormous tracts of the country becoming entirely dysfunctional. For the corporate right, undocumented immigrants mean cheap labor. For the statist left, they mean dependents – and cheap votes. The left are right, Big Government centralists don’t mind about the cost Undocumented America imposes, because in the main it imposes them on states, cities, and school districts – and thus makes previously self-sufficient branches of government even more dependent on central authority. And just as Big Government doesn’t care about the impact on local government, Big Business doesn’t care about the impact of illegal labor on small business. This is a recipe for civil strife, if not, ultimately, civil war.
Mexican cartels account for approximately 70% of the narcotics that enter the U.S. to feed American habits. America is importing not just drugs from Mexico, but the dominant players, the municipal outreach, and the business practices.
The illegal immigration question is an interesting test of government in action, at least when it comes to core responsibilities like defense of the nation. Enforcing of the southern border? Can’t be done, old boy. Too porous. But changing the climate of the entire planet. That we can do.
Source: After America by Mark Steyn (2011).
CORPORATE AMERICA: Corporate America wants to cast off everything that makes America the most business-friendly country in the world, while moving jobs out of our nation and waging a merciless war against traditional values. So far, they’ve succeeded. Getting in bed with the CCP has opened up enormous new markets. Outsourcing jobs has been a tremendous cost saver. Bending a knee to woke progressive craziness has made CEOs more popular than ever in elite settings. As our corporate leaders care less and less about the strength of our nation, the policy advice they give lawmakers makes less and less sense for our country. Taking aggressive positions on woke cultural issues that tear at our national fabric might seem like an easy way to avoid boycotts from activists. But those of us charged with keeping America strong recognize that these positions are the greatest threat to our long-term viability.
Our nation needs a thriving economy. And patriotic business leadership has historically underwritten the American Dream. But lawmakers who have been asleep at the wheel for too long, especially within my own party, need to wake up. America’s laws should keep our nation’s corporations firmly ordered tour national common good.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
FOREIGN POLICY: Alliances are essential to American security and prosperity. Solidification of the defense of Western civilization through the formation of NATO, America’s allies have since become one of our greatest competitive advantages.
The Abraham Accords is a story of the entire Middle East. And it’s a story of alliances predicated on America being a force for good in the region in ways that greatly benefit the American people. Our administration came to conceive of the Middle East in an entirely new way. Jared Kushner, Ambassador Freidman, and Special Representative Jason Greenblatt brought fresh thinking to the problems of the region. We didn’t see things as Jews versus Arabs, or Israel versus everyone but America. We could see how the region was poised for a realignment, with the forces of peace and stability (Israel and certain Arab neighbors) opposing the forces of extremism and destruction (the Iranian regime, and Sunni jihadists such as ISIS and al-Qaeda).
In keeping with our strategy of building a counter-Iran coalition, we hoped that the time was right to push for normalized relations between Israel and certain Arab neighbors. That feat had happened only twice in Israel’s history: with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. Both Bahrain and the UAE wanted to turn their nations into financial and tourism powerhouses and believed that a powerful Iran would destroy their economic gains. We also knew that a new generation of leaders in the Arab world didn’t harbor the same hard line Arab nationalists of anti-Semitic views as their predecessors did, which potentially made them more open to formal ties with Israel.
The announcement of the first normalization agreement with the United Aarab Emirates, on August 13, 2020, came as a massive surprise to the world. The despots stirred trouble at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and appealed to ancient grievances. But the leaders of the four nations – the U.S., Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain – were unmoved. They stayed the course of choosing the right allies and delivered peace. More dominoes continued to fall after that. Sudan recognized Israel, then Morocco came aboard in December 2020.
We’ve now gone from wondering whether the Abraham Accords would be possible to guessing which Arab country will join them next. I welcome the speculation because it assumes the permanency, legacy, and importance of the agreements themselves. I do think Saudi Arabia will be a part of it someday. I can also say we were breathtakingly close to having a major Asian nation sign on before we left office. It may come as a surprise to many Americans that none of the six nations with the largest Muslim populations in the world are Gulf Arab states. Four are in Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Two – Nigeria and Egypt are in Africa. Permanent peace with the Jewish homeland is in the interest of each of these nations.
Source: Never Give an Inch by Mike Pompeo (2023).
The monarchical governments of the Gulf have become increasingly wary about democracies that they view as being unable to guarantee their commitments and as having an uncertain longevity. These countries value stability and strength. This rift would not have occurred if it wasn’t for weak U.S. policy in the region. Yet the Biden administration has shown that it is more interested in pursuing an increasingly hands-off policy in the Middle East, causing the regions countries to look for guarantees of stability from other world powers, such as China and Russia.
Washington’s unclear policy in the region in the face of increasingly belligerent Iran and increased Russian and Chinese involvement sends a message that the future of the Middle East will not be dictated by the United States.
Source: Newsweek: Why the Abraham Accords Are in Danger by Joseph Epstein 3/31/2023
Finally, there is a peace deal of sorts in the Middle East. Not between Israel and the Arabs, but between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have been at each other’s throats for decades. And brokered not by the United States but by China.
This is among the topsiest and turviest of developments anyone could have imagined, a shift that left heads spinning in capitals around the globe. Alliances and rivalries that have governed diplomacy for generations have, for the moment at least, been upended. The Americans, who have been the central actors in the Middle East for the past three-quarters of a century, now find themselves on the sidelines during a moment of significant change. The Chinese, who for years played only as secondary role in the region, have suddenly transformed themselves into the new power player. And the Israelis, who have been courting the Saudis against their mutual adversaries in Tehran, now wonder where it leaves them. China’s prestigious accomplishment vaults it into a new league diplomatically and outshines anything the U.S. has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came into office.
Source: The New York Times: Chinese Brokered Deal Upends Mideast Diplomacy and Challenges U.S. by Peter Baker (3/11/2023)
Brazil: Brazil is China’s most important trading partner in South America, and a new agreement to conduct bilateral commerce in their respective currencies rather than the U.S. dollar is expected to further boost bilateral trade. In less than two decades, China has gone from being practically irrelevant to Brazil’s economy to becoming the country’s main economic partner, both in trade, and more recently, in direct investments and finance. This was unthinkable two decades ago when Argentina and the United States were Brazil’s most important trading partners.
Source: United States Institute of Peace: Brazil’s Economic Ties with China Flourish by Francisco Urdinez (4/13/23)
Afghanistan: Good planning counts for everything. This was sadly borne out in the horrifying withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred under President Biden. When we turned the keys over, the Trump administration had demonstrated an ability to draw down our forces in a conditions-based manner, without allowing the Taliban to take over. We were focused on leaving no one and nothing behind. The Biden administration ditched the conditions-based framework and rushed a complete American withdrawal to meet an idiotic deadline of September 11. It was idiotic to set a date in principle and idiotic to set a date with such potent symbolism. Once the date was made public, the die was cast. President Biden telegraphed to the Taliban that they could begin a violent campaign of coercing Afghan commanders to lay down arms because the Americans had announced their date of departure. It was a recipe for the chaos that engulfed the country, to the misfortune of Afghan citizens and to the shame of the United States.
Source: Never Give an Inch by Mike Pompeo (2023).
OUR CURRENT RELIANCE ON CHINA: We did not get here by accident. Our reliance on China – financial and otherwise – is the direct result of decades of bad U.S. policy. Beyond the story of how we helped China to enter the WTO, there is a much broader story about how we willfully misunderstood the country’s ambitions from the beginning, and how doing so allowed the relationship between our two countries to deteriorate into a state resembling open war. China exploited America’s blind ambition – ambition to open markets, ambition to spread democracy, ambition to make obscene amounts of money – and we are now paying the price. Leaders in the U.S. should have paid more attention to our own ability to make things before turning Communist China into a global superpower.
Source: Decades of Decadence by Marco Rubio (2023).
CHINA’S AGGRESSION
America is at a crossroads. Our very existence as a free nation, in control of our own destiny, is at grave risk due to the communist government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Absolute power in the PRC is wielded by Xi Jinping, China’s leader.
Xi Jinping is employing formidable levers of power against the Chinese people, the United States, and our democracies around the globe. The PRC’s theft of intellectual property threatens our national security and that of our closest friends. Xi’s willingness to allow tons of illicit, addictive drugs to be exported to other nations endangers millions. His false territorial claims over vast expanses of open seas and the erection of Man-made islands, which are, in fact, military bastions, proved visual proof of his determination. Even more menacing are the PRC’s overt and covert actions to thwart UN sanctions against Tehran. As in North Korea, Xi’s ruthless geopolitical strategy all but ensures the ayatollahs in Iran will obtain nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Credible evidence exists that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was instrumental in the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Religious freedom in China is non-existent. Democracy in Hong Kong has been crushed. The economies in dozens of developing countries are threatened by Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative. Here at home, the PRC’s campaign of disinformation encourages Marxists and anarchist vandals to rebel openly against the principles set out in our nation’s seminal documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Infiltration: The PRC now wields substantial power in Hollywood and insinuates its control and propaganda into our press, our businesses, and our universities. Strategic purchases of U.S. businesses and the placement of Chinese companies on American stock exchanges and indexes have given the PRC enormous suasion over the avenues of American soft power. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission has reported that as of February 2019, there were 156 Chinese companies listed on the three largest U.S. exchanges. These firms had a combined capitalization of $1.2 trillion.
To name but five American businesses under full of partial Chinese ownership is to demonstrate the penetration of our economy by large Chinese companies. Motorola Mobility and IBM’s personal computer division have been acquired by Lenovo; Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer is owned by the WH Group; Legendary Pictures Productions, LLC, is owned by the Wanda Group, which also has held a significant stake in AMC Theatres, the largest chain in America. (Note: GE Appliances was also purchased in 2016 by Haier a Chinese firm).
Protections: Even without specific reference to China, the present pandemic makes clear America must adopt a manifold of new initiatives to better protect against biological as well as chemical and nuclear threats, including electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons and radiological agents. Possibly more destructive than the pandemic would be a failure of our power grid resulting in a protracted black-sky event, in which electricity is no longer available from our established infrastructure. This can be caused by cyberterrorism by an EMP, or by kinetic damage to key nodes.
Belt and Road: China has embarked on a global strategy constituting a new imperialism. The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seeks to shape connectivity and alliances on a global scale, which may include 65 other countries comprising 30% of global GDP and 75% of established energy reserves. China’s aggressive parlay in the construction of various types of power plants throughout the developing world is recognized as being inextricably tied to the BRI and is, for the PRC, imperative.
Intelligence: Of all the forces in the world today, only weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), disease, and the PRC can meaningfully affect our nation’s course. It follows therefore, these three specters should dominate the efforts of America’s intelligence community. Terrorism (that does not involve potential WMDs), Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Iran are secondary in their ability to damage the United States.
Business or Theft: America’s 2019 trade deficit with China reached $345.6 billion. What is not commonly noted is this trade deficit does not include intellectual property (IP) theft by China and by other nations. Total loses of this type to the U.S. economy far exceed two trillion dollars in the last ten years alone. IP theft does incalculable harm in reducing incentives for U.S. companies to invest in research and development, for it make little sense to invest in something that will be stolen. Losses to U.S. competitiveness are certainly immense and take many forms: in 2011, 75% of China’s $12 billion domestic software market was satisfied by pirated software, much of it stolen from American companies.
China has abused the World Trade Organizations (WTO) policy that permits countries to self-identify as developing nations. The PRC, second only to the U.S. in economic output, has declared itself to be a developing nation and thus is the beneficiary of WTO rules designed to assist such countries. This must end. The U.S., working with allied nations, must attempt to reform the WTO, to constrain China’s abuse of the WTO’s principles and agreements, which were designed to promote free trade and fairness.
Acts: Xi Jinping’s duplicity and his malfeasance during the coronavirus pandemic have brought deserved international condemnation upon China and its communist rule. The Chinese threat must not be misrepresented, for our emphasis must be to disrupt the many caustic elements of China’s geopolitical strategy. We must move to sanction the PRC. Had America done a tenth of what China has done to the world, even given the most charitable view of their acts, the PRC would do anything to make us pay.
Source: America’s #1 Adversary by John Poindexter, Robert McFarlane, Richard Levine (2020)
A Quote from John Radcliffe, past Director of National Intelligence on Fox News (4/11/2023)
The Biden administration has not confronted China on anything, whether it be the million plus deaths from the laboratory leaked COVID-19 virus; the 100,000 deaths from China made fentanyl; or the spy balloon which transverse military operations across the United States. They want China to be a friendly competitor, but they are not, nor will they be. China and Iran are getting stronger, and the U.S. and Israel are getting weaker.
The unabbreviated version of the above can be found in the pdf document below.
| america_11l_national_security_--_segment_11.pdf |