Gaza, Ukraine, And America's Four Kinds Of Wars
A Dogfighting Pit Posing As A Veterinary Clinic
On Wednesday, Zero Hedge will be hosting a debate between Dave Smith and Laura Loomer on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Introducing ZeroHedge Live Debates: Laura Loomer Vs. Dave Smith In Wednesday Showdown Over Israel-Hamas War https://t.co/DebvbvQfhG pic.twitter.com/aZUJMqbCUH
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 13, 2023
Ideally, both Smith and Loomer will have read this post by Curtis Yarvin before then, Gaza And The Nomos Of The Earth, but if not, here is a summary and a few key excerpts, as it's one of the more insightful posts on the conflict so far.
Before we get to that, for those unfamiliar with Yarvin, he is the creator of Urbit, and the author of the influential political philosophy blog Unqualified Reservations, which he wrote under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug (now available in book form from Passage Press). In his Gaza post, Yarvin points out that there are four kinds of wars, from the U.S. perspective.
America's Four Kinds Of Wars
Per Yarvin, the four kinds of wars depend on how many dogs America has in the fight [emphasis ours]:
One way to see US foreign policy is as a dogfighting pit posing as a veterinary clinic. Dogs will sometimes get into it at the vet. But at the vet, the standard approach to a dogfight is to break them up. In any context in which break them up is not the standard approach to a dogfight—check your GPS. You may actually be in a dogfighting pit.
In the Global American Empire (GAE), or in any unipolar order, all conflicts can be categorized as four kinds of dogfight:
Dogfights in which America has no dog in the fight.
Dogfights in which America has one dog in the fight.
Dogfights in which America has two dogs in the fight.
Dogfights in which America leaps into the pit itself.
This simple theory can help you understand all kinds of international relations. For instance, the current Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict (see more below) is a conflict of type 1. The current war in the Ukraine war is a conflict of type 2. The Vietnam War was a conflict of type 4.
It will readily be seen that the Gaza war is a war of type 3. Our type 3 wars are the worst kind, for obvious reasons. At least the type 4 wars end quickly (or used to lol).
Armenia-Azerbaijan As A Type One War
As Yarvin says, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan was one in which America didn't have a dog in the fight. And as a result, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (sort of a Gaza inside Azerbaijan) were ethnically cleansed in September [emphasis ours].
Similarly, the ethnic cleansing of Stepanakert happened because Armenia, of course a Soviet SSR and longtime Russian client state, elected a pro-American leader. Russian diplomacy could easily have kept Azerbaijan at bay—but American diplomacy, while no doubt passionately opposed to any kind of ethnic cleansing, had absolutely no power behind it. America had no political movement devoted to the Armenian cause. America had no dog in the fight.
And what was the result? Two hundred thousand Armenians lost all their real estate and had to become refugees. Did they deserve to? Surely not. But—
Did they lose their lives? Were they slaughtered like sheep or exploded from the air? If they had stayed—perhaps. Once it was clear that they were militarily far weaker than their Turkic foes, the Armenians of Stepanakert—an Armenian city for centuries— did the only sensible thing, and left. A true nakba.
Russia-Ukraine As A Type Two War
In the Russia-Ukraine War, America has one dog in the fight (Ukraine), and as a consequence, a war that likely would have ended by April of 2022 without our involvement, has stretched on for another year and a half, costing the lives and limbs of likely hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.
Israel-Hamas As A Type Three War
While it may seem obvious that the U.S. has one dog in the current conflict (Israel), it may be less obvious to some readers that the U.S. also has a dog on the Arab side. As Yarvin notes:
The ties between the Arab world and the Anglo-American elite, especially the mainline Protestant WASP elites of New England, are over a century old. The American University of Beirut, for instance, was founded in 1866. And while missionaries from Harvard may have gone to the Near East to preach Christianity, they soon found that preaching liberalism was far more salubrious to their health.
Yarvin doesn't mention it, but one member of that Anglo-American elite was the father of the current head coach of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr. Via Wikipedia:
Kerr was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to Malcolm H. Kerr, a Lebanese-born American academic who specialized in the Middle East, and his wife, Ann (Zwicker).[1] He has three siblings.[2] His grandfather, Stanley Kerr, volunteered with the Near East Relief after the Armenian genocide and rescued women and orphans in Aleppo and Marash before eventually settling in Beirut.[3] Kerr spent much of his childhood in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries. While in Beirut in the summer of 1983, he met a number of US Marines who were later killed in the Beirut barracks bombings.[4] Kerr attended Cairo American College in Egypt, the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon, and Palisades High School (now Palisades Charter High School) in Los Angeles, graduating in 1983.
Malcolm Kerr was killed by members of the Islamic Jihad on January 18, 1984 at the age of 52 while he was serving as president of the American University of Beirut.[5][6][7][8] Malcolm Kerr was shot twice in the back of his head by gunmen using suppressed handguns in the hallway outside his office.[2][6][7][8]
American Involvement Extends The Conflict
The Russia-Ukraine War would have ended quickly, with far less bloodshed, if the U.S. weren't backing Ukraine. Yarvin argues the war in Gaza--and the Israel-Palestinian conflict in general--would similarly end quickly if the U.S. weren't restraining Israel, because of its other dog in the fight (the Palestinians):
The fundamental problem with Arab-Jewish coexistence in the Holy Land is that the Arabs feel the land belongs to them [...]
Since the Jews also feel that the land belongs to them, a lawsuit is necessary. In a world where the “United Nations” was not a thing, and America had zero dogs in the fight instead of two, this lawsuit would take the form of a war. And the Jews, being stronger, would win this war—even against the whole Arab and Muslim world. Since this is clear to everyone, no violence at all is necessary.
In other words, the conflict would have ended similarly to the way the one in Nagorno-Karabakh: one side realizes it would lose in an all-out war, and leaves. No one marches in the street about it, Zero Hedge doesn't host a debate about it, people just go on living their different lives in different places.
A Provocative Post
Yarvin's post (which you can read in full here), is certainly provocative, but it adds a useful perspective to the Israel-Hamas conflict. It would be interesting to see Dave Smith and Laura Loomer engage with it.
In Case You Missed It
To wrap up on a more positive note, last Thursday we posted our current top ten names, and updated the performance of our top ten names so far this year. We track the performance of our top names over 6-month periods, so last week, we reported the performance of our top ten names from early May.
Over the next six months, our top ten names from May 4th were up 13.28%, on average, while the SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (SPY 0.00) was up 8.08%.
That was the 14th top names cohort of 18 so far this year that outperformed the market (PA top ten returns are on the left below; SPY returns on the right).
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