At The Pinnacle of Power: The God of The Bible

It was during the Ides of March 51 years ago that the God of the Bible set this stumbling man on his feet and with much Grace began to grow him into the person He intended him to be.  In those early days of my Christian walk there was much talk about the end times and the soon return of the Savior.  “Jesus is Coming Again” was written in 1957 by John Peterson.

Marvelous message we bring,

Glorious carol we sing,

Wonderful word of the King -

Jesus is coming again!

(Chorus)

Coming again, Coming again;

Maybe morning, maybe noon,

Maybe evening and maybe soon!

Coming again, Coming again;

O what a wonderful day it will be -

Jesus is coming again!

Forest and flower exclaim,

Mountain and meadow the same,

All earth and heaven proclaim -

Jesus is coming again!

Standing before Him at last,

Trial and trouble all past,

Crowns at His feet we will cast -

Jesus IS coming again!

Tragically, thousands of Christians got stuck on the emotional ecstasy of praise and it became the core of many Charismatic churches.  Praise and great gratitude are stored in the hearts of all real Christians but when we approach Jesus like a human friend we fail to exhibit the awe and fear that should be accorded to the King and Judge of creation.  When we stand before Jesus at last we will be standing before the Judge.

The God of the Bible is sovereign; He is still on His throne and He rules the world and all of His creation including the human species created in His own image.  Yes, we do possess a form of free will.  We can disobey God’s directives and we can decide to oppose His Will, but when He selects a particular individual He draws him to Himself, changes his thoughts and desires, and makes him useful for His purposes. During the process the person seems to be making decisions independently and often fails to recognize God’s miraculous hand until much later, if at all.

God selects His servants and though they may have misgivings (Moses), they become servants and do His bidding.  Sometimes He selects servants who turn out to be unfaithful and disobedient (Saul).  Other times He selects servants who have a deep devotion but suffer from serious character defects (David).  He sometimes selects and changes people who hate Him (Paul) and other times He chooses men who love Him but are troubled by fear and disloyalty (Peter).  Sometimes His choice is someone strong and faithful other times He chooses a weak unpopular person and makes him strong and authoritative.  No man comes to Christ unless the Father draws him.

All of God’s blessings are contingent on obedience.  Though He can make us obedient He rewards us for choosing to be obedient.  When we choose to be disobedient we suffer; when we choose to be obedient we set the stage for peace, freedom, and prosperity.  We can set the stage but blessing is a gift, as with all gifts we cannot demand it.

God made a New Covenant by sacrificing His only Son that we might be saved in spite of our sin.  His original Covenant with ancient Israel involved Grace and Law and His New Covenant also involves Grace and Law.  When the original Covenant was broken and twelve tribes of Israel were rejected following the crucifixion of Christ, the New Covenant passed to Christians and the Christian Church.

Salvation allows sinners to approach the throne of God as sinless servants.  It allows God to hear our prayers.  It does not remove the requirement of obedience. Obedience is the foundation of Godly living and sets the stage for the blessed existence God intends for His people.  God’s Law is a reflection of God’s character, when we flaunt it we flaunt God and bring His judgment.

Rev. Billy Graham’s crusades have provided an arena for thousands of conversions.  Rev. Graham requests that his listeners “make a decision for Christ” and thousands of converts respond and are saved.  But there is a serious theological problem:  If the creature can “make a decision for Christ” he can also make a decision against Christ which means He is a sort of god over God making the Creator and ruler of the universe subject to his decision.  This is not only an arrogant assumption but an irrational conclusion.  Thousands have been converted in Graham crusades but each of them was chosen by God before going forward.  God is sovereign.

As the frenzy to resist despotic government continues, keeping guns (The Second Amendment to our Constitution) to protect our family and property is a serious concern.  We watch helplessly as the land of the free falls under the authority of a power laden tyrannical regime; some of our citizens like ostriches bury their heads in the sand; others seek to offer resistance but are stymied by a creeping progression that leaves them without a stationary target.

There is a third category made up of pragmatic sycophants who go along with the lies and illegal maneuvers to protect themselves or to further their careers.  Included in this group would be the end times believers who though they claim to be Christians act like heathen.

In his commentary on” Numbers” R. J. Rushdoony writes, “Two motives now govern men. One is egocentrism whereby the individual judges all things by himself.  In terms of Genesis 3:5 he sees himself as a god empowered to judge and determine what is good and evil in terms of himself.  The other motive is group centrism: the criterion for judgment becomes one’s social, racial, or special interest group. In either case, no higher law is seen as binding on all.  The political process then becomes a clash of false and petty centers, all determined to destroy the totality if their will is not done.”

Tragically, not only the elite would be world rulers but the people they intend to rule have fallen into the condition Rushdoony so aptly describes.  In our times all are “determined to destroy the totality if their will is not done”.  We have millions of pseudo-Christians who believe they can stem the advance of the police state by electing the proper political figures.  Their striving is being successfully countered by the wily elite power brokers who actually have the power to control the political apparatus. It is a meager group that seeks to forsake the entire mess, accept, obey and defend the Law of the Creator, and leave the solution in His hands.

Christians have been lackadaisical; living with and accommodated sin without confronting, resisting, and exposing it.  The Christian Church has failed to confront evil and obey God’s Law.  When President Wilson broke his anti-war promise and allowed the wealth of the nation to be raped by the criminal Federal Reserve the Christian Church failed to confront the immorality and dishonesty involved.  We did the same when President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up a Socialist Government. We were too involved in our own self-centered agenda to pay proper attention to the enemy in the house.

When sin begins to blossom it can easily be removed but if it is ignored and the blossoms become branches and entangling vines cutting off a strand has not effect on the entire plant.  This is where we are, we are surrounded by massive entangled sin that we have allowed to grow but that we can no longer control.  From a human standpoint our situation is hopeless.

In his commentary on Numbers R. J. Rushdoony writes, “The modern state hides its evils in a vast bureaucracy of endless rules and regulations which make for anonymity.  The anonymity of cowardice now surrounds us and all too many men are silent.  We do not advance in history by means of any natural force or pendulum, but only by faith and moral courage.  This is the great need of our time.”

We can elect another liar to the Presidency but he will forsake his promises and continue to allow the puppeteer to dictate his behavior.  We can continue to fight a losing battle against an overwhelming power structure, we can work for a revolution that will result in another oppressive government, or we can put our head in the sand and go along to get along.  These are the alternatives.  But there is another.  God can restore this nation. We cannot untangle the mess but He can.  He can restore freedom to the world!

It was the God of the Bible that miraculously freed His people from Egyptian captivity.  We worship that same miracle working, powerful and merciful God.  “When my people humble themselves—the ones who are called by my name—and pray, seek me, and turn away from their evil practices, I myself will listen from heaven, I will pardon their sins, and I will restore their land.”

Christians often quote this verse from Second Chronicles 7:14 but the promise is contingent on obedience and we have failed to obey.  First, God is referring to His Church, “my people – the ones who are called by my name” must humble themselves.  Humility is not a wishy-washy condition.  Being humble means being subservient to the Living God – understanding that He is God and we are His servants enjoined to do His Will.  With a humble spirit we are to seek Him in two ways: One, we are to pray.  Two, we are to repent and turn from our evil ways.

It is the second requirement that sets the foundation for the restoration.  Turning from our evil ways means that we will stop disobeying God.  In order to obey God we must turn to His Law.  We are evil; we suffer from the same urge to disobey that overcame Adam in the book of Genesis.  We want to be God.  We are unable to determine how to obey God without referring the His Law.  We must go back to the Torah and the Law God gave to Moses.  There is no way to gain a better understanding of the character and desires of the God we worship than to read the Laws He gave to Moses.

God’s Law sets the foundation for the society He seeks for His people.  We are saved by the Blood of Jesus; by the sacrifice of God’s Son our sins are forgiven – forgiven but not forgotten.  The results of sin cross into the next couple of generations.  The sooner we repent and begin to obey God’s Law the sooner we and our posterity will begin to enjoy the righteousness, peace, freedom, and prosperity that obedience produces..

We must humble ourselves and pray, seek God with a contrite heart, and begin to learn and obey His Law.  Then He will restore us to our land.  Do you realize, gentle reader, that our land is being stolen from us through government ownership and United Nations control?  Land is a gift from God to be subdued and cultivated for our sustenance.  It is not to be acquired by despotic governments and returned to wilderness.

How do we pray?  We pray for forgiveness from our sins and the sins of our fathers.  We ask God to forgive us for putting the nation ahead of His Kingdom.  We ask to be forgiven for making an idol of politicians and political parties.  We repent from being the arbiter of our faith and vow to treat His Word with humility and reverence. We agree to obey His Law to the best of our ability and we thank Him for the provision He has provided by sacrificing His Son.  We seek forgiveness for supporting illegal wars with a macho desire for victory and promise never to engage in armed conflict without His willing assistance. We agree to promote obedience in our sphere by confronting evil with righteousness.  And we pray all this with the understanding that it is God who has brought the United States of America to this juncture and only He can turn it around.

It is time to acknowledge that we cannot redeem our nation; that human efforts are useless against a powerful opaque enemy who has control of all of the power centers.  We can carp at the results of this hidden adversary but we have no way of confronting the forces that are slowly robbing us of our freedom.

I believe God has divorced the mainline Christian Churches, the Charismatic congregations, the independent mega churches, and many of the Evangelical Churches. These organizations have become social centers and theological aberrations.  They are useless in the battle for redemption.

The Catholic Church has maintained an authoritative center but it has allowed heretical traditions to distort its theology and sexual sin to stain and pollute its heart.  It supports world government and is a significant part of the problem.

The Protestant Church has allowed Antinomianism to destroy its theological base to the point where it can hardly be called a Christian organization.  Lawless Evangelical and Charismatic churches do not worship the God of the Bible.  The Law is a reflection of the character of God.  Christians who deny the Law worship a different god. Rushdoony writes, “To despise God’s law is to despise God.”

Real Christians can no longer support organized churches.  If we wish to be servants to the Living God we must leave organized churches.

The God of the Bible, The One True God, seeks an obedient people.  He knows our frailties but wants us to do our utmost for His Highest.  Our duty is to seek to obey His Commandments in every phase of our lives and to work to bring all of His creation under His dominion.  His power and blessing will enforce that effort.

In his comments on Christ’s High Priestly prayer in “Systematic Theology” R. J. Rushdoony quotes a sterling description of a real church by D. Douglas Bannerman,http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/docs/lib-archive/bgallery/Gallery/records/eighteen/bannerman.html  “That they may be one, even a We are.”  Who can tell all that these words foreshadow as in the final estate of the Church of the redeemed?  Christ’s disciples shall be one with each other, even as the Three are most high in the unity of the blessed Godhead. They shall be one in heart and will, in righteousness, holiness, and love, in the unity of one new nature in Christ, and yet with no loss of personal character, even as there are high and mysterious differences between the three, who are One upon the throne in heaven, “the same in substance, equal in power and glory.”

I am an old man and my energies are waning but I have often dreamed of having an anti-establishment blog in every city.  The Blog would specifically counter the slanted news produced by our press and media.  These Blogs would correct and add to the news that is always distorted and truncated allowing citizens to read a realistic description of the issues.  It would provide the rest of the story that is often found on various internet sites but never in the controlled media.  There are good writers who regularly write for the net without compensation.   Extensive computer savvy would be required but the cost would be minimal – a few bumper stickers would suffice for advertising.

God may already have rejected the Christian Church.  It has been an ineffective organization for many years and efforts to awaken it leaders have failed.  Real Christians need to begin to network and work on projects that resist the massive evil entanglements.  The objective is to bring the world under God’s control through willing obedience to His Commandments.

Rushdoony list three requirements of the covenant people “law, obedience, and love”.

There it is:  Repent, regroup, pray, and work to bring the light of righteousness back into the world.  Leave the end times and the Second Coming in the hands of God and begin to do the work God intended for us.   When the Mighty God of All Creation is on our side victory is assured.

Who Lost America? Institutional Failure

A book review: Who Lost America? by Bromwell Ault…

Part 2: Institutional failure, loss of enforcing the rule of law, injection of incompatible diversity.

History becomes the great mentor for any civilization hoping to outlast the ages.  For all its bloody conflicts, history presents every country lessons from the past on how other nations failed to survive.

But in the 21^st century, America’s leaders and its citizens ignore the lessons of history.  And, ironically, as America becomes less and less of its own people and more and more of dissimilar people from around the world, it won’t be able to return itself to its intellectual, cultural, linguistic and spiritual foundation.

Former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm said, “If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy America.  It is not that hard to do.  No nation in history has survived the ravages of time.”

Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall, and that, “An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”

In his newest book, Who Lost America?—Yale University graduate Bromwell Ault, at 86 years of age, brings enormous historical perspective to the American predicament.

“History is an excellent teacher,” said Ault. “To some degree it is infallible.  It is both the messenger and message, and writes our records. In the end, it determines who survives and who doesn’t, and more importantly, what is and what isn’t.  It leaves little room for argument when it is being written and even less thereafter.”

Every high school student learns how Rome fell.  Every student of history knows how Easter Island’s civilization collapsed into extinction. A quick reading tells all of us why the Mayan civilization vanished.  Historical records show why the Pueblo people of Mesa Verde disappeared from their homes in the rock walls of that ancient civilization.

But do you think the citizens and leaders of America in the 21^st century take note of the causes of those collapsed civilizations?   Do you think we Americans are taking actions to avoid our own definite collapse of our civilization?  The empirical and unavoidable answer: no!  In reality, we follow in the footsteps of those ancient civilizations of history that collapsed.

“The legislative branch of our government, with the power and responsibility to create and pass our laws,” said Ault,  “is riven with so many divisions that its 535 members in the House and Senate are more and more to be found at the far ends of the political spectrum without a refuge of reason at the center.  In our time and place, it is a catastrophe.  How did it his happen and why do we permit it”

When you look at our 10 million unemployed and 7 million underemployed, or 48 million citizens subsisting on food stamps, or our $18 trillion national debt, or our $315 billion annual trade deficit to China, or our useless 10-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—you cannot help but lament the devolvement of our country into a horrendous geopolitical hole from which we may not recover.

When you look at our racial strife that dominates the headlines or our porous borders that our Congress facilitated to allow over 12 to 20 million people to cross without invitation or legality—you cannot help but wonder who pretends to be in charge of our laws.  The agony of 68 percent of our African-American children being brought up by a single mother on welfare—speaks to something terribly wrong.

Who lost America?  We citizens gave our country away to power mongers, to the military industrial complex, which foments foreign wars out of fabrications of fear, and to institutional failures.

“To protect ourselves, we must change our concept of power,” said Ault, “and elect as president, not someone who merely wants power, but someone who can wield it in a moral and balanced way…the great fault of government in America today is that it is considered a means, not and end.  It means our elected representatives connive in the distribution of our national political and material resources to favored areas or interests.  We have badly abused our democracy and in the process have done ourselves great disservice.”

In essence, we gave the military-industrial-complex a cart blanche pass to create Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq (twice).  No one questions those dishonest wars even after the evidence shows that our leaders contrived those conflicts.

What causes those manufactured wars?  Answer: money.  Corporations make a lot of money.  A lot of kids die for that money someone else makes.

Ault said, “Money flows in almost unimaginable amounts throughout our political process and is constantly directed and redirected by the same people to the same places.”

Ault describes how conflicted religions faced each other on the battlefields with swords, spears, maces and longbows.  Their cruelty such as the Christians on the Crusades against the Muslims of the 11^th, 12^th and 13^thcenturies engaged extreme barbarism on both sides.  Today, Muslims commit horrific-barbaric acts against the West, but in return, the West bombs and kills hundreds of thousands of Muslims in their own lands.  With countries like Syria, Muslims shoot, bomb, poison and kill each other with prolific enthusiasm.

Ault describes Rome’s fall to its endless immigration that destroyed its cohesive military into the chaos of the Goths, Visa-Goths and Vandals.  Rome lost its cultural foundation along with its language.

“As to immigration, enter the Kudzu Curve,” said Ault.  “Extend it another 50 years and our America will join the Easter Island sculptures looking for help that will not come.”

What Americans don’t realize continues at breakneck speed: America will change from a 90 percent European majority to a Latino majority by 2042—a scant 28 years from now. That means our major language, English, will share center stage with Spanish.  Our national ethos faces radical change.

“Can this come to pass?” said Ault. “And why is it considered a very real possibility by many Americans.  For an answer, it is only necessary to look to Europe.  We have seats, front and center, to observe the deadly results of unchecked immigration in France, Germany, England, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and Italy where former colonial powers are being swamped by constant third world arrivals, mostly from Africa or the Near East, and mostly Muslims.

“The result has been extreme violence in the streets with random acts of murder, rape, torture and extensive property damage.  To look at the European history, to listen to the arguments on both sides, to observe the results, and then to think it can’t happen here is sheer folly.”

By reading Ault’s book and watching television nightly, you cannot help but “connect the dots” on how we lost America and how fast we continue losing it even further to a peaceful, self-invited invasion via immigration.

Ironically, the latest S744 amnesty bill doubled legal immigration from 1 million to 2 million annually. If it passes, ultimately the rate of speed of immigration leading to an added 100 million immigrants by 2050 shall accelerate at twice the velocity.

Our ultimate destination places a special ring to Toybee’s words: “All great civilizations rise and fall, and that, an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”

Part 3: Losing our national identity

Who Lost America? By Bromwell Ault

Publisher: Authorhouse

ISBN # 978-1-4634-7446-1

Price: $22.46, 284 pages softcover, Kindle  $3.99

Copies: 

Publisher direct copies: 

History Arrives Late – Asymmetric War & The New Geopolitics

New and Old…

Even the definition of “asymmetric war” is controversial, because it can concern at least three drivers and methods of conflict, usually between large organized fighting forces and the opposite. Firstly there is the political-economic or other motivation, second the tactics, and thirdly the weapons utilised in asymmetric war – which itself is usually defined by the negative. Some writers say the term was first used by Andrew J. Mack in a 1975 book titled “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars”. Some military historians conversely say asymmetric war dates from Antiquity, and included the surprise outcome of larger fighting forces losing an asymmetric war with smaller insurgent, militia, terrorist or tight knit politically motivated forces and entities in specific theaters of conflict.

Other than wars of Antiquity like the Ancient Greek Pelopennesian war series which lasted about 30 years in the 5^th century BC, and certainly included asymmetric war and “surprise defeats” for larger forces, the 200-year Crusader war series (about 1095-1299) had recurring battles and campaigns where asymmetric war featured, and sometimes dominated. Our problem is that certainly for a near-century from the late 19^th century to about 1980-2000, the Clausewitz doctrine of “God is with the big battalions” held firm. This in turn can be traced to the nature as well as the goals of war following the Industrial Revolution. Drivers of change included European nationbuilding, colonialism, mass migration and by 1948 the later “bipolar world” of the so-called Soviet Empire opposing the Western liberal-capitalist democracies. The collapse of the USSR was naively believed to mean “the end of history and of warfare itself”.

Although not defined as an asymmetric war campaign leading to total victory, by historians like Andrew Mack, the Long March of Mao Zedong culminating in total victory in 1949 was for most of its time called “terror war” by external major powers, including the US, Japan, the UK and other European nations. This only underlines the fact that asymmetric war ­ for losers ­ is often called terrorism, but also underlines the wider tactics and strategy, and weapons used by smaller insurgent forces during an asymmetric war campaign or series. It also underlines that like the asymmetric wars of the distant past, these are generally long series of wars, not setpiece short-term frontline battlefield warfare.

Strategy and Tactics

Strategy above all means command and control because decisive gains and losses need close combat at some stage ­ for any type of war excluding setpiece formal warfare of the pre-Cold War type or paradigm. The Cold War “bipolar paradigm”, we should note, was not for nothing subtitled Mutually Assured Destruction because a charred, radioactive wasteland was the booty or logical peace dividend for any hypothetical “winner”. Also, the MAD paradigm more subtly underlined the role of economic and military infrastructures, which as they become more sophisticated, become more vulnerable. Often scenarized by US and Soviet military strategists during the Cold War, the utilization of a small number of missile-launched airburst nuclear weapons would instantly paralyse the enemy’s command and control infrastructure, electric power and telephone systems, water supplies, fuel supplies, road transport and so on. There could be no winner, only two losers.

Discussion of military infrastructure, and its fragility, however shifts the spotlight away from a key element of asymmetric war ­ the role of ideology and personal commitment. Command and control operated by for example Mao Zedong in his Long March war campaign, was primarily ideological at its beginnings. Conversely in nearly all conventional setpiece wars, which are now likely a thing of the past, the belligerents deployed forces that were essentially of similar type. The war’s outcome could normally be predicted by the physical size, quantity and control of the forces in play. Where the forces are essentially equal, with access to the same technology, the outcome is usually stalemate. The Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 was a classic example.

This already makes it possible to define probably the most decisive motivating role for asymmetric fighting forces ­ technological superiority is canceled by infrastructure fragility. Alternately stated technological inferiority is often canceled by the enemy’s vulnerable military, ideological and economic infrastructures. The Afghan war of 1979-88 was a classic example.

Including vulnerable economic infrastructures, asymmetric wars such as this Afghan war (and the US-Afghan war of 2001-2014) will heavily feature urban insurgency and the destruction of economic infrastructures, which either directly support the more-powerful enemy’s military capability or provide indirect aid to the enemy’s ideological action, attempting to maintain a semblance of “normal life”. Asymmetric wars, we can again note, are often very long and measured in decades, not years, and in part due to this can include a major element of attrition, both economic and ideological.

Terrain and Proxies

Certainly the case in asymmetric wars of Antiquity, small inferior forces fighting the opposite can “trump the enemy” using terrain ­ which today includes and features urban areas. As I have noted in recent articles concerning Syrian war geopolitics, one basic reason why “Syria” is a non-nation or a geopolitical metastase of the Sykes-Picot era of Great Power diplomacy, is the extreme geological folding of the mountainous coastal strip with peaks higher than 2000 meters, where more than 90% of the population lives. This rough, hilly terrain has always favored small autonomous or semi-autonomous population groupings, all of them with a long tradition of conflict including “asymmetric” combat. Ideological differences are often extreme, for example the age-old conflict between traditional Alawites and the Assassin heretic sect of the Alawites.

During the long Crusader war series, for example, the Assassins turned their fighting skills against the invading European crusaders. After this 200-year war series, they returned to fighting any centralising power based in Damascus. The same applies to the Druzes, and to other “mountain fighters”. On numerous occasions, often for decades, fighting groups in what is called “Syria” served as proxies in and for highly complex military campaigns. One examples was the period through about 1204-1260 when a loose alliance of southern powers or “statelets” opposed the larger, better armed Latin Empire of the Byzantines.

No power, either great or small can change geology and geomorphology. To be sure, Stalin-era Soviet campaigns against Chechens, Daghestanis and other small, ideologically tight-knit “mountain fighters”, and the campaign waged in this geopolitical rimland or shatterbelt since the 1990s by Russia, have attempted their eradication. In Afghanistan, as the USSR and later the US found out, so-called mountain fighters can easily urbanize and rapidly shift to urban theater conflict, broadening their warfare tactics with ease.

The major and increasing role of proxy fighting itself favors a shift to asymmetric war. Since the end of World War II, some military historians claim the majority of wars on a numerical basis fought since 1945 have either included, or been dominated by proxy fighters. This in turn means more belligerants, with usually different motivations, staying power, weapons and tactics, will be operating in any warfare. This also means that “surprise outcomes” become more commonplace, for example when proxies turn against their original partners or actively side with their former enemy or enemies.

Deed Horses and Stynking Beestes

Widely used in the Crusader war series, and imported back to Europe with returning Crusaders by the start of the 14th century, early biological warfare featured the catapulting of diseased putrefying corpses, often of horses or other animals, sometimes of humans into castle moats. By the time of the so-called Hundred Years War starting about 1340, biological war was commonplace in siege warfare. With the Black Death (bubonic plague) epidemic which spread from the western Balkans and killed an estimated 25%-33% of the total population of Europe in the late 14th and early 15^th centuries, bodies of bubonic plague victims were utilised as weapons as commonly as munitions, arrows and other weapons in the majority of European wars. Death rates obtained using these “asymmetric weapons”, according to military historians could often exceed 950 killed for every 1000 enemy attacked.

Today we hear about the Syrian regime of Bashr al-Assad, and-or rebel forces, utilizing chemical weapons, but chemical weapons akin to napalm were utilized on a common basis in warfare opposing the Byzantime Empire and sometimes-insurgent, often small scale Muslim forces, by 670 AD. These early chemical weapons increasingly used additives including chalk powder, arsenic sulfide, copper oxides and other toxic suffocants to increase lethality.

By the early 18th century, the UK Royal Society was theater to recurring debates on how to protect land armies against biological warfare, in particular protection against smallpox bacteria due to smallpox being already known as a biological weapon. By about 1715, the technique of variolation, or immunization against smallpox was developed, firstly with a view to protecting British fighting forces despite early immunization by variolation causing an estimated 2%-3% mortality of treated soldiers. As we know, the conquest of the US Wild West in the 18th-19^th centuries made frequent use of smallpox bacteria to kill Indian fighters and peoples who were not immunized. Historians contend that General George Washington who had warned his troops that English forces might use smallpox as a weapon in the Battle of Quebec (1775) which was lost by the Americans, was himself killed by smallpox poisoning in 1776.

It is therefore either by hypocrisy, ignorance or blindness that mainstream media and many politicians pretend that CBW (chemical and biological weapons) are both strange and repulsive. For numerically inferior forces, they can provide a decisive advantage similar to the historical role of crossbows, in the Middle Ages. Their utilization in asymmetric war has been more the rule, than exception. This logic certainly extends to the broad group of asymmetric arms called NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons – the arsenals held by the small nations North Korea and Israel reflect their political rulers’ fear of numerically superior enemy forces. As we know, both mass-produced pesticides and relatively abundant nuclear wastes, among others, are major potential asymmetric weapons.

The Coming Global Asymmetric War

Andrew J. Mack made the point that big nations can easily lose small wars. He did not add that due to weapons technology and MAD, they can only lose big wars. This standoff ­ or new weakness – of the great powers whether they describe themselves as “great” or not, has certainly been observed and noted by the large number of their asymmetric war-oriented opponents and rivals.

When added to the impacts of economic and industrial technology change, described in other recent articles by myself, the concept of either one or a select few hegemonic powers dominating world political-strategic relations is consigned to trashcan of History. Probably since as early as 1980, certainly in the coming decades from today, this observation will be put to the test.

The Syrian civil war ­ which is a showcase of asymmetric war and proxy war ­ could be taken as an example. Neither Russia nor the US can win this war. Iran’s supposed interest in this war can be questioned. European influence in any outcome to this war is small and weak. Chinese, Indian and other Asian interest in this war is very low. Only extremely massive and sustained, therefore very expensive military occupation on a long-term basis could create or restore any simulacre or surrogate for “the nation state of Syria”. No major external power has any interest in this outcome. The staying power of KSA, Qatar, UAE and other sunni-minority small states paying for Syrian theatre proxy fighters, called “djihadis”, despite the petrodollars and the Wahabism, can easily be questioned.

What was called “Syria” therefore become a shatterbelt zone in modern geopolitical parlance, very comparable with the pre-1914 Balkan states, and pre-1917 Middle Eastern and North African states. Formerly called “rimland states”, shatterbelt zones can also be called the Funeral Pyres of Empire due to these intrinsically volatile and ungovernable zones often being gateways to larger zones of major economic significance, drawing repeated attempts at dominance by the great powers.

Multiple examples exist outside the zone including southern Russia, the Balkans (of 2014), western Asia, and the MENA. Under certain hypotheses, zones like the Europe of the EU28, engaged in an undeclared power struggle with Russia to win power over the Ukraine, may be an example.

More important for this article, most definitely intensified by asymmetric war ideology, tactics and weapons, world shatterbelt zones of “permanent instability” are growing ­ and they are necessarily growing. Sometimes called “multipolarity” and presented as the positive spinoff from economic globalisation, and above all presented as consensual by the great powers (and would-be great powers), the loss of centre and the growth of periphery is a stark fact of the coming world.

This stark fact is of course denied by the so-called great powers. However, when there is no longer a ruling centre and the central power or Hegemon, there is only periphery and no Hegemon in a series of complex rimlands and shatterbelts.

Source: Andrew McKillop