Authored by Thaddeus G.McCotter via American Greatness,
In yet one more instance of “how the extra issues change…”
When assessing the Domino Idea 2.0, one discovers the dominoes are within the particulars – or, extra precisely, the dearth of them.
The primary incarnation of the “Domino Idea” argued that the triumph of communism in a single nation would invariably result in communism’s triumph in neighboring nations. Primarily based on the speedy Sovietization and unlawful occupations of jap Europe within the aftermath of World Conflict II, the Domino Idea predicted the identical outcome would happen elsewhere. Sadly, the speculation was much less of a strategic evaluation than it was a myopic prism, coloring each incident overseas as proof of its predetermined conclusion and justifying its efforts to stanch communism’s advance by any means truthful or foul, together with the deployment of the American army. So doing, the Domino Idea proved a blunt and, in the end, deleterious instrument for stemming the advance of that hideous, anti-human ideology.
For Individuals, the Vietnam Conflict painfully revealed the counterproductive penalties of this overly simplistic idea. Between 1965 and 1973, greater than 58,000 American service personnel, 250,000 South Vietnamese troops, 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, and near 2 million civilians of North and South Vietnam had been killed, and greater than $120 billion of U.S. tax {dollars} had been expended on the struggle effort. At house, Individuals had been torn alongside political and generational traces over the draft and the struggle; youth was radicalized; and disillusionment with and alienation from consultant establishments elevated all through the citizenry. When America in the end did not stem North Vietnam’s conquest of South Vietnam, the following decade witnessed communism’s advance across the globe. At house, most of the political divisions spawned by the Vietnam Conflict by no means totally healed.
Importantly, this was throughout a time when the Soviet Union and its proxies had been in reality bent upon increasing communism throughout the globe, and most Individuals understood this. Nonetheless, the failure to clarify the rationale for the Vietnam Conflict to the satisfaction of Individuals, particularly the younger males being drafted and their mother and father, constituted the sifting quicksand that lastly engulfed America’s struggle effort, particularly when the federal government’s official statements frequently did not match the fact on the bottom and the struggle dragged on.
Within the aftermath of Vietnam, policymakers did study the arduous classes of America’s army defeat. Communism remained an existential risk to free peoples, one the Soviets continued to unfold. However America and her allies progressively turned extra attuned to the precise situations inside a communist endangered nation, and, given the American public’s chary post-Vietnam perspective towards army interventions, turned extra circumspect of their assessments and responses to such threats. With matches and begins, wins and losses, by 1991, this extra circumspect view of the best way to defeat communism by way of a extra deliberative and discerning, holistic roll-back technique facilitated the liberation of jap Europe from communism and the Soviet Union’s implosion.
Failure could be an orphan, however it’s a higher trainer than success. Whereas making room to stuff the Soviet Union in historical past’s trash can, policymakers retrieved from it the rubbish idea, the “End of History.” In sum, Francis Fukuyama’s “finish” was the absence of an ideological opponent to western democratic capitalism, which allegedly had ceaselessly gained the hearts and minds of all peoples. It appears Mr. Fukuyama didn’t seek the advice of the over 70,000,000 members of the Chinese language Communist Social gathering (or radical Islamists, for that matter).
Within the heady, heedless days following the demise of the Soviet Union, the botched, venal western “shock remedy” method to Russian reconstruction led to the rise of an authoritarian regime headed by former KGB Lt. Colonel Vladimir Putin, a international intelligence officer. As a consequence of western recklessness and covetousness, democracy and capitalism had an abysmal trial run in post-Soviet Russia. The folks got here to view the “finish of historical past” as a lifeless finish for Russia. With selective nostalgia coloring their reminiscences, they reached again out for the iron hand of a robust chief (if not a Stalin, then an Ivan the Horrible) and a Russia that was feared and revered all through the world. Mr. Putin and his thuggish ex-KGB cronies (Siloviki) readily obliged. The result’s a revanchist, neo-imperial Russia at the moment on show in Ukraine.
Additional, within the wake of the CCP’s barbaric butchering of pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Sq., an identical response threw this hideous regime a lifeline: no quantity of mass slaughter would cease western capitalists from enriching themselves in communist China. All through the following years, policymakers and the elites have enriched themselves by, amongst different means, outsourcing American jobs to and investing in communist China, thereby making the regime each safer and stronger as they engaged in unrestricted warfare in opposition to the US. And a nation that, throughout Mao’s nice famine, was nonetheless exporting wheat from the fingers of ravenous peasants to make sure the communist regime had sufficient international reserves to advance the nation’s goals all through the world, now holds over $850 billion of American debt. Little doubt, Xi Jinping and his politburo friends will proceed placing their present international reserves and their holding of the U.S. debt to efficient, if not good, use in opposition to America.
In sum, in the present day, policymakers and elites have now caught the remainder of us with the butcher’s invoice for his or her conceitedness and avarice: a revanchist, authoritarian Russia and an avowedly hostile, implacably aggressive communist China, each of which view the US as their major enemy.
That is the scenario as American and different western policymakers tender their dire calls for for taxpayer funding for Ukraine. For some abstruse cause, they anticipate the general public to overlook or ignore that these policymakers and their company cronies have been culpable for inflicting this disaster. These policymakers have forgotten the arduous classes of Vietnam, and in refusing to clarify intimately the strategic stakes in defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, they’ve resorted to the Domino Idea 2.0.
Contemplate this February 12 tweet by Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.), during which he cites an earlier assertion by Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson (R-La.):
“Speaker Johnson is true: ‘We are able to’t permit Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine as a result of I don’t imagine it will cease there. It will most likely encourage and empower China to maybe make a transfer on Taiwan.’”
And there it’s. The belief that an authoritarian victory will result in one other authoritarian’s invasion of one other nation.
Positive, the Speaker hedged with “most likely.” Furthermore, Senator Cornyn was citing an October 27, 2023, interview with the Speaker, whereby he, Johnson, additionally said: “We’re not going to desert them, however we’ve a duty, a stewardship duty, over the valuable treasure of the American folks, and we’ve to be sure that the White Home is offering the folks with some accountability for the {dollars}.” Oddly, the Speaker additionally hedged by including “some accountability.”
But, this merely reinforces the purpose. The Speaker felt compelled to regurgitate the Dominio Idea 2.0. His admission that there must be “some accountability” underscores the absence of accountability to the American public concerning army assist to Ukraine’s. Excepting the rote invocation of the “Taiwan should be defended” mantra, it additionally unwittingly reveals policymakers’ virtually zero discourse with the American folks as to why a free Taiwan is an crucial in defending our nation’s very important strategic pursuits. As an alternative, the general public will get the Domino Idea 2.0.
It’s past the aim of this essay to delve into how the present efforts to assist the protection of Ukraine might or might not have already indicated to the CCP the likelihood of efficiently subjugating Taiwan. What is apparent, nevertheless, is that regardless of Individuals’ disapprobation for Mr. Putin and his regime, the continued funding for Ukraine’s protection is more and more precarious, as public assist is ebbing over time (due in no small half to the absence of “some accountability”).
Now contemplate this in gentle of what the Domino Idea 2.0’s proponent’s imagine is the “hammer” of their argument for extra Ukraine spending: the long-threatened communist Chinese language invasion of Taiwan.
Because the Vietnam Conflict intensified, one of many arguments of anti-war protestors was that our children had been being despatched to die in a rustic most Individuals couldn’t discover on a map. A terse expression of how policymakers had did not adequately clarify how America’s very important nationwide safety pursuits had been concerned, it was an inarguable indictment of the unique Domino Idea. However it is very important observe that the Domino Idea was initially adequate for the American public to simply accept our nation’s involvement in Vietnam. Why?
As a result of Sovietization of jap Europe, the communist seize of China, and the US’ subsequent, excruciating expertise within the Korean Conflict (or possibly due to the sacrifices entailed to maintain South Korea free), the American public acknowledged communism was an existential risk to our nation and allies. Engendering and perpetuating this recognition constituted a concerted nationwide effort that endured over a long time till America and her allies gained the Chilly Conflict.
At the moment, that is decidedly not the case.
Feckless policymakers, in league with their rapacious company cronies and different grasping elitists, have divined a vital distinction between the defunct Soviet variant of the communist virus and that of the Chinese language Communist Social gathering (CCP): not like the previous Soviet Union, western elites could make a buck off the communist China.
However, you could ask, what about communist China’s “unrestricted warfare” in opposition to their major enemy, the hegemonic United States? What in regards to the communist regime’s repression of their very own folks, together with the genocide of the Uighurs? How can American and western policymakers and their elitist cronies do enterprise with a totalitarian authorities that’s leveraging their very own captive folks as a “market” for western company funding? Or threatening to invade their neighboring free republic, Taiwan?
To maintain their gravy practice rolling requires the general public to imagine the policymakers’ and the elites false narrative that the communist Chinese language regime is magically not in charge of their totalitarian state. In some way, regardless of all proof and communist ideology on the contrary, communist China’s enterprise sector (one can not name it a “non-public sector”) is a sufficiently unbiased actor to disregard the regime’s aggressive home and international malevolence. Briefly, policymakers and elites want the American public to play “let’s faux” together with them.
This deliberate downplaying of communist China’s goals promotes the willful misperception that there’s a distinction between the communist Chinese language regime and its economic system—one that isn’t acknowledged in that nation’s legal guidelines—and has not ended the American folks’s mistrust of the communist Chinese language state. Nevertheless it has had detrimental affect. Whereas not spurring requires peaceable coexistence or détente, it has negated a complete estimation of the risk communist China’s unrestricted warfare poses to America’s very important strategic pursuits, in addition to the measures required to guard and defend ourselves and our allies. Really, then, it’s odd how, in pushing the Domino Idea 2.0, coverage makers and the elites are aiming to leverage a worry of communist China that they’ve spend a long time attempting to decrease.
This brings us nose to nose with the actual Domino Idea of communism: particularly, how the willful blindness to communist China’s avowed unrestricted warfare in opposition to our nation results in the unfold of the vile, murderous, anti-human ideology of communism at house and overseas.
For instance, why ought to communist indoctrinators on campuses not be handled the identical as Nazi indoctrinators? Why ought to an ideology accountable for killing extra innocents than every other screed be thought-about acceptable in any quarter, not to mention develop in reputation, particularly amongst younger Individuals?
Why ought to Individuals oppose the repressive communist Cuban regime, one which exports its hateful ideology and undermines free nations in Latin America, when probably the most populous and highly effective communist nation on this planet, China, regardless of being engaged in “unrestricted warfare” in opposition to the U.S., is being handled as a accountable worldwide actor and enterprise alternative?
Equally, at a time when American elected officers are endangering nationwide safety by signing non-disclosure agreements with communist Chinese language firms and, within the title of making jobs their failed insurance policies have precluded by every other means, are doling out billions in taxpayer {dollars} to them to find in areas of America the place it’s all the higher to interact in army and company espionage and different nefarious actions, why ought to the general public reply to the Domino Idea 2.0’s concern without cost Taiwan?
Certainly, whereas many policymakers, their elitist cronies, and the regime press pooh-pooh the general public’s considerations about communist China buying American farmland, why would the general public care about communist China invading Taiwan—not to mention be ready to danger World Conflict III over it?
See how these dominoes fall when policymakers and their elitist cronies put cash over nation and promote our communist enemies the rope they may use to hold us?
Until and till policymakers and their elitist cronies stop their remunerative apologies for the regime and begin defeating the existential risk of communist China’s unrestricted warfare, the Domino Idea 2.0 is a self-defeating piece of self-satire that merely serves to additional disillusion and alienate Individuals whose public assist is required to defend our republic and the whole free world.
In the long run, after all, the query of whether or not the Domino Idea 2.0 works because the policymakers and the elites intend is a secondary consideration. The primary consideration is to do what’s comprehensively obligatory as a nation to make sure that query by no means requires a solution.
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