Threats at Home and Abroad

Former Army Captain Jesse Petrilla has traveled worldwide on fact-finding missions, researching the mindset of the jihadists and the policies that enable them. In this week’s program, he describes what Jihadist want, and what they are planning. Dr. Stanley K. Ridgley, reveals how DEI gurus siphoned funds for education into social engineering programs. I you missed the program on your local station, watch it here

Quick Analysis

Ukraine Complexity

Who has studied the situation on the ground in Ukraine, along with the history and consequences of modern warfare? Many Americans seem to expect “perfection” in this war. But it doesn’t exist in our corporeal world apart from God. To poorly paraphrase a Founding Father, if all men were angels no government would be needed. Flawless government, and a perfect war, simply don’t exist in a realist world. By “realist” I mean that governments employ various types of military power, both hard and soft, to achieve their objectives. Today we are faced with that reality in Washington and among the members of our international community. Lately, I’ve been intensely re-reading documents from early American political history. Hence, I ‘ve been thinking about Americans and the world we are leaving our children. There is no simple solution in Ukraine. What is the best possible choice for the common good, that our political leaders can make, to govern in the imperfect world in which we live? Our Founding Fathers worked hard to protect us from ourselves, taking the best knowledge from man’s history and incorporating it into a contract, a set of guidelines, we the people could use to prosper and live free. We’ve done a pretty good job, in a short time, compared to the rest of the world. But that’s part of the problem! We have a Constitution that works but live among nation-states that lack our history and or a similar contract with their citizenry. If I saw a speeding car cross the median and heading in my direction, my immediate reaction would be to swerve mine to avoid a head on collision. My vehicle might end up in a soft snowbank or a deep ditch. Or, I might be dead, bent around a telephone pole. This is a less than perfect situation. Now, if swerving that day meant I avoided killing a bicyclist or hurting a dozen kids walking to school, would I make the same decision? Life’s choices are full of constraints. There may not be a soft snowbank in which to land. I might end up in a ditch to avoid the kids. War isn’t as simple as driving down a road without constraints. There are unforeseen events that cause us to abruptly change speed or direction. As the driver, maybe my choice is simply to slow down to let an out-of-control car pass in front of me. Or maybe I speed up to avoid it. Staying the course only ensures my car is going to lose its front end! I support the people of Ukraine and their sovereign right to govern themselves, but I also know that if there is no population, no infrastructure, and no community, there is no Ukraine. I believe President Trump taught President Zelensky a hard, planned lesson. Russia has China’s “quiet” backing in the war. President Putin leads a very weak state with a small economy but is allied with an extremely powerful one. China is the dominant partner and using Putin to forward President Xi Jinping’s explicitly stated global goals. Xi intends to remake the world order in China’s image, with Beijing in the lead. Like a speeding car crossing our path, China is the real danger to the free world. We need to look forward while paying attention to the whole highway! China’s ancient military strategist, Sun Tzu, once wrote that a good military leader must seek higher ground for his troops to see the enemy farther down the road. Russia is led by an authoritarian dictator intent on reliving past days of glory by restoring the Russian Empire. China is manipulating his xenophobic desire to achieve its own malevolent ends. The United States needs to look down from that high hill too and recognize Russia can’t do it alone. That means understanding that Putin is forced to seek the aid of a more evil power to survive – China. That is the identity of our real adversary! If I were advising President Trump, I would tell him don’t make the same mistake Nixon made and get “played” by China. We remain the strongest nation in the world in 2025. Xi is not ready to directly confront us, but he is distracting us with a proxy war while he builds his global hard and soft power base. Is it better to call a halt to US aid for the Ukraine war? The people there have lost most of the infrastructure, local communities, and many lives. What is the end result going to be? China will ensure Russia keeps the West busy in Ukraine while it goes about ensuring its own survival. It won’t provide enough aid for an outright Russian win or to cause the West to turn further against China. It will allow a slow starvation of resources for those involved in the war. In an imperfect world, what is the best long-term solution? Does one add up an imaginary total number of acceptable losses of life? Is it the dollars of infrastructure destroyed? Or, the square miles of land temporarily gained or lost? If our goal is to save a sovereign nation-state, there must be something to save, or the war will reignite at a later date. It is to China’s advantage to ensure it. “What if…” Russia is similar to our Wild American West of the 1860’s. “What if,” unlike how we opened China to the West without consequences for its future bad behavior, the free world led Russia to the side of freedom while simultaneously holding it accountable for progress toward that goal? It has happened elsewhere in our lifetime. Taiwan is a good example. It might not be a complete change by the end of our tomorrows. But is it worth considering? Moscow’s alliance with Beijing is a friendship of convenience. We can’t ignore the horrible actions of Russia today, but a future scenario with the world driving down the same highway is an accident about to happen. China funds Russia just […]