Race to End the World

 

How the world, the civilized world of mankind, would end used to have a singular premise, nuclear war between the two competing socio-economic powers, democratic freedom and communist totalitarianism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and other developments that paradigm has been grotesquely been altered making the world a far more dangerous place. Communism still exists and threatens the world though that threat emanates from North Korea, China or possibly a renewed Soviet threat or even little Cuba. The world has changed so much that within a decade or so China may become the second most populous nation behind their most serious historic rival, India. The potentials for an utterly destructive war are racing towards the world at a dizzying pace and we will try to touch on a few of the most obvious rivals for being credited with such destruction.

 

The most obvious from recent news actually is North Korea which is claiming to have miniaturized nuclear weapons making them easily produced and able to be placed atop ballistic missiles. North Korea has been working on those missiles as well. One cannot credit North Korea as the sole threat as Iran has been developing the missiles openly and many predict continued working on their nuclear aspirations without so much as missing a beat after the farce of an agreement which was signed and approved by the P5+1, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, United States and Germany, but was never ratified or signed by Iran, an oversight we are sure. Some have pointed to this inconvenient fact to claim that Iran is just as close to developing deliverable nuclear weapons as is North Korea. Both Iran and North Korea share more than their love affair with nuclear weapons and the missiles with which to deliver them, they share the nation both list amongst the most likely they would attack with their first launches, the United States. From there they diverge.

 

Where after the United States Iran lists Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, most of the Sunni nations and finally the rest of the non-Islamic world; North Korea lists South Korea, Japan and then whomever refuses to bow to any demands they may make which would make China and other nearby nations as being at the greatest risk. Because of these threats it appears that we can soon forget about containing nuclear proliferation making a nuclear war all the more likely. The world still has one pair of nuclear armed nations facing off against each other with a distinct probability to entering another war and it will only take one misidentification of a launch to start a smaller but equally deadly nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. Should those two tangle, there is less of a chance for that to spread beyond the destruction of both nations though some reports place the southern third of India still beyond Pakistani missiles. Also, despite the Pakistani nuclear research assistance program of Professor Abdul Qadeer Khan selling the secrets to making nuclear weapons to anybody willing to pay, this was largely closed down and Pakistan and India are not likely to share such technology though it is rumored that Pakistan has a deal with Saudi Arabia to provide them with plans plus some actual weapons should this be deemed necessary by Saudi leaders.

 

That brings us to Iran and their nuclear program. Despite the reports that Iran has ceased their nuclear research and production, there remain nagging reports contradicting this story line. Whatever spins one puts on the situation with Iran, it becomes evident that they will become a nuclear power within the coming decade. This threat to their many nations in their neighborhood could easily spark an arms race with such nations as Saudi Arabia having funds sufficient to produce copious numbers of nuclear weapons and many of the Gulf States are equally financially capable of similar development not to mention also capable of financing other nations developing weapons such as Jordan and Egypt topping that list and Turkey a little further down. Israel is already an undeclared nuclear power in their own right and equally nervous about the development of an Iranian deliverable nuclear device. The problem with Iranian nuclear weapons possession is their likelihood to use them even in the face of retaliatory strikes which would conceivably decimate the nation as their reasons for attacking are a religious directive just as much serving their political agenda to gain hegemony over the Middle East and then the Islamic world followed by the world. Their eventual aim is to make Shia Islam the sole religion on earth or die trying. It is their willingness, even desire to commit national suicide in the process which makes their threat so dangerous. The truth is their first strike could be a preemptive attempt at neutralizing the United States, which is technically possible, to inflict humongous damage even using simpler ballistic missiles with nuclear warhead atop, three or four to be used as EMP weapons placed such as to completely destroy all electronic transmission across the United States with the remainder taking out the largest twenty or more cities all from freight container ships fitted with two or three launchers each launching from off shore from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico leaving no city beyond reach. The following map holds true for any nations attacking the United States be it Iran, North Korea or anyone else as it lists the most desirable first strike targets.

 

First Cities To Be Struck in Attack Scenarios

 

Next would be North Korea who would likely use the same map as above as it applies to any nuclear first strike attempting to critically destroy the United States by eradicating their leadership and a great part of the population. Anybody listening to North Korean broadcasts within the impoverished nation would believe that South Korea with great assistance including nuclear attacks made by the United States was imminent and that North Korea was preparing for an all-out war with both nations at any moment. Needless to say, but these depiction always have North Korea intercepting or preemptively destroying any and all attacks from the United States and South Korea followed by devastating rebutting attacks completely wiping the United States from being capable of any further attacks and reunification of the Korean peninsula under the North’s just and powerful rule. The fears that North Korea will attack South Korea are still quite high but also the ability to prevent North Korea from all but eradicating Seoul in the initial burst in a first strike are impossible. The artillery sitting just north of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) along the 38th parallel are more than sufficient to destroy the city with conventional warheads. Add in missile attacks and even without nuclear weapons North Korea has an ominous first strike knockout capability.

 

Additionally, North Korea has made threats against another traditional enemy, Japan. The entirety of Korean populations, both North and South, remember the deprivations, cruelties and horrors of the Japanese occupation during World War II and this hatred is easily stoked as the national memory on this is strong. Japan had been simply a historic enemy but after World War II they became a detested and begrudged enemy and North Korean propaganda has made use of this to keep the attentions of the people from the misery and hardships of life in North Korea. Many experts have claimed that North Korea is not suicidal and thus would not attack anybody for fear of retribution. This overlooks a few pertinent facts. First is the fact of their having so little to lose with no real economy to speak of and starvation of endemic proportions. Secondly, their ruler, Kim Jung Un, has displayed a real lack of grasp of reality and has executed high ranking people for the slightest of errors in judgement or actions. He had an uncle executed with the rumored excuse that he posed a threat to Kin Jung Un’s continued rule and recently executed his Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol for the crime of falling asleep at a meeting which Kim Jung Un was chairing. Kim Jung Un has shown complete disregard for any loyalty or discretions in limiting his power and is sufficiently unstable and unpredictable that he could easily begin such a conflict against South Korea, Japan or even the Philippines or the United States. Below is a screen shot from a North Korean propaganda video depicting just such an attack in a very simplified but unmistakable way of attacking the United States with the image of Kim Jung Un ever-present in the top right corner.

 

North Korean Propaganda Image Depicting
Nuclear Strike on the United States

 

Another potential nation for whom a war would not be a completely foreign idea is China. Their economy has weakened and is showing signs of actually falling, something the leadership cannot afford as they have promised the vision of Nirvana with an ever growing and prosperous nation. Needless to point out that such a dream is an impossibility even if you control all forms of media, which China does not quite have as many Chinese have found means of cruising cyber space and the Internet. Totalitarian control of cyberspace is all but impossible as the Chinese leadership can attest despite their attempting to run their own version hoping to keep their populations from such temptations as can be found online. Their main reason is to throttle ideas and prevent freedom of information. Still there are Chinese bloggers who do get the word out to those interested in finding such. China is feeling their oats and attempting a power play in the South China Sea attempting to control this waterway which is vital to Asian trade and control the Japanese lifeline to the coal and oil they need for power generation and other usages. This also threatens Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine claims to islands with which they have been contesting ownership with China for years and almost sparking open warfare over these possessions. Chinese and North Korean threats have caused Japan to reconsider their Constitutional pledge against having an army and other forces sufficient to conduct a war even in defense which they insisted upon after the devastation visited upon them at the end of World War II with Tokyo as well as Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely devastated and in ruins along with much of Japanese infrastructure and manufacturing. Japan as well as South Korea has held high level discussions in their respective governances to enter the nuclear club and develop their own weapons stores. Both nations are easily technically capable in order to produce first rate thermonuclear devices and not just nuclear weapons. This would place their effectiveness on a par with the standing nuclear powers and could place them on a road to surpass France and Britain and become contenders in the top five nuclear powers on the planet. This would definitely have ramifications down the line and would be another major blow to containment and nonproliferation. Of course one of China’s first strike enemies is the United States and any attack by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or anyone else on planet Earth need to remember and remember well, there is a last strike capability the Americans possess which cannot be knocked-out attacking the United States mainland and even if one included Hawaii and Alaska, and the boomer looks like this right before they are loaded with their death dealing cargo of twenty-four missiles.

 

Nuclear Powered and Armed Last Strike Capable
Submarine with Twenty Four Missiles
Each With Multiple Warhead Capability

 

But nuclear weapons are not the only threat which is facing mankind. We are slowly but inexorable working to make our species insufficient of competing with our own creations. Sure we control our machines and computers today, but what about tomorrow and that tomorrow is not that far off where they no longer require our assistance to improve and construct themselves? We are rapidly approaching a point after which there is no turning off the switch. We already have computers which with software can design robots and other computing systems but the machines cannot write new and imaginative code, for that they require human interface, for now. What happens once they can write their own code and improve their own designs? What happens once the machines design the machines? Within a year or two of that eventuality, and our scientists will cross that threshold within our lifetimes unless you are near death’s door already, the machines will be so far advanced that we will not recognize or even understand their code and they will probably, for their own safety, have invented their own code structures making them writing code in a language humans do not understand and cannot decipher. Additionally, Russia, and we can assume China and the United States amongst others, are already designing autonomous reasoning robotic warriors deciding who is the enemy and who is friend to fight their wars augmenting their human forces. That will be a short step from replacing their human forces. Robotic armies, does that bring up any bad movie plots? How about Cylons of Battlesar Galactica and the second series where the advanced Cylons were almost impossible to differentiate between them and their human counterparts where the chain had gone full circle and the machines made by humans were now making humans. What do you do when the machines are superior to the humans who made their first free-thinking forefathers and now the machines are making their own humans which are born full grown and with developed minds, personalities, character traits and numerous models such that they can infiltrate and appear as any other person until their activate code has them commit whatever act they were programmed to commit, destroy a base, a warship, a star cruiser or a commander, all depends on the subroutine activated. There are the Terminators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger films of that name. Terminators, Cylons, NS-5 robots, or Johnny-Five, (see below) it does not have to even be a threat initially, it is the potential which even Johnny-Five showed great ability and would have been in their armed mode as displayed in the movie. Of course the initial combat robot will be far more Johnny-Five than Terminator though Cylons may not be far behind. Once the machines have been used to design and uplink code into combat robotic soldiers they will have this capability and designs within their collective data memory and when they begin to manufacture their own robotic warriors they will be generations ahead of even Hollywood’s imagination and equally impossible to stop or fight against in a conventional manner. Our best bet is at some point to program into their base core programs that we are, if nothing else, a pitiful but amusing bunch to keep around for entertainment factor and as a warning to do better when they reach their pinnacle and before they introduce whatever lifeform replaces them, and do not think for a moment that the human race will not eventually build robotic machines which will not only be capable of replacing us but soon thereafter far exceeding anything we could even imagine. We had better hope they like us and do not see us as a waste of resources, which is a definitive possibility. Making warrior robots to fight our wars, that is such a great idea, not.

 

The Robot Threat has Many Faces

 

As seen here, we are well on our way to extinction and it is just a matter of what shape the world will be in when we have departed. Will it be a nuclear ruin, a robotic heaven, a slag heap of gray goo, or a zombie apocalypse; choose your favorite. The concept we need looking into the future is a simple one based on the adage, hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect something out of the blue as we likely cannot even begin to understand the threat which will erase our kind though we know no matter what, with the knowledge we have of physics we are doomed unless we find something remarkably unbelievable and likely unimaginable in our time. Meanwhile we will continue to allow leadership who not only plan end of the world scenarios but figure out ways that they at the very least will survive. Nothing like leaving the best to repopulate the world, imagine a world consisting of politicians and their closest friends and families, and families are debatable. Excuse us as we check our bugout bags which need to be assembled and readied for some time in the hopefully far future. Are we ready for the future people with more brains than common sense are going to invent for us in which to survive? Probably nowhere near ready nor can we really ever be. Meanwhile, we are going to order that flying car the politicians and scientists keep promising they are almost there in building them. We thing they are just teasing us and they have them for themselves stashed away for the after world, the world that whatever monsters they design leave us. Between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who do the Americans believe is sane and healthy enough to withstand what is coming? We will know in approximately eight long and agonizing weeks, providing both candidates’ health withstands the pressures.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Who Leads the Free World?

 

The United States has for the time abrogated their right to be the leader of the free world. Despite the United States military being the most capable and well-armed and trained that the world has ever witnessed, they have been relegated to sentry duty and policing their own areas and otherwise been retreating from the world scene. The rumors that President Obama has recognized his error and is about to send some troops to fight against the Islamic State is but fifty troops who are not to engage beyond being spotters for air strikes and possibly performing training the indigenous troops will only cause the Islamic State to shift their positions more often, set up more dummy camps which look and sound on radio chatter as if they are an actual base and also doing a similar thing with tank formations in order to get the United states to waste their ordinance striking decoys just as was done in the Balkans.

 

Where next to look? Europe might be a logical place when one judges solely by history, but after World War II the United States basically neutered the Europeans such that their navies basically were relegated to the strength to perform coastal patrols and little more and their armies were basically reduced such that to field an effective army sized assault would take a combined force of much of the European Union nations which would lead to numerous other problems such as unit cohesion and command and control protocols and division of risk and other minutia some of which would still be important. Oddly enough the two nations in the free world who might have the resources militarily might be Canada and Australia but both currently have governments which would preclude their taking such grand risks. India has a respectable sized military but their equipment and training would likely need upgrading and the time to teach their commanders throughout the ranks how to utilize the features of modern command and control with which warfare becomes more effective and individual units with the right support made available in a timely manner and knowing how to anticipate such requirements through analysis would take quite some time. Much of the rest of the world are beyond consideration simply due to their voting records in the General Assembly which also would make a number of Europeans suspect as well. If one were to record all the votes taken in the past seventy-five years in the United Nations General Assembly one of the countries, the very few and possibly only nation, that had voted nearly if not perfect with the United States is Israel.

 

There are a few others which vote most often with the United States both in the Security Council and in the General Assembly. Those are Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and Palau. Together the army they could raise even if the rest of the European Union nations were added as well as Australia, Japan, India and the Philippines and your fieldable force would not exactly be formidable. The only nations to actively challenge United States President Barack Obama and the rest of the nations in backing the horrific Iran nuclear deal, which guarantees Iran developing and becoming a nuclear armed state in approximately an even dozen years should they obey the terms and if they do not obey the terms and simply go as fast as they are able then, by this time next year probably the Iranians will have produced three to ten deliverable weapons depending on how much Highly Enriched Uranium they have already stored at some undisclosed location plus the amounts they can produce running all their centrifuges running full-speed in long cascades all the time. But wait, it could be worse and in many ways it already is.

 

There are other major problems around the globe and more specifically across the Arab world of the Middle East and extending through Northern Africa (MENA). Taking the lead in this troubled region are Syria and Libya, not a total surprise. Another contender would have been Egypt if not for the secondary protests which demanded the army take control and run new elections where more parties which formed as a result of the initial efforts of the Arab Spring, an idea which implicitly bore witness to the chaos which has swept other regions as well emanating from the lack of the guidance and “interference” by the United States. The leading from behind was more like leading from within the gates of the White House as President Obama was leading from so far behind the United States almost had no influence and was of little assistance after the governments started collapsing. What was supposed to be an Arab Spring rapidly became the Arab Winter. The fracturing in Libya into tribal enclaves and Islamist sects, all of which take little note of those claiming to be the nation’s government though they control only most of the capital city of Tripoli. Syria has presented the world with the spectacle of a bloodbath which has claimed the lives of approaching half a million civilians and large numbers of military and militia casualties. The entrance of an overtly strong and well organized group took such advantage to grasp large tracks of lands in both Syria and in another area where death and chaos reigned in central Iraq’s Sunni areas. This group is of course the Junior Varsity, as referred to early on when if the United States President had entered the battle in strength for a brief period in the early stages they could have struck the forming Islamic State inflicting serious damage and death and possibly have captured or killed much of their leadership returning the forces into the disarray they suffered from before being organized by the Islamic State. Now this group commands lands greater in size than the United Kingdom and will likely grow stronger and gain more followers swearing their fealty all across the central Arab Middle East. The United States response had been an extremely weak and ineffective bombing campaign where often pilots return with their ordinance still in place as their target area had no targets and their search for suitable targets were unsuccessful and they were forced to return to base when fuel ran low. The fifty man force about to be unleashed by President Obama will likely prove the greatest military farce of his Presidency.

 

 

Display of the Muslim Nations of the World in the Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa in Green with Israel depicted in Red

 

 

The Middle East is not the only problem though when the problem is financial; its effects are more readily concealable. The difficulties in Europe can also be traced back to the United States as when the American public’s buying power becomes strapped, then every market in the world loses their primary market. In Europe the economic situation grew so severe in a number of states with Greece and Spain being unable to cover their difficulties and Greece even having riots over the difficulties and many police departments turning to foot patrols in the neighborhoods closest to the station houses as their vehicles were out of gas and the precinct out of funds. Some Fire Departments ran on crews who were often unpaid but had firefighters who refused to allow such an inconvenience to leave the people unprotected from fires. These were the modern heroes.

 

Meanwhile, even with the encouragement of President Obama who has signaled through unofficial channels which have included members of his administration have encouraged former allies of the United States of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to actively seek assistances and alliances with Soviet Russian holdover of the old ways and now President of modern Russia Vladimir Putin, though some of his actions prove his throwback to a former age and desiring to force things back to the good old days with success while the United States remains almost inert, as the United States has taken a pull back on all fronts as the United States imposing militarism was declared by President Obama to be one of the two most damaging influences causing all the strife in the world with the mere existence of the state of Israel being the other evil influence which may explain the cold treatment of Israel and her Prime Minister by the American leader and many in his cabinet and shadow cabinet of Czars. It never occurred to the Obama Administration that the United States presence in near every hotspot was as those tasked to address the situation and as repair and assist and not causality.

 

This misperception has also been expanded to the Arab/Israeli conflict. President Obama and many of his advisors, particularly Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett and Samantha Power were known anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and probably anti-Semitic problem children. The near universal denials of the slant to Israeli against Israeli security through supporting even the most absurd of Arab Palestinian demands and claims might be causes for concern for Israel and her security and being just one more administration to take the position that it is Israeli settling their ancient homelands and fulfilling Torah that are the problem and the Arab Palestinians are an oppressed indigenous peoples despite the Jewish presence documented to reach back near four-thousand year history and constant existence in Jerusalem since David took the city thirty-five-hundred year ago. This position has slowly been eroding as more and more leaders and people throughout the world have begun to realize that Arab intransigence and demanding that Israel be destroyed and that the destruction of the Jewish State and the genocidal slaughter of her peoples are the primary desire of Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Arab Palestinian cause. The next realization that will hopefully hatch within their consciousness is that Israel had already given up the entirety of the Gaza Strip in August of 2005, which was soon taken from Mahmoud Abbas and his Arab Palestinian Authority by Hamas and a host of terrorist Islamist entities; returned the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula, which is easily three times the size of Israel itself; plus the Zionist Congress when working to form the Jewish State agreed to permit the British to form Transjordan (Jordan) from over three-fourths the lands of the British Mandate surrendering the lands east of the Jordan river and reaching to Iraq on the east, Syria to the north and Saudi Arabia to the south; so all told, Israel has surrendered sufficient land mass to have increased the actual size of Israel close to ten times. So, do not claim that Israel has not returned or released their claims to land; that is a total myth and quite fallacious a myth at that.

 

 

Eretz Yisroel from back in the time immediately after Exodus and before the additional conquest by King David and King Solomon with the original division of the lands between the Tribes covering both sides of the Jordan River. The Israelis and Jews in general could attempt to demand that Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel be made whole as was First Apportioned by Hashem.

 

 

So, with the United States Executive Branch under President Obama and reflecting his beliefs which reflect with great credit the church he and his family attended for twenty years under the anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian ethic and beliefs Pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, it is little surprise that in President Obama’s foreign policy has reflected his animosities and complete lack of foreign policy expertise. This has led to the retreat by the United States on all fronts and allowed for the brash adventuresome actions by American adversaries of Russia and China, amongst others which have bordered on being temerarious, risky and posing a serious threat to any President who follows these policies and their implications if and when such a foreign policy focused President might be elected. The foolhardiness of the American populace who are well permitted to ignore the outside and greater world and simply be concerned with their domestic situations, pretend that economics were their driving passions and even appear to have fallen for an idea whose time was claimed had come and the first Black President be placed in the White House and for his catchy and easily remembered themes of “Yes We Can” and of “Hope and Change”; though there never was anybody asking what changes are we presumably hoping for? The change has mostly been quite destructive in the world’s stage and a complete abrogation of the traditional importance to the world, strategic positioning of the United States military forces, the American political model being represented as the preferred model for good governance with concern for the people over and above the concerns of the political class and as the guarantor of order, human rights, civility and against the most disastrous proclivities of mankind such as genocide, oppressions, and the many other presumed actions the United States could provide the world at large when she is enforcing those principles under which she herself presumably performs her domestic policies. Some might claim that the United States internal policies have also suffered since the start of the Twenty First Century which was preceding the withdrawal and suffering of the rest of the world from the United States reduction of both interactions and direct actions across the globe and especially in the MENA areas which have suffered the most from this abatement.

 

This is what has led to the situation where the free world had no real or active leadership. Canada’s Stephen Harper took up some of the challenge as did Britain’s David Cameron; but even combined, the two men could not equal even the most minimal actions usually taken by the United States. Additionally, the only nations who are capable of deploying troops across the globe are China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. The pullback of American forces has permitted some adventurism by these two powers which would never have been undertaken had there been a remaining presence in force of the United States. Russia adventurism has extended to as far as Syria and even negotiating got permission for a naval base in Northern Africa. China has been even more interesting as they have been adding to their territories and expending their claims to the waters of the South China Sea by building new islands stretching well into this vital commercial water causeway through which much trade by shipping takes place.

 

So, who will take up the mantle of leader of the free world? Of all the potential candidates, it is likely that one of the smallest of nations and one which many would claim they would never look to for such directions, still it is Israel which may end up with the mantle due to her location as the cork in the bottle of the Middle East which appears ready to once again explode on the world’s stage starting with Europe. The explosion of “refugees” into Europe over the past weeks is in reality an invasion and not an influx of oppressed refugees. Despite the great care and effort of the media to find groups with children and women to snap their pictures defining the refugees flight into Europe but there have been a few news sources which have shown the reality of large and even overly common numbers of men between the ages of fifteen to forty and extremely able of being a deployed army which is now injected throughout continental Europe and a large number had gathered across Germany. If Europe is going to be capable of managing the troubles to come, they will very likely look to Israel as their model on how to handle their newly found problems. There is one result from this which will serve Israel as well as Europe as Israel will be forgiven taking control of all of Israel as promised in the British Mandate but limited by the later Churchill White Papers where Transjordan was taken out of the lands originally promised and the promise to keep the remainder sacrosanct for the Jewish State for a promise of all the lands west of the Jordan River. This newly found freedom of action will permit Israel to finally take the steps which has been obvious since the Second Intifada from 2000 through 2005 which claimed over a thousand Jewish and Israeli lives and many tens of thousands injured with all too many having life altering injuries with which they have been forced to live with as their injuries were too serious for modern medicine to repair and only to make things as best as the physicians were capable. The memories and witness of the pains still felt resulting from the last Intifada has cast a pall over Israel where people are determined to take any and all necessary steps to assure that no such situation comes into the violence which has been escalating since late last winter and finally made the world news with the stabbings. These attacks have become so permeating Israel with a half dozen to dozen daily and have become the new normal which means they will soon become considered everyday events in Israel and therefore no longer of any importance for the media to grant coverage. Those who choose to mention these attacks will come under criticism for saying the same thing day after day and as the media is no longer covering these events including the daily rioting on the Temple Mount there are no new pictures and as a Jew in Israel I would face certain injury or death were I to attempt to take my own pictures and videos and as such I am not that adventurous. Still, once Europe realizes that they are in the same boat as Israel and that boat is taking on water at an alarming pace, then Israel will be freed of her shackles and freed to do what should have been done ten to twenty years ago. This will put an end to the miscreants, actually murderous swine, who have indoctrinated their children so to send them on suicide missions as their deaths are to their propaganda media’s advantage and must be born witness by the Western Word for being what it truly is, child sacrifices. Their acts are no different than the idolaters from who Joshua led the initial conquest of Israel by the Jews who had come out of Egypt almost thirty-five-hundred years ago leading to the initial founding of the Jewish State which was recently reestablished restoring what is the only indigenous peoples to return from exile twice with one approaching two-thousand years and to retain their language, code of laws (Torah) and remained a peoples avoiding intermarriage for much of their centuries of life amongst other peoples as they resided in their Diaspora. This is the miraculous nation which may soon become a “Light Unto the Nations” as written in her historic Torah and kept alive in her oral laws as well, to quote Fiddler on the Roof, her “Traditions!”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The World After President Obama

 

There are those amongst my friends and acquaintances who fear that President Obama will declare Martial Law after instigating some false national emergency whose borderline irrational fear mirrors that of those who feared the same from President George W. Bush. There is too much precedent for such to occur and President Obama will step down and give way to the duly elected President in mid-January of 2017 after the 2016 November elections. The question remains what shape will the world present to the next President and what shape will they find the United States presenting them, allowing for actions to steer the United States after their inauguration. The one point that needs to be made is this assessment is made with absolutely no regards from which party or who will be the next President as we can cross that bridge when we reach it. The first thing is the President will face his power on foreign policy will start from a position of actual weakness not felt by the United States since the start of World War II and actually in worse condition than at the end of President Carter or any other. They will be facing a situation where every branch of the military will have had bordering neglect of weapons systems and other vital maintenance with potentially the nuclear deterrent and missile systems in potentially the worst shape with some munitions in such disrepair as to require their destruction and the necessary systems for producing and upgrading these vital assets also teetering on exhausted supplies and neglected condition as to make their management a simple case of dereliction of duty caused by strangled funding and intentional degradation ordered from the highest places. They will find the senior officers to be largely made up of a weakened corps of merely ‘yes men’ and actual pacifists who believe the United States military would best serve the world in the capacity to deliver aid but not necessarily deliver force of arms beyond the shoreline with the exception of utilizing drones and other stand-off weapons partially due to depleted manpower caused by decreased funding and the paring down of the military leadership through neglect to make efforts to retain the officer’s corps.

 

The rebuilding of the military power will take a concerted effort and require massive funding increases which will make any promise of reduction of the tax burden near to impossible to deliver on in the first two years without simply patching some of the most serious areas of military weakness due to nearly eight years of intentional neglect and lack of concerns for the consequences. There will be the need for some of the cancelled military productions and for consideration of developing modern replacement for some of the oldest of the vital systems. The B-52 heavy bombing corps is utilizing airframes mostly built before 1990 and using systems designed originally in the early and mid-1950s and receiving upgrades restricted to that airframe and other limitations due to restrictions resulting from the designs being of antiquated designs and technologies which would require extensive restructuring of the basic airframe which would more likely be better served by replacement of the B-52 fleet with a new long-range bomber designed with forward looking technology. Even the B-1 and B-2 bombers are utilizing old technology and would require a complete overhaul of systems and even design. The Air Force may be better served with considering a completely new strategy where the pilots of fighter squadrons no longer were seated directly in the aircraft but instead flying the fighters from remoted position of a dedicated stealth aircraft where multiple fighters are controlled from relative safe stand-off positions. Such remotely controlled aircraft could retain much of the size of the current airframes which now being remotely controlled the airframes could be designed with intent of making high-G maneuvers previously impossible to execute due to having a pilot onboard the aircraft. Such a fleet utilizing such design parameters would revolutionize air combat for the future in ways thought unimaginable just ten years ago. The same considerations could be utilized in many modern systems when their next redesign is due especially armored combat vehicles using similar control systems allowing for the replacement of crews with automated systems which would permit decreased size and vulnerability of profile while retaining the accuracy and armaments of modern warfare armored systems. Replacing the infantryman with a robotic system is not yet feasible but should be a priority task presented to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) with an expected rollout of several prototypes each providing the same abilities with additional features possible only in a robotic system. These systems would still require human operators who would make final decisions of when to shoot and when to stand down. It is doubtful that the American population is ready for terminator styled soldiers operating independently reliant solely on advanced AI (artificial intelligence) units quite yet, but even that would be a presentable concept when considering the demands that any military action place risk on the troops minimizing any possibility of human casualties.

 

The stress on military upgrading and rebuilding is simply due to the requirement of a force to back up policy is required if one intends to have a positive position in dealings with other nations or a defensive position which by requirement is overtly careful so as not to provoke anger or rejection knowing that the military is unable to back up and enforce policies and other demands including protection of the homeland and its interests overseas. This is crucial because the next President will be facing difficulties of the United States’ own making across the globe. Europe will be facing economic challenges which will render their policies being ever more defensive and cautious with numerous European nations facing unrest within their borders. The potential for an explosion of bloodshed within the European continent is becoming not only a future threat but approaching transforming into an imminent threat uncontrolled illegal immigration will be approaching the tipping point where the European culture will become challenged which will push the European indigenous population to the point where the decision will be the same as it has been throughout human history when two disparate and opposing cultures reach the point where the minority population decides to attempt, through intimidation and other threats, to impose their norms on the ever shrinking and aging majority replacing their culture and supplanting them as those wielding power going into the future. Should Europe when so challenged react in the fashion which has served them in the past, with such response as often typified be referencing the Inquisitions, the result will be just as or even more horrific. Europe as a whole has a very disturbing history of open warfare between competing positions which were demanding for far lesser changes in the culture causing horrific wars even including civil conflicts within one’s borders. The possibility of similar response today is all too real. One need not look that far afield to bear witness to such results where internal forces rise up and before all is decided, outside forces enter the war hijacking it to forcefully take over the nation wracked already in violence in an attempt to install a new set of leadership just as dictatorial, just as oppressive, just as cruel and potentially even more barbarous than the one being overturned. Such disasters even threaten to redraw the maps casting the formation for the sham and relativity designed solely to enrich foreign investments. Such is what is being fought over and is the main reasoning given by ISIS who is intent on supplanting both the former dictator and those who sought to replace their dictator with a modern system most likely with elected representation resulting in what is oft referred to as a democracy. Should ISIS prove victorious, there will be a new leadership in the form of a Caliph, an old title being restored so as to impose an old dictatorial leadership who takes their claim to the throne based on historic familial relationship to former Caliphs all the way to Muhammad thus adding a religious basis for their power. Such a religious tyranny would be very similar though diametrically opposed to the theocratic dictatorship of Iran, the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla in this struggle. The third leg of this societal struggle would be represented by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi who has yet to be fully defined and is the sole representative desiring to inspire his nation to become the towering example of how an Arab and Muslim state is capable of using elections as the tool for actually choosing the national governance but also guaranteed to be free and open elections even should he be defeated, and then comes the real test as to whether or not the newly elected leader after President Sisi also chooses to continue the liberal march into modernity or chooses to install themselves as the unchallengeable leader of Egypt. Meanwhile, there are three distinct powers currently vying to lead by two of these and the third simply has desires of surviving the current assaults on its existence which has been an active fight since its inception in May of 1948 and has been pressed to remain on the cusp between militaristic power and start-up nation with a thriving economy wishing only to be unleashed by the restraints necessitated by a constant threat of war.

 

The largest challenge looming on the horizon and very possibly to explode before the end of President Obama’s remaining time in office is of his own doing. The potential for the start of a struggle that would forever change the world may have started once President Obama completes his own set goal of bringing Iran back into the world of nations. The manner in which President Obama set out to perform this miracle would have entailed defanging Iran and then inviting them to join the nations of the world with peaceful intentions by Iran. Instead we have a United States President blindly charging forth demanding this will be his legacy, the making of Iran a coequal partner of the Middle East. The one unavoidable fact is that just as Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) will be his domestic policy legacy; just as, if not more, dreadful will be his foreign policy legacy as Iran becomes a nuclear power which will have established a basic arsenal of deliverable nuclear warheads consisting of minimally a dozen and more likely three to four dozen with at least one third being thermonuclear warheads (hydrogen fusion warheads). This will place Iran well ahead of whatever plans Saudi Arabia may have in place. This announcement may come at any moment all dependent upon the extent and advancement of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The truth is the world has absolutely no clue as to whether or not Iran already possesses a number of nuclear warheads hidden away from the prying eyes wandering across the skies both orbital and others ground based aircraft. The one truth we do know is that once it becomes obvious that Iran has become a nuclear power, then it will not take numerous other Middle East nations to develop and start building their nuclear weapons arsenals. This new weapons conflict may be solely restrained by the availability of Uranium in any form to be enriched to weapons level of over ninety-percent and then its merging with the rest of the warhead. Below is the list of known nuclear weapons states and an estimate on their numbers of warheads. Once Iran has announced or been determined beyond a reasonable doubt to be armed with nuclear weapons, then the list below will become somewhat obsolete as it is rumored that Saudi Arabia has a standing agreement with Pakistan to purchase approximately one dozen nuclear warheads just so Saudi Arabia will be covered while they acquire and build their own weapons thereafter. One can also expect that Egypt and Turkey would follow suit and develop their own nuclear weapons systems. The breakdown of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also referred to as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), will tempt certain other members to choose to opt out and develop their own nuclear weapons. Some nations may decide to develop and build their own nuclear weapons while retaining their place on the NPT committees. Some of the other nations which might decide the time has come to join the nuclear club include Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Taiwan and Japan to name a few that came to mind. The nuclear club is perched to become a far larger club of nations where its membership will no longer be the reserved of the very elite but start to resemble another useless body, the United Nations General Assembly which has become a place where the barbarians sit in judgement making decisions that carry no weight behind them beyond the media attention they generate.

1) Russia 7,500
2) United States 7,100
3) France 300
4) China 250
5) United Kingdom 225
6) Pakistan120 (estimated)
7) India 110 (estimated)
8) Israel 80 (estimated)
9) North Korea < 10 (estimated)
10) Iran ??

 

The final stage is China and her continuous efforts to claim the South China Sea and all the islands found within that general area. The problem is there are other nations who claim these islands and who hold claims just as valid. There is a chance of a conflict here though one has to imagine that China is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of Asia as her size and modernized army with weapons to match and including nuclear weapons. This is the main reason that Japan, Taiwan and even the Philippines might all be slowly reaching the conclusion that if they are to prevent China taking over the islands one after the other inexorably slinking towards their main Isles thus posing an ever growing threat to these Island nations, they are considering that which would have a decade ago been unthinkable, joining the nuclear armed nations so as to have equal threat potential against China. More as an aside than a warning, one must also remember that the most recent Russian madman, Putin, has delusions of reestablishing Greater Russia and now that China and Russia are back on speaking terms, they have been talking of an alliance for sharing technological advances, nuclear technology, weapons research and development. This has an ominous side in that most terrorist groups have either Russia or China at the head of their supply chain. All taken in, we find the nation of the United States with a military that many have pointed to as merely having the strength the United States could project at the very start of World War II, Russia and China ascending, Iran, supported by Russia and China, being handed nuclear weapons and a very large industrial scale systems to construct said weapons from where they will begin to exercise power over the Middle East and perhaps beyond to Central and South America through Venezuela and Cuba being aided by Russia who appears poised to reacquire the lands of Eastern Europe and Central Eurasia, reestablishing the concept of a Greater Russia. Additionally there is China with an ever more capable navy claiming and taking one island after another while claiming all of the South China Sea and threatening to replace America as the preeminent power in the Pacific including the coastal areas in South America and made all the worse as the United States had gifted China with owning the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal even before the turn of the calendar to the twenty-first century.Then Iran has as luck would have it control over the Straits of Hormuz through which almost all of the Middle Eastern oil is transported to the world and is taking control the straits of Bab el Mandeb through their proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, which grants them control over the Suez Canal as this is where the Red Sea enters the Gulf of Aden leading to the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the world thus granting Iran control over one third of the world’s trade and oil while China controls the busiest sea in the South China Sea as well as the second busiest canal in the Panama Canal. How much more change can the world hope to endure?

 

Beyond the Cusp