POLAND
1. Poland will build a fence on its border will Belarus to stop migrants
Poland has announced plans to build a new fence along its border with Belarus to stop migrants illegally entering the country.
The Polish Defence Ministry announced that more soldiers will also be deployed to protect the frontier.
EU countries have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately facilitating the illegal migration of migrants.
They say Minsk is encouraging migrants to enter the EU in revenge against sanctions on Belarus following Lukashenko’s disputed re-election in 2020 and subsequent crackdown on dissent.
GLOBAL AFFAIRS
2. Europe Runs the Risk of Becoming a Global Strategic Victim
Retired British Gen. Richard Barrons warns that the United Kingdom and European Union can no longer simply rely on the United States for their security.
[…]
Elisabeth Braw: In Parliament this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged the “hard reality” that “the West could not continue this U.S.-led mission … without American logistics, without U.S. air power, and without American might.” Is he right?
Richard Barrons: Yes. We need to confront the reality that NATO without the U.S. is a very limited concept and very limited force. In Afghanistan, there was enthusiasm from the U.K. and one or two other European countries to pick up the mantle that the U.S. was putting down, but when they looked at it, they found that even if they could find the infantry they simply couldn’t field the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; the command and control; the logistics; and the training that supported the Afghan army. They couldn’t even get themselves to Afghanistan and sustain themselves, let alone sustain an Afghan army of 300,000.
We also need to recognize that Afghanistan is [hundreds of] miles from the sea. This mission has never been tenable except with the cooperation of Pakistan for logistics support. Even if we could have fielded the forces, it would have required the cooperation of Pakistan in its moment of triumph.
But the wider question is phenomenally important, and if there’s anything genuinely strategic that comes out of the Afghan debacle, it is that the world we’re going to inhabit, a world that is dominated by the rise of China and the centrality of Asia, a world of profound instability and population growth and climate change, and the transformative ability of good and ill of the digital age, in this world we Europeans are telling ourselves that our future is far more challenging and far more uncertain.
‘Europe Runs the Risk of Becoming a Global Strategic Victim’
3. Ejecting Biden
If the Democrats want to keep the 2024 presidential election within reach, they have to move fast. The first step will be getting rid of Biden.
[…]
[…] this week, we’re seeing something very strange: The leftist media is blaming Joe Biden for the Afghan calamity. That’s actually what CNN’s homepage was calling it, as of Tuesday afternoon (August 12)—”Biden’s Afghan Calamity.” Another headline reports that Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and for Biden to be removed from office. Another says “Biden owns the mess he created”; another, “Afghanistan’s collapse was not pre-ordained.” On MSNBC’s homepage, the top headline says “Biden’s hope for Afghanistan isn’t a strategy.”
[…]
So what’s going on? Has the leftist press finally grown a spine, or a sense of right and wrong? On the contrary: The sudden and complete reversal of the press’s attitude towards Biden looks a lot like the media have received new marching orders, and permission to criticize the president.
Kamala Harris has been entirely offstage during the humiliation in Afghanistan, and the subsequent humiliation of Joe Biden. Biden himself may have been utterly surprised at what happened in Afghanistan, but the people who are actually running the country and calling the shots—whoever they may be—knew exactly what they were doing.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re running the Democratic party. Biden obviously is too senile to continue as figurehead much longer. Kamala is the least popular vice president in a generation. You want Biden gone, and you want an alternative to Kamala for 2024.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/19/ejecting-biden/
4. Vladimir Putin says he is not allowing Afghan refugees into Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday his country won’t accept Afghan refugees because he doesn’t want to deal with “militants” masquerading as asylum-seekers.
The Russian strongman slammed Western nations for placing Afghan refugees in countries even near his border while their US and European visas are being processed.
[…]He said he will not accept “militants showing up here under cover of refugees.”
5. Biden’s US-first approach leaves NATO in the lurch
Lack of US consultation with NATO on its Afghanistan withdrawal plans left its allies in the dark and highly vulnerable
On the weekend of August 14, German diplomats routinely driving through Kabul’s diplomatic quarter noted an oddity. US soldiers who usually keep guard had abandoned the compound.
The Germans also noticed that the road to the international airport, normally secured by American troops, was also undefended. They called around to Western colleagues and learned that the US had withdrawn the forces to their own embassy, according to German press reports.
Only the next day did US diplomats inform their allies that they, too, should leave the so-called Green Zone and head to the airport, as the Americans were already doing.
GLOBAL/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
6. Assabyia Wins Every Time
[…]
The medieval Arab historian Ibn Khaldun explains the dynamic in his 14th-century masterwork, Al Muqaddima. History, he shows, is a repetition of the same pattern seen throughout the ages—a group of nomadic tribesmen overturn an existing sedentary culture, a civilization that has become weak and luxurious. What drives the success of the rising tribe is its group solidarity, or assabiya. Its awareness of itself as a coherent people with a drive for primacy is frequently augmented by religious ideology. The stronger the tribe’s assabiya, the stronger the group. Assimilating the conquered by imposing its will and worldview on them, the victor lays the foundations of a new civilization. But since, as Ibn Khaldun writes, “the goal of civilization is sedentary culture and luxury,” all groups carry the seeds of their own demise.
And so the struggle begins anew.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/assabiya-lee-smith
