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@ Flick 🇬🇧
2025-02-22 20:36:07
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/get-real-the-harsh-lessons-of-our-new-world-disorder/
Let me tentatively offer some rules for realists in the world we now inhabit – a world where China’s Leninists seek to exploit our weakness economically, Russia’s gangster regime tries to bully us militarily, and Islamist terrorists and their sponsors hope to subvert us internally.
Rule 1 There is no substitute for hard power. A nation’s ability to defend its people, its values and its allies, let alone its potential to advance noble causes, depends crucially on military strength. […]
Rule 2 We can no longer afford luxury beliefs. It’s not sustainable to have investment funds which shun arms companies on ESG grounds. It’s no good saying you want to save the planet if you can’t stop China and Russia controlling more and more of it. It’s self-harming to apply DEI policies to the military. […]
Rule 3 A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand. There is a limit to how long any state can remain resilient if it imports large numbers of people from abroad and not only does not require them fully to integrate but actually apologises for the history and character of the nation they have chosen to make their home. […]
Rule 4 Unilateral disarmament was bonkers when it came to nukes and it’s no better when it comes to energy. Giving up our nuclear deterrent when Brezhnev was in the Kremlin would not have encouraged him to do the same. Our headlong drive towards net zero doesn’t seem to have given China cause to slow down its consumption of hydrocarbons. […]
It may be the feeblest of false hopes to imagine that a government with Richard Hermer as attorney-general and Ed Miliband as Energy Secretary would embrace such flinty realism. So I have to be pessimistic about the prospect of any of these suggestions finding favour.
But what is the alternative?
https://archive.ph/eewct