The Great Global Contraction Has Begun

BRANDON J. WEICHERT | THE WEICHERT REPORT Americans have been told for almost a century that free trade, open borders, …

To Conquer Chaos, Court It

It is time for Washington to realize that, in an age of durable disorder, there is simply no way to impose stability from the outside. Instead, the goal should be to do the least amount of harm both to ourselves and allies while enhancing our national strategic interests—and our understanding of those should be far more limited than it currently is. At times, the United States should not intervene in a civil war, regardless of the human suffering involved. Other times, we might benefit by replicating Chinese and Russian strategies and exacerbate the chaos; playing all sides against the middle. Rarely, though, should American forces deploy to engage in unwinnable humanitarian warfare as they have done on multiple occasions since the end of the Cold War.

Are We In Store For Another Great War?

“A similar descent is in store for the United States today—though very few recognize it. Just as the airy assumptions of the last world order (the European-led one) came crashing down on the heads of those who believed them the most, so today are the assumptions about our current world order about to come caving in on us.”

The Cost of Doing Nothing About Venezuela

“The solution is to organize a massive regional response to the Venezuelan crisis. Countries like Colombia, Peru, and Brazil are all interested in mitigating Venezuela’s collapse. The Trump Administration must head a regional coalition that would aim to ameliorate the suffering of the Venezuelan people, while putting pressure on the regime in Caracas. Venezuela, more than Syria, is where a limited, American-led humanitarian intervention of regional powers should occur. The longer that the Trump Administration ignores the Venezuelan crisis, the more time America’s enemies have to harden their positions in our part of the world—which could directly threaten the United States.”

The New-Old World Order is Here (Part VII)

“Until we achieve that kind of innovation and prosperity, then, the United States will continue to be mired in history and hegemony and unipolarity will be a thing of the past. Thus, we will be forced to operate in a balance-of-power paradigm in which the Chinese are very near-to-parity with the United States and the Russians continue nipping at our proverbial heels (despite Russia being a country in severe decline). We will live in a world in which geopolitical risk to the United States is at an all-time high, since we are unable to overcome the major threats posed by rogue states and terrorists also. However, it will take some time to generate the kind of economic boom that is needed. And, it’s not an entirely bad thing to reassess some of our preconceived notions and support for institutions that bear little relevance to this new-old world order of hard geopolitics, strict national interests, and competing spheres of influence around the world.”

Madmen and Nukes: North Korean Edition

“Why should the United States waste precious time on negotiations that will only empower the North and weaken the rest of us? We should be preparing for conflict on the peninsula, not begging the North to take more handouts from us as they build better nuclear weapons. We should build up the anti-ballistic missile defense system, THAAD, in South Korea to better defend against potential North Korean nukes. We should moving more U.S. forces into the region. We must be preparing strikes against suspected WMD sites in North Korea. Also, we might want to consider either giving South Korea nuclear arms to defend themselves.”