I should first say that I think you’re being disingenuous when you suggest that NDN is home to a clerisy of foreign affairs mavens, and only they can have discussions which are informed or relevant. That’s nonsense. The board is littered with educated, well-informed people. No one’s opinion or views are illegitimate, and part of the fun is when issues are debated.
Yes, there are posters whose life experience conveys a measure of credibility that others might not have. But I am leery of this. Say we’re talking about jurisprudence. Must we listen to lawyers only? God forbid. Foreign affairs? No one knows more about political/military affairs than WilfordBrimley, and any thread where he is a participant should garner attention. But who among us does not pay attention when sorin69 or Kbyrnes participate in a thread? Neither of them has experience in foreign affairs beyond a lively interest, however, sorin69 is a learned scholar whose subject is Church history. Kev is a polymath, for chrissakes.
OT: One of the great experiences in my life is accompanying Kev to a lunch at an Albanian restaurant in Chicago. On the way over there, he delivered a spirited talk entitled “The Cuisine of Illyria”. Had Mike been there, he could have lectured on Albania as an exemplar of the religious tolerance on the part of Ottoman imperial society, in which the Orthodox Church and its communities were protected inside an Islamic sultanate. I have traveled there, but I don’t know much about Albania except that Zog is my favorite royal name. The remains of King Zog, King of the Albanians, were returned to Albania in 2012. His grandson, Crown Prince Leka II lives in Tirana and is married to an Albanian movie actress. I feel sorry for the guy because it does not seem that he is invited to any of the royal weddings in Europe.
You might ask, what was on the menu that day? I think we were served a plate with small piles of lentils, each pile a different color—black, red, green. When lentils are featured prominently on a menu, you can be sure this signals poverty. I mean, what do you get when you visit an Ethiopian restaurant? In fact, I like lentils, especially lentil soup. Travel tip: If you plan to visit Albania or Ethiopia, put Beano tablets in your dop kit.
Back to our subject: You well know that I am an old man. Old men have leeway when it comes to offering advice or counsel. Here’s some—when you are in high dudgeon, you make mistakes, get sloppy, etc. To wit, your last paragraph. It’s not just you, it’s all of us. Anger tends to ruin the fun, and I am as guilty on occasion as anyone.
You ask where I thought the thread might go? Like sorin69, I thought someone might take up the Bibi/Gaza issue, that is, the position that I hint at in the post. I am surprised no one took the bait.
Right off the bat, you suggest the border has nothing to do with vital national security interests (VNSIs). I’d challenge that and say that the border issues have everything to do with national security. For me, a list of VNSIs begins with the Western Hemisphere. Yes, ahead of Russia and China. We must maintain friendly relations with our near neighbors, particularly Canada, Mexico, and countries in the Caribbean Basin so that they are enlisted to ensure no military threat ever arises in the Western Hemisphere. We are never safe until we have this assurance. I call it the “Monroe Doctrine” because I think that’s a catchy name. For some, it’s sort of scary because, among other things, the doctrine demands that the next time Russian strategic bombers land at Símon Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, we crater the runways so they can’t take off and the air crews are required to return to Archangel in a banana boat.
Following below are the concluding paragraphs of an essay I wrote four years ago. I think I posted it (parts of it) here. Here goes:
Samuel Huntington observes that “No other immigrant group in American history has asserted or been able to assert a historical claim to American territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim.” That is, the blurring of our southwestern frontier has become a geographical fact. Neither Trump’s wall nor American technology will prevail against this fact. Furthermore, to rely on American nationalism to preserve our Anglo-Protestant culture and values is a fool’s errand. Partial Latinoization of our society is inevitable. The organic connection between Mexico and the US—geographical, historical, and demographic—is simply too overwhelming. As Robert Kaplan points out, America is no longer an island protected by two oceans: “It is brought closer to the rest of the world not only by technology, but by the pressures of Mexican and Central American demography.” (The Revenge of Geography, New York: Random House, 2012).
For Kaplan, success for the US in the 21st century represents a multiracial civilization oriented from north to south (the axis turned 90 degrees), the globe’s preeminent hot-zone for business transactions, the favored residence for the global elites, and a place which uses its immigration laws to asset-strip the world of its best and brightest.
However, this vision requires a successful Mexico, a stable and prosperous Mexico working in organic concert with the US, a combination, Kaplan believes, that would be unbeatable in geopolitics: “A post-cartel Mexico, combined with a stabilized and pro-American Colombia [would] fuse together the Hemisphere’s largest, third largest, and fourth largest countries in terms of population”, thus preserving America’s sway over Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. In other words, fixing Mexico is far more important than fixing Afghanistan.
Again, I look to Robert Kaplan: “…if the United States and Mexico do not eventually come together to the degree that the U.S. and Canada already have—if we do not have Mexico as an intimate and dependable ally in world forums—it will adversely affect America’s other relationships, especially as Mexico’s (and Central America’s) population grows at a much higher rate than ours, and thus Mexico will assume more importance as time goes on…Mexico must play a central function in any grand strategy we decide upon.”