The Green Fifth Column Makes Life Easier for Foreign Oiligarchs

What do Biden, Bernie and Putin have in common?

All three want to stop the US fracking revolution and thereby hogtie the US economy, for starters. This may not count as "Russian collusion," to borrow a phrase, but it might raise questions about who supports America's national interests and who does not. 

Both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are now on record supporting a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the US, although it's largely responsible for our world-leading reductions in CO2 emissions and America's rise from energy slacker to energy superpower. Several recent pieces -- here and here -- nicely explain what Putin's Russia hopes to gain by orchestrating the current oil price plunge, which may be good news for American gas-buyers but will wreak havoc with our domestic energy producers if the Russian gambit works.

But here's what gives Russia, Saudi Arabia and other foreign energy rivals a hidden advantage in this high-stakes game. These foreign powers aren't alone in wanting to put a lid on America's domestic energy revival. They have witting or unwitting allies working toward similar ends right here on American soil, buried deep behind "enemy lines."

That ally is Gang Green, Environmental Anxiety Inc., the Church of Climate Catastrophe . . . whatever you choose to call it. This powerful, well-funded, media-savvy lobby is also working to derail America's "energy dominance" (to use Trump's phrase), only from within, not from without. And the Democrat Party now walks in mindless lockstep with the environmental lobby, as Biden's bow to the fracknophobes shows.

I'm not saying organized environmentalists are working in consort with these foreign powers, or that they're secretly on the payroll (though that's a possibility that deserves closer scrutiny). But there's no doubt that Big Green wants what the Russians and the Saudis want -- which is an energy-starved, economically-weakened, competitively-disadvantaged United States of America. 

Having a Green Fifth Column on their side must help the Russians and Saudis sleep easier at night.

Lenin's "Useful Idiots" Will Always Be With Us

The Soviet collapse came swiftly and surprisingly, following decades of slow internal rot, and the "useful idiots" (Lenin's term) in America who were overt or covert enablers of the evil empire -- America's legion of fellow-travelers -- just faded into the woodwork, almost overnight. Most glommed onto "climate change" as the next available tool for attacking capitalism and advancing eco-socialism, culminating in the Green New Deal, but let's save that topic for another day.

There was no Day of Reckoning for "Fifth Column" Westerners, like the crackpot from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who carried water for an evil regime and its puppets. They never had to account for or apologize for their complicity in communism's crimes. This may be why so many younger Americans seem so forgetful and forgiving of the wrongs American fellow-travelers helped perpetrate under the banner of socialism. 

Mona Charen wrote one book, "Useful Idiots," attempting to hold these tools of tyrants accountable, but there was no appetite for such retrospectives after the Berlin Wall fell. All was quickly forgotten and forgiven. All that sordid history was just brushed under the rug. 

And so we have a situation today, here in (what Gore Vidal called) the United States of Amnesia, in which those who helped prop-up criminal totalitarian regimes not only can run for President, with absolutely no sense of shame, but can gain a rabid following among new generations of "useful idiots."

Obama's First Test?

"Many Americans seem convinced, based on scanty evidence, that Barack Obama is the better choice for managing the economy. Maybe they also think he has the right stuff to manage the next arms race, and can handle a showdown with a snarling Russian bear, emerging from hibernation."

That's an excerpt from my blog post one week ago.

Here's an excerpt from a Washington Post story published Wednesday:

Russian President Sharply Criticizes U.S. on Missile Defense

Medvedev Threatens to Deploy Tactical Missiles Near Poland if U.S. Pursues Shield in Europe

By Philip P. Pan

MOSCOW, Nov. 5 -- Sharply criticizing the United States while offering to rebuild relations with its new leader, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned in a nationally televised address Wednesday that he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland if the Obama administration pressed ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe.

Kremlin officials have threatened before to target Poland by moving tactical missiles into the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, most recently after Poland agreed in August to host a U.S. interceptor base. But Medvedev's threat "to neutralize, when necessary" the American installation was the most explicit and public endorsement of the plan by a top Russian leader yet.

The warning appeared intended to signal the Kremlin's priorities to the new American president-elect and could serve as an early foreign policy test for Obama, who has said he supports missile defenses against Iran and North Korea but has also criticized the Bush administration for failing to consult with allies about the shield, exaggerating its capabilities and rushing deployment for political purposes.

Medvedev's remarks came in his first state of the nation address since taking office in May, a wide-ranging speech in which he held out little hope for democratic reforms and also proposed amending the Russian constitution to lengthen the presidential term to six years -- a move condemned by critics as part of a plan to allow his predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to return to office.

Medvedev emphasized that Russia remained ready to work with the United States if it abandoned its "mistaken, egotistical and sometimes simply dangerous" policies.
"It is true that these relations are not going through the easiest period today," he said. "But I would like to stress that we have no problems with the American people. We have no inherent anti-Americanism."

Russia's finance minister suggested Obama's election would give a boost to the global economy, and the Russian ambassador to NATO said he expected Obama to improve the alliance's relationship with Moscow and lift the limits on cooperation imposed after Russia's war with Georgia.

"I think the emergence of the new U.S. president, the young, energetic black leader, can lead to those bans imposed by the previous U.S. administration between Russia and NATO being lifted," said the ambassador, Dmitry Rogozin.

Disarmament by Default -- an Update

Most would agree that the continued downsizing of Cold War-era nuclear arsenals is a good thing, if undertaken with care. But it's embarrassing to see the U.S. pushing -- or is it groveling? -- for a new round of arms control reductions with Russia, by necessity rather than choice, because we've permitted our capabilities to decline to the point that their safety and reliability can't be assured.

Secretary of Defense Bill Gates "says the next American president should pursue a new agreement with Russia to further reduce the size of both nations' nuclear weapons arsenals," the Associated Press reported a few days ago. ". . . Gates spoke Tuesday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he said the long-term outlook for keeping U.S. nuclear weapons safe and reliable is 'bleak,' in part because the United States is experiencing a brain drain in the laboratories that design and develop the world's most powerful weapons. Gates said America's more than 5,000 nuclear weapons are now safe and secure, but he sketched out a series of concerns about the future, while stressing that nuclear weapons must remain a viable part of the U.S. strategy for deterring attack as long as other countries have them."

As if this isn't alarming enough, Gates also said "he is concerned about the possibility that some Russian nuclear weapons from the old Soviet arsenal may not be fully accounted for," indicating that the United States isn't the only nuclear power that might have become a little sloppy following the momentary easing of Cold War tensions. "I have fairly high confidence that no strategic or modern tactical nuclear weapons have leaked" beyond Russian borders, Gates said -- that's a relief! "What worries me are the tens of thousands of old nuclear mines, nuclear artillery shells and so on, because the reality is the Russians themselves probably don't have any idea how many of those they have or, potentially, where they are."

That American weapons aren't in the most capable hands is also evident, as my earlier posts on this subject indicate. Just yesterday, in fact, another alarming story of "nuclear decline" and nuclear neglect ran in our local paper, The Colorado Springs Gazette.

It's a situation I've been following -- and warning about -- for years: link, link, link, link.

Gates emphasized that the current U.S. arsenal is "safe, secure and reliable," but worried aloud about "the long-term prognosis," which he characterizes as "bleak." "He noted that the United States has not designed a new nuclear weapon since the 1980s and has not built a new one since 1992," reports the AP, and he "called for urgent action to reverse a decline in focus on nuclear issues."

"Currently the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear warhead," Gates said. "To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program."

It's troubling that this hasn't become a major issue in the presidential race -- is it too late in the game to make it one? -- because it's shaping up as one of the major challenges the winner will confront. It might even help precipitate the "crisis" that Joe Biden and others are predicting, if our adversaries decide to "test" the young and inexperienced Barack Obama.

I'm predicting -- clip this post and tape it to the refrigerator -- that the Russians will resume nuclear testing within a few years. That will be the "Sputnik Moment" that reawakens America to the fact that the nuclear arms race isn't over, and that Cold War II is a reality. How the next president and next Congress respond will determine whether the U.S. continues as a military superpower, or chooses the easier course of decline and disarmanent by default.

This would seem to be an issue that plays to McCain's advantage, since he is perceived as the more capable candidate on national security issues. Of the two men, he's the most politically courageous -- a quality the next president will need if it becomes necessary to resume nuclear testing. But even that isn't certain in this topsy-turvy political climate.

Many Americans seem convinced, based on scanty evidence, that Barack Obama is the better choice for managing the economy. Maybe they also think he has the right stuff to manage the next arms race, and can handle a showdown with a snarling Russian bear, emerging from hibernation.

Cold war "icon" removed from Academy grounds -- just as Cold War II heats up

"An icon of the Cold War will disappear from the Air Force Academy this week when an intercontinental ballistic missile on display for nearly the past four decades is torn down," the Colorado Springs Gazette reports this morning. "A Minuteman III missile that has stood proudly near Clune Arena on the campus has rusted its way through too many Colorado winters and is in danger of collapsing."

The writer then adds, just in case we were wondering, that the "structure is just the shell of the weapon and lacks solid fuel rocket motors and city-leveling warheads." That's certainly a relief.

"We're going to miss it," academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker told the Gazette. "The old cold warrior has been a landmark here for 37 years."

Removing the missile isn't some sort of political statement, thank goodness; it's just rusting out. But still, one can't help but be struck by the ominous symbolism involved, as America enters what has all the appearances of Cold War II, with an aged, perhaps even decrepit nuclear arsenal to serve as a deterrent.

See my earlier posts on "nuclear neglect," and Congress's reckless refusal to modernize, for the bigger picture.

Ban the Bomb -- any Bomb.

I've written on this blog before about the reckless reluctance of some members of Congress to modernize America's aging nuclear arsenal, and their desire to abide by a never-ratified nuclear test ban treaty, for fear of appearing "provocative." But as this and other stories indicate, doves in Congress also seem reluctant to develop non-nuclear alternatives -- including Trident missiles armed with conventional, high-explosive warheads -- that might be used in a crisis.

Here's an excerpt from the story at GovExec.com:

"An independent panel on Friday advised that the U.S. Navy develop and field a conventional version of its nuclear-armed Trident D-5 missile, a Defense Department initiative that has received scant support thus far from a skeptical Congress.

In a 192-page report, commissioned by lawmakers in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences experts take issue with a Capitol Hill decision to eliminate this year's funding for the Conventional Trident Modification.

"The committee disagrees with the congressional decision not to fund testing of [the] CTM [missile] in 2008, and recommends instead that Congress fund" Conventional Trident Modification research and development "at a level sufficient to achieve early deployment if tests confirm system effectiveness," writes the group, composed of 18 national defense and nuclear weapons experts.

The Navy missile was to be the first weapon developed and deployed for a new mission called "prompt global strike," in which terrorist targets or rogue nations could be attacked within just one hour of a launch command. Currently, nuclear weapons are the only tools in the U.S. military arsenal available to hit urgent targets halfway around the world in such short order.

Lawmakers last year decided that the Navy project would be limited to basic research and development and must share a $100 million budget in fiscal 2008 with an array of other "promising conventional prompt global strike technologies." Critics on Capitol Hill cited concerns that, if launched from the same Ohio-class submarines that carry an identical nuclear weapon, a conventional D-5 ballistic missile might be mistaken for a nuclear salvo and elicit a violent response from other atomic powers like Russia or China."

The "critics on Capitol Hill" ought to worry less about the reaction of ruthless leaders in Russia and China -- nations that won't flinch from doing what's in their national security interest -- and more about the risks this country runs if doesn't take the necessary steps -- and take them soon -- to modernize and strengthen its sagging deterrent capability, nuclear and conventional.

The best way to avoid having to resort to the "nuclear option" is to have an array of equally-effective conventional options available. "Prompt Global Strike" is meant to do that. Yet the neo-disarmament crowd in Congress is making a nuclear strike even more likely, during some future crisis, by scuttling a viable conventional arms alternative.