Both in Europe and in the United States, it looks more and more likely that sometime within the next decade the real Right will come to power. It did so in part in the U.S. with the election of President Trump. The past week saw it succeed in the elections in Italy, where real Right parties won a majority (whether they can put a government together is another question), and in Germany, where the Social Democrats voted to commit political suicide by joining the faux-conservative CDU in another grand coalition. That leaves the real Right party, the AFD, the leader of the opposition in the Bundestag, which positions it well to surpass the Social Democrats in the eastern German States.
In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke said, “Before you ask me to congratulate the French on their liberty, let us see what they do with it.” The same caution applies to the real Right as it moves toward power. What will it do with it? Will it have a workable, positive agenda?
That question is particularly acute when it comes to foreign and defense policy. The right has an unfortunate history of damaging or destroying itself by engaging in unnecessary wars. France’s participation in the wars surrounding the American Revolution gave us our liberty, but it also left France with such a burden of debt that it eventually brought down the Bourbon monarchy. World War I, an unnecessary war for every participant except Austria-Hungary and Serbia, destroyed the three great conservative, Christian monarchies of Austria, Russia, and Germany, opening the door to Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Mussolini’s unnecessary entry into World War II, over the passionate objections of his Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, destroyed both his government and much of Italy.
From that perspective, the past week’s major event, President Trump’s agreement to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, was good news. Summits have their risks, and I doubt North Korea will give up all its nukes unless China leaves it no choice in the matter. But an unnecessary war in Korea could derail the rise of the real Right in the U.S. very quickly, given the likely casualty count. As Churchill said, “Better ‘jaw jaw’ than ‘war war’.” (It’s a pity he did not take his own advice. Britain might still have an empire.)
Less reassuring was a report in the March 10 New York Times on Stephen K. Bannon’s European tour. He is of course right to share his expertise with the European populist parties and movements. But the Times wrote that:
He [Bannon] said that the reason it was so important to get populist nationalist governments in place was to prepare for a coming great-power clash with an axis of ancient Turkish, Persian, and Chinese civilizations.
If Bannon is warning about Huntington’s “clash of civilizations”, he is correct, although we should make every effort to ally Western and Chinese civilizations. Islam is an opponent, whether in its Turkish, Persian, or other contexts, and it must remain so until it stops demanding the whole world submit to the Koran. But to see the coming clash in great power terms, which is to say within the context of wars among states, is outdated.
As I have written many times, Fourth Generation war makes war between states counterproductive. The danger is high that the losing state will disintegrate, creating a worse threat than existed before the war. The enemy in the 21st century is disorder itself, and one of disorder’s products: movements of vast numbers of immigrants and refugees, in some cases whole peoples, that threaten to invade and overwhelm the few remaining places of order. This is what finally brought down the Roman Empire, and unless Europe gets populist, nationalist governments, it will bring today’s European civilization down too.
Why can’t existing European governments defend Europe? Because they have all either bought into the ideology of cultural Marxism or they are afraid to confront it. Cultural Marxism allies itself with anything that will help it destroy traditional Christian, western culture, including hordes of immigrants. The real reason we need genuine conservative governments here and in Europe is to remove the cultural Marxists from power. They should remain free to believe whatever idiot philosophy they want. But they should no longer be able to force it down society’s throat.
That’s the game, and it looks like the real Right is going to win it.
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