Let us arbitrarily set up a three-level gradation for what constitutes an intellectual.
At
the bottom level, you have the deprived of original thinking. An example would
be the woman who is born with a gargantuan appetite to grab power and become
President of the United States. She is told that power resides in kissing up to
Jews, and so she does that.
One
day she hears a Jew say that Israel and Jews are one and the same. Moments
later, she meets another Jew who says that Israel and Jews are two different
things. And so, she goes in front of the caucus that will pick someone to run
for the presidency, and says the following to the attendees: You are
antisemitic for saying that the Jews and Israel are one and the same. And you
are antisemitic for saying that the Jews and Israel are two different things.
At
the top level, you have those who are endowed with intellects that can see complex
subjects from several angles, and possess the talent to propose a creative
solution that can please all sides in a dispute. They mediate between the two
sides with finesse, such that no side ever wants to reject their final recommendation
offhand.
An
example would be a Henry Kissinger who was berated by Golda Meier for seeing
the Arab side of the dispute as well as he could the Israeli side. She wanted
him to wear his Jewish hat, and see only the Israeli side. That’s when he told
her he was an American working for America, and not for Israel. And he came up
with creative solutions that were tested by time, and proven solid.
Between
the top and the bottom levels, you have the half-baked intellectuals who would
see one side of a controversy and defend it without realizing that the half
they neglected will doom what they are defending. The result is that when push
comes to shove, they will not know what hit them.
An
example of that is Jed Babbin who demonstrated his ill-conceived ideas in an
article he wrote under the title: “Biden’s ‘no first use’ strategy would
dismantle nuclear deterrence,” published on November 29, 2021 in The Washington
Times.
Here,
in condensed form, is how Jed Babbin has painted the current landscape with
regard to America’s nuclear posture, and what the near future may hold:
“President
Biden may soon fold up the ‘nuclear umbrella’ under which we and our allies
have been sheltered. Presidents issue a document called the nuclear
posture review. It sets US policy on the use of nuclear weapons. Our posture
has been a strategic ambiguity. The enemies could only guess when we would use
nuclear weapons. It was an effective deterrent to aggression. The Pentagon and
State are drafting a new nuclear posture. The decision for Mr. Biden is whether
his posture will change our policy from ambiguity to ‘no first use.’ The latter
would commit that under no circumstance of a non-nuclear attack against the US
or our allies would we use nuclear weapons in response, promising not to
respond to a conventional, biological, chemical or cyberattack”.
Given
that during the Cold War and beyond, all the talk was about maintaining enough
of a retaliatory force to respond to a first strike attack, the two sides knew
that the use of nuclear weapons by one side will mean the destruction of the
planet, a calamity that will affect both sides. But this did not deter either
side from conducting what the other deemed to be aggression. For example,
America was seen to throw bombs all over the global map, whereas the Soviet
Union was seen invading Afghanistan. This is why Jed Babbin’s assertion that
America’s posture of nuclear ambiguity, “was an effective deterrent to
aggression,” raises some eyebrows.
But
this alone does not make of Jed Babbin a half-baked intellectual. To establish
whether or not he deserves to be so labeled, we’ll have to look into what he
says about the policy of promising not to be first at using nuclear weapons,
but doing so only in response to a nuclear attack by the enemy. Here, in
condensed form, is what Babbin said in that regard:
“The problem with No First Use (NFU) is that
under that policy, Russia, China and any other aggressor would be given carte
blanche to launch any conventional attack on the US or our allies without fear
of nuclear reprisal. Our ‘nuclear umbrella’ would be collapsed and tossed in
the trash. Ambiguity is of enormous value. If an aggressor isn’t sure what
we would do in response to a particular attack, no sane leader would risk a US
nuclear response. Were we to adopt NFU, there would be no nuclear deterrent to any
non-nuclear attack”.
Well,
as shown above, ambiguity did not deter aggression by either side given that
aggression has been the norm since the last World War. But what is dangerous
about ambiguity is something that escapes the warmongers of the “Western
World.” It is that whenever these people think up of something to do to the
enemy, they neglect to consider that the other side might, and probably will,
respond in kind.
So,
imagine both America and China adopting the policy of ambiguity with no red
telephone between the two leaders to communicate in the event that a missile
was launched (1) by accident; or (2) no missile was launched but the radars
picked up false signals; or (3) a small nuclear power launches a missile carrying
no nuclear weapon but the missile veers off course and threatens either
superpower; or (4) a terrorist group launches a missile carrying a weapon of
mass destruction of any kind, precisely to provoke a nuclear war. Then what?
In
fact, throughout the Cold War, the fear was not that either superpower will go
crazy and start a nuclear war. The fear was that a war might start by accident.
This is why a red telephone was established between the White House and the
Kremlin.
Jed Babbin has displayed an intense inability to consider the reality that for every action taken by America, the other side will react one way or the other, thus change his calculation. And this makes him a classic half-baked intellectual.