Patrick M. Cronin is a member of The Hudson Inst. :
The Hudson Institute is a politically conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation
Herman Kahn was the man who thought the un-thinkable. Here are the first three paragraphs of Louis Menand’s 2005 book review ,essay about this monster. A Kissinger, before the ascent of Kissinger.
Herman Kahn was the heavyweight of the Megadeath Intellectuals, the men who, in the early years of the Cold War, made it their business to think about the unthinkable, and to design the game plan for nuclear war—how to prevent it, or, if it could not be prevented, how to win it, or, if it could not be won, how to survive it. The collective combat experience of these men was close to nil; their diplomatic experience was smaller. Their training was in physics, engineering, political science, mathematics, and logic, and they worked with the latest in assessment technologies: operational research, computer science, systems analysis, and game theory. The type of war they contemplated was, of course, never waged, but whether this was because of their work or in spite of it has always been a matter of dispute. Exhibit A in the case against them is a book by Kahn, published in 1960, “On Thermonuclear War.”
Kahn was a creature of the rand Corporation, and rand was a creature of the Air Force. In 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs nicknamed Little Boy and Fat Man on Japan, the Air Force was still a branch of the Army. The bomb changed that. An independent Department of the Air Force was created in 1947; the nation’s nuclear arsenal was put under its command; and the Air Force displaced the Army as the prima donna of national defense. Whatever it wanted, it mostly got. One of the things it wanted was a research arm, and rand was the result. (rand stands for Research ANd Development.) rand was a line item in the Air Force budget; its offices were on a beach in Santa Monica. Kahn joined in 1947.
In his day, Kahn was the subject of many magazine stories, and most of them found it important to mention his girth—he was built, one journalist recorded, “like a prize-winning pear”—and his volubility. He was a marathon spielmeister, whose preferred format was the twelve-hour lecture, split into three parts over two days, with no text but with plenty of charts and slides. He was a jocular, gregarious giant who chattered on about fallout shelters, megaton bombs, and the incineration of millions. Observers were charmed or repelled, sometimes charmed and repelled. Reporters referred to him as “a roly-poly, second-strike Santa Claus” and “a thermonuclear Zero Mostel.” He is supposed to have had the highest I.Q. on record.
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Guilt by association! Patrick M. Cronin is a Neo-Con, and as such he shares in the mendacity of Leo Strauss’s rewrite of the History of Philosophy. And the leaders of that Political Sect led by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz , of the notorious self-advertisement ‘Making It’. Two important books help to establish what and who the Neo-Cons are, and represent politically.
See Murray Friedman’s book ‘The Neoconservative Revolution :Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy’
Also ‘Cloaked in Virtue :Unveiling Leo Strauss and the Rhetoric of American Foreign Policy’, by Nicholas Xenos
In sum, Neo-Conservatism is a bellicose Ultra-Nationalism, in which Strauss acts as the philosophical veneer . Mr. Cronin essay is expressive of the Trump Era’s political rehabilitation of the Neo-Cons, and their embrace by the New Democrats, as partners in the shared goal, of a political rehabilitation the mythical ‘the rules based international order’. That ‘order’ is about American Hegemony, by way of the maladroit sloganeering of ‘building back better’
In pursuing cooperation from strength, there are at least five significant differences between Biden and Trump policies as both parties focus increasingly on China.
The first two differences were on display in Europe: Biden is adamantly and thoroughly committed to working closely with allies and negotiating multilaterally.
The third difference in approaches between Trump and Biden is the latter’s genuine concern about improving the plight of the common man or woman.
Fourthly, the Biden administration seeks to differentiate threats from competition that can be managed by improving US capabilities.
The fifth and final area is that the Biden administration will, at the appropriate time and focused selectively on issues of mutual importance, seek to engage China in strategic dialogue..
To consider just the ‘third difference’ of ‘genuine concern about improving the plight of the common man or woman.’ With a sometime Economic advisor like Larry Summers, who equivocates, just enough to cover his ass, in this interview with Martin Wolf:
Headline: Larry Summers: ‘I’m concerned that what is being done is substantially excessive’
Sub-headline: Former treasury secretary criticises the scale of Biden’s fiscal policy and warns it could lead to overheating and wasted resources
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Larry Summers: I’m going to focus on the American policy path and not talk about where responsibility lies for that path. I think, in important respects, it lies with the Republicans and with those on the more extreme left of the Democratic party.
If you look at the economy at the beginning of this year, prevailing forecasts were that Covid would reduce wages and salaries to American households by $20bn-$30bn a month, with that figure declining over the year. So, that would be a $250bn-$300bn hole in wages and salaries over the course of the year.
So, I look at this hole and then I see $900bn of stimulus in the December package, $1.9tn of stimulus in the recently passed package and $2tn in the savings overhang, which is also likely to be spent. I see the Fed with its foot on the accelerator as hard as any Fed has ever done.
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https://www.ft.com/content/380ea811-e927-4fe1-aa5b-d213816e9073
Considering that Joe Mansion , not a Conservative Democrat, but a Dixiecrat, opposes Biden:
Headline: Joe Manchin is opposing big parts of Biden’s agenda as the Koch network pressures him
- The Koch network has been actively pressuring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to oppose key legislative items linked to Biden’s agenda, including filibuster reform and voting rights legislation.
- The lobbying effort appears to be paying off. Manchin, in a recent op-ed, wrote that he opposed eliminating the filibuster and that he would not vote for the For the People Act.
- The Koch network specifically calls on its grassroots supporters to push Manchin, a conservative Democrat, to be against some of his party’s legislative priorities.https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/joe-manchin-is-opposing-big-parts-of-bidens-agenda-as-the-koch-network-pressures-him.html
Biden’s political pastiche of the New Deal, and a the reinvigoration of the mythical ‘the rules based international order’ ,the cliché that acts as a cover for American Hegemony: that leaves Medicare For All, Student debt relief, the $15 minimum wage, Police Reform, and Federal Protections for Voting, Rights, and eliminating of all ‘Aid’ to the Zionist Faschist State, are left outside, the last acts of Biden’s inauspicious political career.
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