Undue worry about defeat leads to self-defeat

 There is an English proverb that says: “once bitten, twice shy.” In a nation that has gone through a bad experience, all kinds of people react in all kinds of ways to the experience.

 

One group of people will be so fearful that what happened will happen again, it will try to talk itself and others into believing that the nation was hit severely but will recover, and will get back to being as strong as before—even if no one else believes that the nation was hurt as badly as the fearful group does.

 

This is the feeling you get when reading the article that came under the title: “Twenty Years After 9/11, the West Is Far from Defeated,” written by Michael Kimmage and Thibault Muzergues, and was published on September 11, 2021 in The National Interest. Here is a sentence that appears in the article, and that’s also used as subtitle for it:

 

“Interestingly, adversaries in Beijing, Moscow, and in the mountains of Afghanistan recognize in the West a worthy enemy, a source of fear not because of its alleged fragility but because of its many strengths. Those adversaries know that the West is still relevant. Does the West itself know this?”

 

Whatever Kimmage and Muzergues mean by West, which is a billion-people strong, each group having their own views and beliefs, Kimmage and Muzergues are the ones who seem to question if the West is still relevant. You get that feeling when you go over some passages in their article. Here is a condensed montage of that:

 

“The Afghanistan debacle has been widely interpreted as a setback for the once-mighty Occident. The expenditure of blood and treasure, the claims about institutions that ended up being castles made of sand, and fatigue on the home front did the rest. The images of the past few weeks will complicate the West’s capacity to exert influence in the world. Western self-esteem has taken a hit and so has Western solidarity. Europeans made clear they resented the way the US left Afghanistan without recognizing the sacrifices Europeans shared with Americans. These transatlantic dissonances have reinforced an impression of Western vanity, futility, and weakness. The estrangement among allies does not help matters. The Western solidarity that flowed from September 11 has dissipated. Mutual irritations are regularly expressed on both sides, adding to the structural problems with the transatlantic relationship”.

 

This is the description of someone that has internalized these beliefs. Regardless of what Kimmage and Muzergues go on to say — which is that despite these observations, they still believe that the influence of the West in the world is a potent force and so will remain — their words betray them. What follows is their attempt at making their point, shown here in condensed form. See for yourself if they are convincing:

 

“This is one side of the coin. Arguments about chronic Western decline are short-sighted and partial. Taliban victory is spectacular but not a sign of terminal decline. Without understating the humiliation, it bears emphasis that singular events can be over-interpreted. Despite the optics, the West remains strong. What continues to make the West healthy and formidable should be kept in view”.

 

Kimmage and Muzergues did not believe this was going to convince the readers, and so they decided to give more details. Here is what they said:

 

“The first of the West’s strengths is the awesome defensive power of its military NATO alliance. In the war on terror, Western powers have adapted to the changing tactics of jihadists in attacking European or American targets. This has not impeded all attacks but none reached the scale and intensity of 9/11. In a confrontation, this is not a sign of weakness. As foreign and security policy shifts from terrorism to classical state-to-state power politics, the Western alliance remains a dynamic, near impregnable force. Russia has never dared to confront NATO militarily, demonstrating the military resilience of the alliance and its continued relevance. Thanks to its naval capacities, the West can project power around the oceans. This includes European powers like France and the UK, who guarantee continued security and freedom of navigation in the Pacific and the South China Sea, along with their American allies. The West is also present in the Pacific with Australia and New Zealand, two pillars of the West”.

 

Are you convinced that the West has what it takes to remain influential throughout the globe? Most of humanity would not be, for the simple reason that what Michael Kimmage and Thibault Muzergues are basing their argument on, is a worldview that is not shared by the human race.

 

It is that Winston Churchill of Britain conned the Americans into believing that if they don’t make life miserable for the Soviets, the latter will take over the world. So, the Americans triggered the Cold War during which time they circled the Soviet Union with military assets on land, air and sea, causing it to develop weapons that rival those of the West. This, in turn, caused a chain reaction that saw China and then India and then Pakistan develop their own arsenals of nuclear weapons.

 

When the British got tired suckling the American blood, the Jews took over the game and started by convincing the Americans that the world is a dangerous place; one that’s full of people who hate freedom, thus wish to destroy America that loves freedom. But worry not, said the Jews because Israel is here and will protect America, if only America would bomb to the Stone Age every Arab and Muslim country that’s advanced enough to defend itself using more than kites and weather balloons — like do the Gazans whom Israel cannot even subdue.

 

These being the notions that motivate the Americans, they lost touch with reality. They are losing their former allies, most of whom have moved on to work on building a world where cooperation reigns and confrontation is kept to a minimum.

 

Unfortunately, the Brits are back again, having joined the Australians in trying to convince America that China must be treated the way that America treated the Soviet Union, at the risk of triggering a new Cold War that will see America sink further down the tube of self-defeat.