Storm Clouds on the Horizon

How to defeat the enemy without violence

It has been said that when an idea’s time has come a lot of people are likely to get it at the same time. In the same way, when something begins to flicker out there in the cosmos a number of people, a small group at first, begin to pick up the signals. They start to see what’s coming.

—Peggy Noonan, There Is No Time; There Will Be Time, The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 1998

The classical role of the prophet, at least in the Levantine sense, is not to look into the future but to talk about the present. He tells people what to do, or, rather, in my opinion, the more robust what not to do.

—Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile (Incerto) (p. 435). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

We have the enemy exactly where we want him. Victory is ours if we don’t screw it up.

I remain away from most forms of social media, but I still get a daily email of stories from some important websites. Today’s dispatch included two stories reposted on Zero Hedge. They were written independently of each other and in such time proximity as to make it unlikely one author was inspired by the other. As Ms. Noonan said in 1998, something’s flickering in the cosmos, and they both see it.

First, there was Andrew Korybko’s article about the coming rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. I had no idea. Apparently, the two major Muhammadan factions are patching up their millennial disputes.

The second story comes from the ever-reliable Victor Davis Hanson, who asks “Are we the Byzantines?”

Always outnumbered in a sea of enemies, the Byzantines’ survival had depended on its realist diplomacy of dividing its enemies, avoiding military quagmires, and ensuring constant deterrence.

Both authors see the same end to American hegemony: one from a geopolitical perspective and one from witnessing the rot of America from within.

Writes Korybko about Saudi Arabia’s willingness to trade oil for the Chinese yuan:

Once this major oil exporter begins to sell its resources in non-dollar-denominated currencies like China’s, then the petrodollar upon which the economic-financial aspect of the US’ unipolar hegemony is predicated will be dealt a deathblow. The global systemic transition to multipolarity and the impending trifurcation of International Relations that will precede the final inevitable form of this process would unprecedentedly accelerate once this happens, thus further hastening America’s ongoing demise.

More about the fragility of the petrodollar:

If the Petrodollar Fails, the United States Government Fails

Counters Hanson:

An ascendent China seems eerily similar to the Ottomans. Beijing believes that the United States is decadent, undeserving of its affluence, living beyond its means on the fumes of the past—and very soon vulnerable enough to challenge openly.

Left and Right seem to hate each other more than they do their common enemies.

Like the Byzantines, Americans gave up defending their own borders, and simply shrugged as millions overran them as they pleased.

Our once iconic downtowns, like end-stage Constantinople before the fall, are now dirty, half-deserted, dangerous, and dysfunctional. [Been to downtown St. Louis lately? Don’t go after dark.]

America prints rather than makes money, as its banks totter near bankruptcy.

Americans similarly believe they are invincible without ensuring in reality that they are. Our military is more worried about being woke than deadly.

Like Byzantines, Americans have become snarky iconoclasts, more eager to tear down art and sculpture that they no longer have the talent to create. 

Current woke dogma, obscure word fights, and sanctimonious cancel culture are as antithetical to the past generations of World War II as the last generation of Constantinople was to the former great eras of the emperors Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, and Leo.

The Byzantines never woke up in time to understand what they had become.

The storm we are facing was long in the making. It was visible clearly in 2018, when I first tried to escape politics:

We could then fight a bloody civil war. It would be a low-level war fought in small skirmishes. A guerrilla war that lasts for decades.

As that war wears on, America’s economy would falter. Our ability to maintain a defense would languish. We would be at the mercy of foreign powers like China, Russia, and even Iran. Even if the forces on the right prevail in the civil war, the victory would be pyrrhic. The America we’d inherit would scarcely resemble the America of our birth or even of America’s birth.

What Should We Do Next?

Yesterday, the various armed forces of the United States announced they expect to miss their recruiting goals by 10 percent or more again in 2023, even after lowering their standards for enlistment below those of a federal prison for incarceration. (The Navy now accepts people with severe psychological disorders up to 41 years old—the age by which most career sailors of my era had retired.)

Colonel (retired) Douglas MacGregor sees the flickering in the cosmos, too. Writing in The American Conservative:

The growing realization that American and European military-industrial capacity cannot keep up with Ukrainian demands for ammunition and equipment is an ominous signal to send during a proxy war that Washington insists its Ukrainian surrogate is winning.

And, if I forgot to mention, the US banking system is collapsing before our eyes.

I’m not trying to ruin your Sunday. I’m trying to warn you—as Nassim Taleb’s Lavantian prophets did:

By issuing warnings based on vulnerability—that is, subtractive prophecy—we are closer to the original role of the prophet: to warn, not necessarily to predict, and to predict calamities if people don’t listen.

What is the flickering in the cosmos so many people now see? And see so clearly that they feel compelled to drop everything and warn others?

The flickering is all the things we’ve been reading and writing about for years: degeneracy, Satanism, the idiocy of experts, the consolidation of power, the abrogation of civil rights, the inflation of currency, the subordination of practioners to theorizers—it goes on and on. But what’s happening now is different. A trigger is coming into focus.

That trigger could be almost anything, but, once pulled, things will spiral downward like a helicopter without power. And the trigger could be this week’s arrest of Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, a New York prosecutor is expected to indict and arrest Donald Trump—the man largely responsible for that city’s resurgence in the 1980s—on fictitious charges. His arrest on state charges is being orchestrated by the DOJ and FBI with intent of preventing Trump’s return to the White House. Via The Gateway Pundit:

President Trump posted on Truth Social early Saturday morning that he will be arrested on Tuesday. Trump called for protests. Numerous leaks have reported Trump will be charged next week in New York City in the Stormy Daniels case where he has been accused of paying Daniels as part of a confidential settlement before the 2016 election to buy her silence over her unfounded accusation of an affair.

I have a feeling that arresting Donald Trump will be the trigger. Half the country will give up on fixing the system, particularly the justice system. Many will take the matter into their own hands.

They believe, with strong evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen. They believe, with even more evidence, that 2022 elections were rigged in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. They held out hope that a Republican House would begin setting things right. And, even if they believed we’d be better off with DeSantis than Trump in 2024, they will not tolerate the political arrest of a former president who was, in their eyes, defamed, persecuted, and falsely accused throughout his tenure. They will become “unreasonable” in ways I warned against.

At that point, all bets are off.

“Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans”

—Sun Tzu

But an uprising is exactly what the oligarchs want. J6 has lost its value. They need a new reason to impose martial law. Which is why the DOJ is directing the actions of the NY prosecutor: they need a new “insurrection.”

“The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants,”

—Sun Tzu

The general who fails to control his emotions is the general who goes home in a body bag.

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

—Sun Tzu

Now is not the time to fight.

I’ve been telling you for years about preparing for this battle. Most of us are NOT ready. Some think they are ready, but they are not. Why not?

Because the “ready” are few and far between. They have no viable tribes. They are lone preppers without a supporting army of trusted allies. They are geographically dispersed and alone. They will outlast the unprepared, but only by weeks, not years.

No one is ready, and readiness requires time.

Now is not the time to fight.

“If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.”

—Sun Tzu

The enemy expects protests. The enemy—the FBI—is already organizing protests. Foolish men believe these protests are being organized by confederates. Fools do not ask, “how did this become so well organized so quickly?” Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

And the fools will be crushed, and the rest of us along with them.

“By discovering the enemy's dispositions and remaining invisible ourselves, we can keep our forces concentrated, while the enemy's must be divided.”

—Sun Tzu

Our tactic is to do nothing.

Go dark.

When the Tea Party in St. Louis went dark, we brought the enemy down. We went so dark at times that even I did not know what operations we conducted. (I just learned of a new one last week.) We destroyed two local leftist organizations without anyone knowing—including the so-called “leaders” of the St. Louis Tea Party. We did it legally but silently.

If you want to put the fear of God into the enemy, go dark.

“Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.”

—Sun Tzu

If we fail to take the enemy’s bait, if we go silent, he will assume we are planning another attack. He will panic. His infiltrators will have no intelligence to share. His agitators will have no one to provoke.

The enemy will, out of fear, divide his forces, cover his flanks, and weaken. His officers will turn against each other, accusing them of having failed. Or, worse, of disloyalty to the state.

When the FBI announces suspension and arrests of its own officers, we will know we are winning.

“Though the enemy be stronger in numbers, we may prevent him from fighting. Scheme so as to discover his plans and the likelihood of their success. Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity.

—Sun Tzu

If we don’t show up at the protest site, the only people there will be the feds. They will not blend in.

Protests were a Tea Party tactic that worked. But, as Saul Alinsky said, a tactic that drags on becomes a drag. Sun Tzu said the same:

“Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances. He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven- born captain.”

—Sun Tzu

We have one strategem: the unconditional surrender of the enemy. We have unlimited tactics. And none of them needs to include what we call “violence.”

In fact, as Sun Tzu advised, the champion warrior is the one who wins without battle.

“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

—Sun Tzu

When Trump is arrested, shut down. No angry tweets. No angry protests. No passion. Only prayer.

Silence.

Deathly, terrifying silence.

Take the time to learn a skill or plant some vegetables or build a chicken coop.

The best way to kill your enemy is to scare him to death, and silence can be the scariest thing of all.

The post-industrial world is collapsing, and its army needs an enemy to fight. Its scholars need a scapegoat to blame. Both have chosen MAGA as that enemy, that scapegoat.

The best way to collapse the system that deserves to fall is to make them fight phantoms. Shadowboxing burns more calories than actual fighting. The punch that misses drains more energy than a punch that lands.

Make the enemy punch the wind because you are not there.

Do not protest.

Do not shout.

Let yourself become comfortably numb.

And enjoy their fall.