RECOMMENDED READINGYounghusband at
Coming Anarchy on the "
Warrior Gods" of Zen Buddhism.
Extra
Zenpundit brownie points awarded to YH for choice of topic. Huzzah !
Fabius Maximus at
DNI on part III of his grand strategy series "
America's Most Dangerous Enemy"
This one is quite a mixed bag. I'll give Fabius kudos on his larger theme of the dangers of paranoia and hubris and I like his reference to the late historian Richard Hofstadter's classic concept of " the paranoid style". On the other hand, Fabius gets the interplay of anti-Communism and Containment policy in the history of the Cold War wrong in my view, often from gross oversimplification. Likewise, I think his interpretation of Dr. Barnett's views are often the opposite of what Tom intended, particularly in
Blueprint For Action, which may be a result of the influence of Wiliam Lind's recent review.
Josh at
The Adventures of Chester asks "
The Key Strategic Question" - is Islam compatible with a free society ? Josh writes:
"To say yes to our question, one assumes that there are aspects of being Muslim and faithful to Islam, that can coexist peacefully with liberty, tolerance, and equality. The strategy that follows is one of identifying the groups and sects within Islam that adhere to these notions of their religion, and then encouraging them, favoring them, propagating them, and splitting them off from the elements of Islamic practice that are all too incompatible with the portions of modernity that invigorate men's souls: free inquiry, free association, free commerce, free worship, or even the freedom to be left alone. To answer no, one states that Islam itself is fundamentally irreconcilable with freedom. This leads to a wholly different set of tactical moves to isolate free societies from Islam"This post by Josh gets to the heart of the strategic debate between those like
Thomas P.M. Barnett who advocate connectivity to shrink a Gap that contains a majority of the Muslim world and
William Lind who argues for
isolating ourselves from " centers of disorder" and those migrants who would bear disorder with them into the heart of our civilization.