Biden’s Pier Is a Gift to Hamas Terrorists

Biden’s Pier Is a Gift to Hamas Terrorists

There are mounting concerns that the Biden administration’s pier plan could ultimately boomerang, especially, as Netanyahu himself has warned, if the US aid and the port itself end up in the hands More »

Ubwami bw’Ubupersi na bamedi (Persian’s Kingdom and Med’s Kingdom)

Ubwami bw’Ubupersi na bamedi (Persian’s Kingdom and Med’s Kingdom)

‘Yoseri’ Museveni ari kumwe n’ababyeyi be, Kuki Museveni yanga u Rwanda akomokamo? Umugambi w’Abatutsi bo munzu (y’Abasinga, Abashambo. Abega, Abashingwe) mu karere kibiyaga bigari uhereye mu gihugu cy’Ubuperesi (Uganda) aho bafashe ubutegetsi More »

Hamas’s Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?

Hamas’s Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?

When the terrorist organization Hamas murders, tortures, rapes and abducts Jews in Israel, do not be surprised that the Jews of today will respond with the righteous might of a nation that More »

Israel’s Strategic Game of Survival

Israel’s Strategic Game of Survival

“They wanted Israel’s counterattack, and then they wanted to hold in the tunnels and use the hostages just to buy time for the international community namely, the United States to stop the More »

“Biden’s actions are a violation of Israel’s sovereignty.”

“Biden’s actions are a violation of Israel’s sovereignty.”

  Israel Betrayed? It seems clear that the Biden administration would like to see the rapid creation of a Palestinian state or at least a “Palestinian unity government” — unfortunately composed of More »

 

The Real Lesson of the Paris Attacks by Douglas Murray

  • What if the terrorists had been targeting “just Americans,” or “just diplomats” — would that be “understandable terrorism” in John Kerry’s thinking?


  • “If we should stop drawing cartoons, should we also stop having synagogues? Should they be converted into something else? Should we ask the Jewish people to leave?” — Organizer of a targeted fee speech event, in response to the question if they had brought the attack on themselves.

  • Much of the world may only have been just bragging or emoting in saying, “Je Suis Charlie” or “Je Suis Juif” in January. But it turns out not to matter: the terrorists of ISIS think we are all cartoonists and Jews anyway.

  • Since we cannot live with ISIS and similar groups, we had better do whatever it takes to speed up an end of our choosing before they speed up an end of their choosing.

When the truth is revealed, it can be not merely unpleasant but often accidental. There have been several striking examples of this since the massacre in Paris earlier this month. In the days immediately after the attack, The Times of London interviewed residents of Paris. Referring to the latest attacks, one 46-year old resident also referred back to the attacks in January on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket. “Every Parisian has been touched by these attacks,” she said, referring to the latest attacks. “Before it was just the Jews, the writers or cartoonists.”

If “just the Jews” was an unfortunate way of putting it, it was no less unfortunate than the reaction of America’s top diplomat. Days after the latest Paris atrocity, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said:

“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.”

To the extent these comments have been noticed, they have been ridiculed. It is what lies revealed beneath the statement that deserves our attention.

The true problem with the line that it used to be “just the Jews, the writers or cartoonists,” is not that it is offensive or inelegant or any of the other words that are now used to shut down a discussion — though all these things it may be. The problem is that it suggests that people were not paying attention during those earlier attacks. It suggests a belief that the terrorism in January was a different order of terrorism — call it “understandable terrorism” — rather than part of a continuum of terrorism that now reached its logical endpoint, as “impossible-to-understand terrorism” — because “Jews, writers or cartoonists” were missing.

What if the terrorists had been targeting “just Americans,” or “just diplomats” — would that be “understandable terrorism” in Kerry’s thinking? That it used to be “Jews, writers or cartoonists” is precisely what made the attacks on everybody else inevitable. The only surprise should be our own surprise.

“Understandable terrorism” vs. “impossible-to-understand terrorism”? Stéphane Charbonnier (left), editor and publisher of Charlie Hebdo, was murdered in Paris on Jan. 7 along with many of his colleagues, in a terrorist attack that John Kerry said had “a legitimacy… a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.” Kerry contrasted that with the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris (right), which he claimed were “absolutely indiscriminate.”

After the January attacks in Paris, there were large marches through the center of Paris, and the phrase, “Je Suis Charlie,” for a moment, seemed to be the hashtag or profile picture of everybody on social media. But, of course, almost nobody was Charlie, because apart from a lot of people dwelling on Twitter and Facebook under various virtual noms de guerre, very few people were keen to republish any cartoon of Mohammed or make new Mohammed cartoons of their own. Sadly, a few months after the attacks, the remaining staff members at Charlie Hebdo announced that they were not going to draw Mohammed any more. No one could blame them: as well as losing most of their colleagues, it must have been exhausting to be among the only people still exercising a right that everyone else was just pretending to defend on Twitter. Despite all the “Je Suis Charlie” signs, it turned out very few people were Charlie. In the end, even Charlie was not Charlie.

The “Je Suis Juif” signs were never likely to catch on as much as the “Je Suis Charlie” signs, nor be followed up on even as much as they were. Did everyone on the streets of Paris take to wearing a skullcap or Star of David? No — no more than they would have walked through any of the streets with reproductions of the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s image of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. A lot of people said they were “Jews,” but they were not willing to put themselves in the same line of fire as Jews — just as a lot of people said they were “Charlie,” while not actually being interested in landing on the same Islamist hit-lists as Charlie.

The latest attacks in Paris were, indeed, targeted at absolutely everybody. In that, there should be a lesson of a kind. The lesson should remind us that in a free society, no one can wholly dodge the bullets of these particular fanatics. In the conflict that faces us now, there is no opt-out if you happen to be “lucky” enough not to be Jewish. There is no opt-out if you happen to think that people should not draw or publish opinions that are anything other than 100% agreeable to 100% of the people, 100% of the time. Because one day, you will be targeted for being at a restaurant or a concert, or for having the “decadent” temerity to attend a football match. That this has not yet sunk in to the public imagination is one thing. That it has still not permeated the understanding of the heads of the world’s only superpower is quite another.

A month after January’s terror attacks in Paris, there was a less-remembered terrorist attack on a free speech event in the U.S., and then on a synagogue in Copenhagen. I asked one of the organizers of the targeted free speech event what she would say to the people who claimed, “You know you might have brought this upon yourselves. You don’t have to keep publishing cartoons or defending other peoples’ right to publish cartoons, and you know how much the Islamists hate it.” Her reply was characteristically succinct: “If we should stop drawing cartoons, should we also stop having synagogues? Should they be converted into something else? Should we ask the Jewish people to leave?”

The problem was that too few people listened to such voices, or too few people fully understood the import of what those voices were saying. They were saying what the dead journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo had also been saying: If you give up this right, next, you will lose every other right. Much of the world may only have been just bragging or emoting in saying, “Je Suis Charlie” or “Je Suis Juif.” But it turns out not to matter: the terrorists of ISIS think we are all cartoonists and Jews anyway.

So here we are, at the end of what should be one of the world’s sharpest and most painful learning curves in recent history. At the end of this curve, we ought finally to be living with the realization we might have acquired earlier: that since we cannot live with ISIS and other ISIS-like groups, we had better live without them. We had therefore better do whatever it takes to speed up an end of our choosing before they speed up an end of their choosing.

The Real Illegal Settlements by Bassam Tawil

  • While construction in Jewish settlements of the West Bank and neighborhoods of Jerusalem has long been carried out within the frame of the law and in accordance with proper licenses issued by the relevant authorities, the Palestinian construction is illegal in every respect.

  • The Palestinian goal is to create irreversible facts on the ground. The sheer enormity of the project raises the question: Who has been funding these massive cities-within-cities? And why? There is good reason to believe that the PLO and some Arabs and Muslims, and especially the European Union, are behind the Palestinian initiative.
  • The Jewish outpost of Amona, home to 42 families, is currently the subject of fiery controversy both in Israel and in the international arena. Apparently, settlements are only a “major obstacle to peace” when they are constructed by Jews.
  • The EU and some Islamic governments and organizations are paying for the construction of illegal Palestinian settlements, while demanding that Israel halt building new homes for Jewish families in Jerusalem neighborhoods or existing settlements in the West Bank.
  • The hypocrisy and raw malice of the EU and the rest of the international community toward the issue of Israeli settlements is blindingly transparent. Yet we are also witnessing the hypocrisy of many in the Western mainstream media, who see with their own eyes the Palestinian settlements rising on every side of Jerusalem, but choose to report only about Jewish building.

As the international community continues to slam Israel for construction in Jewish settlement communities, Palestinians are quietly engaging in massive construction of entire neighborhoods in many parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem. In addition to overlooking the Palestinian building project, the West has clearly been neglecting a crucial difference between the two efforts: while the construction in the Jewish settlements of the West Bank and neighborhoods of Jerusalem has long been carried out within the frame of the law and in accordance with proper licenses issued by the relevant authorities, the Palestinian construction is illegal in every respect.

In this behind-the-scenes endeavor, which does not meet even the most minimum standards required by engineers, architects and housing planners, the Palestinian goal is to create irreversible facts on the ground.

A quick tour of the areas surrounding Jerusalem from the north, east and south easily exposes the colossal construction that is taking place there. In most cases, these high-rise buildings are slapped together without licenses or any adequate planning or safety concerns.

An example of massive illegal Palestinian construction near Shufat and Anata, on the northeastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

The Jewish outpost of Amona in the central West Bank, home to 42 families, is currently the subject of fiery controversy both in Israel and in the international arena. In 2006, the High Court of Israel ruled that the outpost is illegal under Israeli law because it lies on private Palestinian land. In 2014, the High Court ordered the government to evacuate and demolish the entire outpost within two years.

In Israel, as Amona demonstrates, no one is above the law. Israel boasts an independent judiciary system that is second to none.

Yet as the debate in Israel intensifies over the fate of Amona, the Palestinians are making a mockery of laws and building regulations by embarking on massive construction of illegal neighborhoods and buildings. Apparently, settlements are only a “major obstacle to peace” when they are constructed by Jews.

In recent years and continuing to the present, the Palestinians, with the aid of Western donors for whom only Jewish construction is anathema, are working night and day to create irreversible facts in the form of not just single-family houses, but masses of giant high-rise buildings. The sheer enormity of the project raises the question: Who has been funding these massive cities-within-cities? And why? There is good reason to believe that the PLO and some Arabs and Muslims, and especially the European Union are behind the Palestinian initiative.

Ironically, this has been taking place even when it means that the Palestinians have been stealing land from our own people.

The Palestinian building is taking place mostly in what is called Area C of the West Bank, which, under the terms of the Oslo Accords, is supposed to be under exclusive Israeli control. The building has also been mushrooming in many neighborhoods — even in entire villages — surrounding Jerusalem from the north, east and south, leaving the city with only one option: to expand towards the west, thereby building a giant collar of cement effectively to surround and choke off Jerusalem from the Jews.

Recently, entire Arab neighborhoods with crowded high-rises have shot up around Jerusalem. Only a handful of steps separate some of the buildings, and most lack proper sewage systems. Apartment prices range from $25,000 to $50,000 USD. These are ridiculous prices compared with the real costs of apartments in both Arab and Jewish (legal) neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Today, it is almost impossible to purchase a three-room apartment in the city for less than $250,000 USD.

The new neighborhoods are located in Kufr Akab, Samiramis, Kalandya, Beit Hanina, Shufat, Ras Khamis and Anata in the north of Jerusalem.

In the southern and eastern parts of the city, new neighborhoods have emerged with noticeable suddenness in Ras Al-Amoud, A-Tur, Al-Zaim, Jabal Mukaber, Um Tuba and Jabal Mukaber. These areas fall within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. However, failing to halt the illegal construction and leaving the city besieged from north, east and south, Jerusalem Municipality officials admit that Israel will have lost the war against illegal Palestinian construction unless immediate action is taken.

Alarmed by the ongoing illegal construction, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat recently took the unprecedented measure of petitioning the High Court to allow the city to demolish 14 illegally built structures in east Jerusalem.

Most importantly, there is no housing crisis for the Arab population; it is not an Arab housing crisis that is prompting this spree of illegal Palestinian construction. Rather, the goal is political: to show the world that Jerusalem is an Arab, and not a Jewish, city. By and large, the apartments remain empty: there is simply no real demand.

Who is behind the unprecedented wave of illegal construction? According to Arab residents of Jerusalem, many of the “contractors” are actually land-thieves and thugs who lay their hands on private Palestinian-owned land or on lands whose owners are living abroad. But they also point out that the EU, the PLO and some Arab and Islamic governments are funding the project.

“They spot an empty plot of land and quickly move in to seize control over it,” said a resident whose land was “confiscated” by the illegal contractors.

“They tell you if you don’t like it, go to court, knowing that by the time the legal procedures are over they would have succeeded in building another tall building and even selling some of the apartments.

“Many Arab land owners feel helpless. They tell us that it is their national duty to build as much as they can on any empty land, otherwise the Jews would be building there.”

Palestinians estimate that in the past few years they have managed to build more than 15,000 illegal housing units in areas surrounding Jerusalem as part of a plan to encircle the city. The construction continues to this moment, unabated. Partial funding comes from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and some Arab and Islamic countries These countries include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other oil-rich countries in the Gulf. However, the Palestinians continue to complain that the Arab and Islamic funding is below expectations.

In Area C, a stretch of land accounting for 60% of the West Bank, the European Union, which bitterly condemns construction in Jewish settlements as illegal, openly funds illegal construction carried out by Palestinians. The EU argues that its support for Palestinian construction falls under the category of “humanitarian relief” and is permissible under international law.

The EU’s real goal is to help the Palestinians create these irreversible facts on the ground ahead of any possible future peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel. It is aimed at facilitating the mission of the Palestinians to seize as much land as possible, even if that means funding illegal construction or providing mobile homes to Palestinian communities in this area.

In short, it is the EU and some Arabs and Muslims who are paying for the construction of illegal Palestinian settlements, while demanding that Israel halt building new homes for Jewish families in Jerusalem neighborhoods or existing settlements in the West Bank.

The hypocrisy and raw malice of the EU and the rest of the international community toward the issue of Israeli settlements is blindingly transparent. Yet we are also witnessing the hypocrisy of many in the Western mainstream media — those dozens of correspondents who see with their own eyes the Palestinian settlements rising on every side of Jerusalem, but choose to report only about Jewish building.

Forty-two Jewish families in Amona have the world riveted, but what does the world think about the Palestinian land-grab? It is time to call out this treachery, this illegality and this double-standard, and demand that the Palestinians also cease the construction of illegal settlements, which are designed with one aim in mind: to pre-determine the outcome of any future peace deal.

Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.

The Real Hamas: Sorry, Folks! by Bassam Tawil

  • What Hamas says, day and night, in Arabic, tells the real story. In fact, Hamas officials are very clear and straightforward when they address their people in Arabic. Yet some Western and Israeli analysts do not want to be bothered by the facts.

  • Some reports have suggested that Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh are the ones pushing for the changes in the movement’s charter. However, even if Mashaal and Haniyeh succeed in their mission, there is no guarantee that Hamas’s military wing would comply.
  • Hamas has also denied its intention to cut off its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. “The reports are aimed at tarnishing the image of Hamas in the eyes of the world,” explained a top Hamas official. He also denied that Hamas was planning to abandon the armed struggle against Israel in favor of a peaceful popular “resistance.”

What does Hamas mean when it says that it “accepts” an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem without recognizing Israel’s right to exist?

Is this a sign of moderation and pragmatism on the part of the extremist Islamic terror movement? Or is it just another ploy intended to deceive everyone, especially gullible Westerners, into believing that Hamas has abandoned its strategy of destroying Israel in favor of a two-state solution?

Recent reports have suggested that Hamas is moving towards “declaring a Palestinian state over the 1967 borders.”

According to the reports, Hamas is also contemplating changing its charter so that it would no longer include anti-Semitic references. The charter, which was drafted in August 1988, contains anti-Semitic passages and characterizations of Israeli society as Nazi-like in its cruelty. The same reports also claimed that Hamas’s revised charter will also state that the terror movement is not part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some analysts in Israel and the West have interpreted these reports as a sign that Hamas is finally endorsing a policy of pragmatism toward Israel and Jews. They are particularly excited about Hamas’s purported intention to declare (in its revised charter) that its conflict is “only with Zionism and the occupation, and not with Jews around the world.”

Judging from the analyses published by some commentators and Palestinian affairs “experts” in the past few days, one might conclude that Hamas is on its way to making a dramatic change in its vicious ideology. Unfortunately, however, the facts suggest otherwise.

Changes or no changes, the movement has no intention whatsoever of abandoning its jihad to destroy Israel and kill Jews.

The purported shift in Hamas’s policy is illusory. What Hamas says, day and night, in Arabic, tells the real story. In fact, Hamas officials are very clear and straightforward when they address their people in Arabic. Yet some Western and Israeli analysts do not want to be bothered by the facts.

When Hamas talks about “accepting” a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 lines without recognizing Israel’s right to exist, it is actually saying, “Give us a state so that we can use it as a launching pad to destroy Israel.”

Indeed, senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan leaves no room for ambiguity when he explains this point. Hamas, he says, does not oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 “borders,” but this does not mean that “we will recognize the Zionist occupation and that the entire Palestinian land belongs to Palestinian and Islamic generations.” He also repeated Hamas’s opposition to any form of negotiations with Israel.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar was also quick to refute claims that his movement was headed toward accepting the two-state solution. Calling for stepping up the “intifada” against Israel, Zahar said that Hamas’s goal was to “liberate all of Palestine.”

Hamas has also denied its intention to cut off its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. “The reports are aimed at tarnishing the image of Hamas in the eyes of the world,” explained a top Hamas official. He also denied that Hamas was planning to abandon the armed struggle against Israel in favor of a peaceful popular “resistance.”

Some reports have suggested that Hamas leaders Khaled Mashaal and Ismail Haniyeh are the ones pushing for the changes in the movement’s charter. However, even if Mashaal and Haniyeh succeed in their mission, there is no guarantee that Hamas’s military wing would comply.

Hamas’s recent internal and secret election saw the rise of Yahya Sinwar as the top leader of the movement in the Gaza Strip. His election is seen as an indication of the growing influence of Hamas’s military wing. Sinwar, a convicted murderer, was released from Israeli prison a few years ago. The rise of Sinwar to power is also a sign that Hamas is headed toward more extremism and terrorism and preparing for the next war with Israel.

The Hamas military wing has a rather spotty history of following the directives of the movement’s political leaders. For example, recurring attempts by Mashaal and Haniyeh to end the dispute with Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) have been repeatedly thwarted by the Hamas military wing and other leaders of the movement, first and foremost Zahar.

Let’s remember, for a moment, the annual rallies held by Hamas’s military wing in the Gaza Strip. At these rallies, masked Hamas terrorists remind the world that their true goal is to “liberate all of Palestine.”

Armed Hamas militiamen on parade with a vehicle-mounted rocket launcher in Gaza, in August 2016. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)

At one such rally, Zahar announced that Hamas already has an army whose mission is to “liberate all of Palestine.” He continued: “By God’s will, this army will reach Jerusalem.”

Hamas continues to remain committed to all forms of terrorism against Israelis. There are no signs whatsoever that the movement is on its way to endorsing a peaceful and popular resistance against Israel. Quite the opposite is true: Hamas never misses an opportunity to clarify that it continues to encourage terrorism against Israel. The latest assertion from Hamas came this week when one of its spokesmen, Abdel Latif Al-Kanou, issued a statement praising a stabbing attack against two Israeli policemen in Jerusalem. Hailing the attack as a “heroic operation,” the spokesman stressed that the “intifada” against Israel would continue.

This is not the first time that Hamas has talked about “accepting” a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines.

In the past, some Hamas officials were quoted as saying that they do not rule out the possibility that their movement would one day accept such an idea. But these statements always came in the context of Hamas’s effort to rid itself of its growing isolation in the Gaza Strip.

The latest reports concerning floated changes in Hamas’s charter, too, ought to be seen in the context of the movement’s ongoing effort to end its isolation. But it is nothing but a smokescreen to mislead the international community into believing that it is on its way to toning down its murderous intentions.

So, what is prompting this disingenuous “change of heart”?

Reports that the Trump Administration is considering the possibility of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. In all likelihood, Hamas is simply seeking to appear as if it is moving toward moderation. In other words, Hamas is prepared to lie — at least in English — about its independence from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Disturbingly, some Westerners are already marketing Hamas’s deception tactics as a “major shift” in the movement’s ideology and plans. Facts, however, are that Hamas remains a terrorist organization that has not and will not abandon its plans to eliminate Israel and kill as many Jews as possible. Here is a dose of deadly reality: Hamas seeks to extend its control to the West Bank as part of its plan to destroy Israel. It wants Israel to give the Palestinians more land so that it would be used as a launching pad to drive the Jews into the sea. This is Hamas, like it or not.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

The Real Cost of Nuclear Deterrence by Peter Huessy

  • North Korea used both the Agreed Framework and the NPT as camouflage to cheat and proceed with its covert nuclear weapons program. Nuclear weapons are apparently an integral part of North Korea’s strategy eventually to reunify the Korean peninsula under North Korean communist rule.

  • According to Hwang Jang-Yop, highest-ranking North Korean defector in history, North Korea’s goal is to remove American military forces from South Korea. Once that withdrawal is achieved, the North would use its nuclear arsenal to deter Japan and the U.S. and prevent these two key South Korean allies from coming to the defense of the South once the North invades it.
  • Arms control, since the height of the Cold War, has cut both the U.S. and Russian strategic deployed arsenals by nearly 90% and thus can hardly be described as part of any “arms race” that might have compelled North Korea to build nuclear weapons.
  • The idea that the U.S. deciding to replace aging nuclear systems, some half-century after the last modernization, is somehow perpetuating an “arms race” is without foundation.

“Military critics” are already anticipating how to disembowel critical elements of the U.S. military — especially its aging nuclear deterrent — when the defense budget will be unveiled by the administration and sent to Congress February 9, 2016. In two recent essays, for instance, Gordon Adams, previously at the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, and Lawrence Korb, at the Center for American Progress, are both calling for dismantling the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Korb has long claimed that nuclear deterrence itself is obsolete. He blames U.S. nuclear modernization plans for providing an excuse for North Korea to test and build nuclear weapons of their own. It is an echo of Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s 1984 warning that when things go wrong in the world, many critics of American policy will “always blame America first.”

Korb complains that twenty years ago the U.S. Senate failed to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. And that fifteen years ago, the U.S. withdrew from the ABM treaty with the former USSR. These two actions, claims Korb, were responsible for providing the North Korea regime an incentive to test and build nuclear weapons. Any further nuclear modernization by America, claims Korb, will similarly force North Korea into more testing of nuclear weapons and building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Adams, on the other hand, simply calls for the U.S. unilaterally to dismantle most of its nuclear deterrent. He proposes that the U.S. eliminate all land-based Minuteman missiles, take the strategic bombers out of their nuclear role and build only eight of the projected twelve nuclear submarines the U.S. is planning to acquire.

The nuclear arsenal of the U.S. would then shrink then from more than 500 separate launch platforms to fewer than ten – a low number the U.S. arsenal has never before reached except at the very end of World War II when the U.S. had exclusive possession of such weapons.

Both Adams and Korb propose such massive cuts because they believe the United States is pursuing an aggressive nuclear “arms race”— in their view unnecessary and much too expensive.

What is wrong with this picture? Just about all of it.

Korb sounds as if he is living in a fantasy world if his own making. First of all, North Korea started to build its nuclear arsenal as far back as the early 1990s, when the U.S. was still a party to the ABM Treaty and had announced a ban on any further nuclear testing. The only nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula since the end of the Cold War are North Korean weapons.

As for the U.S. pursuing an “arms race” or “build-up,” in 1991, the U.S. and the USSR announced the START I treaty, which cut their deployed nuclear arsenals dramatically to no more than 6000 warheads. Ballistic missile warheads were cut as well by 50%.

At the same time, the United States made two key decisions: to delay–unfortunately– much needed nuclear modernization programs; and to accelerate the nuclear reductions required by the START I treaty.[1] In short, just as the United States was building down, North Korea was building up.

There is thus no basis to Korb’s charge that the North Koreans started building nukes in the 1990s to follow in the U.S.’s footsteps.

And even more surreal is Korb’s claim that North Korea can be excused for building offensive nuclear missiles in response to U.S. non-nuclear missile-defense interceptors. The U.S. first deployed these in 2004 — long after North Korea built its first nuclear weapons.

Just think: North Korea is building offensive nuclear missiles armed with real nuclear warheads. The United States is building—in response– non-nuclear ballistic missile interceptors to protect America and its allies from explicit North Korean nuclear missile threats. In Korb’s view, the U.S “arms control” credibility does not meet North Korea’s standards; as a result, North Korea is excused for its nuclear arms building.

Ironically, contrary to Korb’s assertion, the United States in the 1990s did all the things Korb now says should have caused North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons. The U.S. stopped nuclear testing; it largely put on hold the modernization of its nuclear forces, and it pursued nuclear weapons arms control and dramatically reduced its arsenal. Not until 2004, long after the North started building its nuclear arsenal, did the U.S. deploy a single missile defense interceptor to protect the continental United States.[2]

From the beginning, North Korea cheated on its 1994 Agreed Framework agreement with the U.S. in which it guaranteed not to build any nuclear weapons. In addition, North Korea was also a signatory to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) under which all non-nuclear states pledged not to build nuclear weapons. That makes two broken guarantees.

What Korb ignores is that North Korea used both the Agreed Framework and the NPT as camouflage to cheat and proceed with its covert nuclear weapons program all the while pretending to be nuclear weapons free. Nuclear weapons, apparently, are an integral part of North Korea’s strategy eventually to reunify the Korean peninsula under North Korean communist rule.

How do we know that?

Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector in history, was the personal tutor and assistant to North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-Il. He was also Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People’s Assembly. His defection in 1997 was a huge blow to the North. The South, upon his death in 2010 at the age of 87, made his birthday a national holiday.[3]

As he told retired USAF General Michael Dunn, the past President of the National Defense University and the Air Force Association, North Korea’s goal is to remove American military forces from South Korea. Once that withdrawal is achieved, the North would hold at risk Japan and the United States with its nuclear arsenal and prevent these two key South Korean allies from coming to the defense of the South once the North invaded militarily. In short, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal was to trump America’s conventional military capability, and had nothing to do with America’s nuclear arsenal.

Kim Jong Un, the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea, supervises the April 22 test-launch of a missile from a submerged platform. (Image source: KCNA)

Though Adams does not blame America for North Korea’s nuclear recklessness, his proposed cuts to America’s nuclear arsenal would cause serious instabilities in the nuclear balance between the United States and its nuclear-armed adversaries. It would also signal to U.S. our allies–such as South Korea and Japan– that the U.S. extended nuclear umbrella under which they are protected may no longer be part of U.S. policy. This information, in turn, will probably propel U.S. allies to build their own nuclear arsenals — worsening even further nuclear tensions and instabilities.

A key part of both the arguments of Adams and Korb and is the assumption that the U.S. is planning to spend nearly $350 billion over the next decade and a trillion dollars over the next three decades on nuclear modernization. Given such huge planned expenditures, Adams proposes to save roughly $200 billion by eliminating two-thirds of America’s nuclear deterrent. Korb says the U.S. is spending too much, and has previously supported similar cuts.

Is the U.S. planning to spend $350 billion over the next decade and $1 trillion between now and 2045 on nuclear modernization? Currently the United States spends $25 billion on its nuclear enterprise, and by the middle of next decade this bill will rise to $30+ billion as the U.S. begins to build a new nuclear-capable bomber; new land-based missiles to modernize the Minuteman force of 400 land-silo-based missiles, and 12 replacement submarines for the 14 Trident submarines currently in the fleet.

A fair accounting of the costs of modernizing the nuclear enterprise would come to a total of roughly $270 billion for the next decade. If one excludes the non-nuclear bomber, the costs come down to $230 billion.

Included in the total is also the work of the Department of Energy. The U.S. has to refurbish its nuclear warheads and it is going to reduce the types of warheads it has have from twelve to five, and at the same time modernize and update its command and control system that communicates with its nuclear forces. Both are essential to maintaining deterrence.

No matter how you slice it, the entire nuclear enterprise—the platforms, the energy department and the command and control– will cost at its peak level—in 2025—no more than 4% of the Defense Budget or 1/2200ths of the overall Federal budget. At $25 billion now — rising to $30-2 billion by the middle of next decade — the nuclear accounts still cannot then average $35 billion a year.

A couple of factors lower this estimate compared to that of Adams and Korb. First, the conventional non-nuclear bomber force will be modernized irrespective of whether the new strategic aircraft is nuclear capable. The “nuclear related” costs of the bomber are in the 3% range of its total cost, according to former top Defense Department official James Miller. Thus, eliminating the nuclear role of the bomber as Adams proposes would save at best some $1.5 billion over the 15-year life of the bomber’s acquisition.

As for eliminating the Minuteman force of 400 missiles, the U.S. might at best save $300 million a year in research and development (R&D) costs that were scheduled to be spent to begin building a new ICBM during the next ten years. But closing the three related ICBM missile bases will have considerable costs of up to 40% of the imputed “savings” from cutting R&D for the next decade thus the savings are much lower than Adam’s estimates.[4]

What about eliminating four of the planned twelve submarines? This option saves no funding over at least the next three, five-year defense plans: the acquisition of a smaller number of submarines comes at the end of the purchase of submarines and in the 2034-5 time-frame. This means that whatever acquisition savings might be achieved would have to wait for nearly two decades to be realized. If one delays now the planned replacement of the old Trident submarines to save money in the short term, such a move would leave huge gaps in the U.S. nuclear deterrent today: the submarines would go out of service now and not be replaced.

What about other near term savings, such as in the research and development budgets for submarines and bombers? There will be little savings as the R&D costs of acquisition programs do not change with a smaller purchase of submarines, or if the bombers are not nuclear capable[5]: most R&D is all done prior to building the submarines, and almost all bomber-related R&D work is for the conventional force of bombers and not in support of their nuclear role.

Thus Adams’s proposals would save almost no money over the near term, but they would increase strategic dangers. For example, the hull life one expects from the current operating submarines when they are replaced will be greater than any other submarine in our nation’s history. With a longer deployment, the U.S. risks a catastrophic technical failure that might jeopardize the entire U.S. nuclear deterrent, resting as it would on the submarines alone.

What about the impact on the strategic balance and deterrence of going to a submarine-only nuclear deterrent, as Adams proposes?[6]

That would entail putting all of America’s nuclear eggs in one nuclear basket. The U.S. would be assuming that while the air and land have become increasingly transparent to surveillance, for some reason the oceans would remain opaque and thus U.S. submarines would remain undetectable for their entire four-decade deployment, an assumption Adams makes. That is a reckless bet to make, especially when the very survival of the United States is at stake.

Furthermore, the reduced submarine force would, for logistical reasons, be able to be deployed only in one ocean—either the Atlantic or Pacific, but not both.

This requires some further explanation. The Navy has repeatedly emphasized that the number of submarines—12— the U.S. is buying for the future is critical to ensure that enough submarines are at sea on alert, and are therefore available to provide sufficient deterrent capability against America’s principal nuclear adversaries.

But reducing the number of submarines to 8 as Adams proposes would also significantly reduce not only the number of submarines but also the number of missiles available to deliver a retaliatory strike.

For example, 12 boats with 192 missiles with nearly 800 warheads can hit far more targets than 8 boats with 124 missiles and 800 warheads. To hold at risk all important Russian and Chinese targets, the U.S. would have to keep submarines in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as it does today.

Limiting the submarine force to one ocean would eliminate our ability to cover significant targets in both countries thus lessening deterrence of both China and Russia and pushing us to concentrate on holding at risk targets either in one country or the other.

Thus, deterring either China or Russia would have to be taken off the table: the U.S. could not hold all the key military assets at risk for each country necessary to ensure that deterrence would work.

To avoid the problem inherent in so radically reducing the U.S. deterrent, Adams proposes simply to take some of the warheads from the submarines, ICBMs and bombers that would not be built, and add them to the submarines that would be built. This move would require putting the maximum number of 8 warheads possible on each of the 16 missiles aboard each submarine.

But even then the U.S. would not have the same deterrent capability as it does today.

The U.S. would still have roughly 500 fewer warheads overall — and other serious problems. According to two top former Pentagon nuclear experts with whom the author recently spoke, the extra warheads would so increase the weight of the submarine-launched missiles that it would markedly “cut down on the range of the missile and the patrol area in which each submarine could operate.”

As a result, each submarine at sea would have to operate closer to the countries needing to be deterred for the warheads to reach their targets. This limitation would, in turn, reduce the submarine patrol area, thereby making it easier for an adversary to find and destroy the submarines even if the oceans largely remain opaque.[7]

As the range of the missile is circumscribed by the position of the submarine at sea, the missile’s warhead load and missile range are tightly interconnected. Doubling the number of warheads as Adams proposes on each missile would be redundant, “only making the rubble bounce.” The missile range being compromised with fewer missiles and submarines could not cover as many targets as they can today. As a result, deterrence would be undermined even if one assumes that the submarines would remain survivable.

Adams also makes the additional mistake of assuming that because U.S. land-based missiles are in fixed silos—although spread out over five western states—they are vulnerable to being attacked. Certainly a number of silos could be attacked with incoming enemy warheads. But what would be the point in that all 400 would have to be eliminated to avoid an American retaliatory strike back at the attacker?

Nevertheless, Adams concludes that for the ICBM missiles to be of any use to the United States in a conflict, the missiles would have to be launched by the U.S. early in a crisis to avoid being eliminated by an enemy’s first strike. This is known as the “use them or lose them” dilemma.[8] Thus Adams recommends that to avoid that dilemma, just get rid of the ICBMs.

This ICBM vulnerability was a common Cold War assumption and held some validity during the height of the Cold War when the U.S. had roughly 1000 silo based missiles but the Russians had over 10,000 nuclear warheads. In that era, Russia had more than enough warheads to attack all U.S. nuclear assets many times over including America’s ICBM silos.

But today, under the New START Treaty signed between Russia and the U.S. in 2010, the Russians have fewer than 2000 deployed strategic warheads capable of reaching United States, one-sixth the number in 1991.

Today, therefore, to take out 400 Minuteman silos and their associated 50 launch-control centers, the Russians would have to launch some 900 missile warheads at the United States assuming they would direct two warheads on each ICBM-related target to ensure the silos’ destruction.

To what end would Russia launch such a strike, especially as the remaining U.S. bomber and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) would allow the U.S. to launch back at Russia in a retaliatory strike?

Such a Russian first strike makes no sense strategically or tactically.

Russia would have to put its forces on alert to have that many warheads ready to strike the U.S. By doing so they would unavoidably warn the U.S. of a possible pending strike: U.S. satellites would see their platforms-weapons being moved into a position to launch. Their submarines would have to go to sea, bombers be put on alert and mobile missiles moved out of garrison. Otherwise the Russians would not have enough warheads in range of the U.S. even to consider a launch capable of taking out all 400 U.S. ICBM missiles and their affiliated launch control senders.

In other words, U.S. land-based missiles are not “vulnerable,” and neither are its current and planned nuclear Triad of submarines, land-based missiles, and air force bombers.

Thus cutting the Triad as Adams and Korb have supported would reduce U.S. nuclear assets to a handful, making it easier for adversaries preemptively to attack and get the U.S. out of the nuclear business.

The United States, if anything, has been on a nuclear weapons reductions tear. The Obama administration will cut nuclear warheads from 2200 deployed strategic warheads to 1550-1800 – a limit that also applies to the Russians, under the joint New Start Treaty of 2010. This is even a further reduction from the George W. Bush era when U.S. strategic deployed nuclear weapons were cut under the 2002 Moscow Treaty (just a few short months after the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty). In the 2002 Moscow Treaty between Russia and the U.S., deployed warheads were cut from 6000 to 2200, a 64% reduction. That was on top of the reduction from over 13,000 warheads to the 6000 warhead level under the 1991 START 1 treaty between the US and Russia.[9]

Furthermore, modernizing, sustaining and replacing the projected nuclear force stricture, as now planned, will not add any additional nuclear weapons to the U.S. arsenal. In short, arms control, since the height of the Cold War, has cut both the U.S. and Russian strategic deployed arsenals by nearly 90% and thus can hardly be described as part of any” arms race” that might have compelled North Korea to build nuclear weapons.

Modernization does, however, avoid what Dr. Clark Murdock — formerly a senior staff member of the House Armed Services Committee and the founder of the Program on Nuclear Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies — described as “rusting to obsolescence”.[10] This will be the result if the U.S. fails to replace its aging nuclear systems, and it would have a serious impact on America’s non-nuclear allies. It would also seriously undermine their confidence in the validity of America’s extended nuclear deterrent over them.

Moreover, it is not as if the U.S. had just completed an earlier modernization. The U.S. last started modernization under President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and President Ronald W. Reagan in 1981. America’s newest land based ICBMs were last built in 1971; its newest submarine was built in 1991; and its newest B52 was built in 1963. The idea that deciding some half-century after modernization to replace such aging systems is somehow perpetuating an “arms race” is without foundation.

In light of this history, one can thus come up with strong reasons to reject the counsel of Adams and Korb. First, causing strategic instabilities that could easily break down deterrence in order to save less than $1 billion a year for the next 5-10 years is clearly not a wise deal. Second, reducing American nuclear assets to a handful of targets in the face of multiple thousands of Russian nuclear warheads does not even pass the strategic stability smell test, especially given the resulting ratio of Russian warheads (2200) to remaining U.S. nuclear assets (8). The U.S. might as well paint a bulls-eye on our nuclear deterrent and post a sign that says “Come Get Me.”

And third, any nuclear strategy that rests on the notion of blaming the United States for starting some nuclear arms race when its deployed strategic nuclear weapons under the past five administrations—including the current one– have already been reduced nearly 90% is patent nonsense. Even worse, putting all of America’s nuclear missiles on nuclear submarines and maximizing their warhead loads would leave the U.S. with a zero near-term capability to upload, while according to a new study by defense expert James Howe Russia could technically expand its modernized nuclear arsenal to 5800 warheads.[11]

It is true, that, as USAF Major General Garret Harencak, formerly responsible for two-thirds of America’s nuclear Triad, warned, a Capitol Hill audience on May 13, 2015: The United States with the end of the Cold War went on a protracted “intellectual and procurement nuclear holiday.”[12]

The General explained that the U.S. failed to modernize its nuclear deterrent. The U.S. also forgot to update its nuclear policy doctrine.

The U.S. is now remedying the situation under the dual leadership of Secretary of Air Force Deborah James and USAF Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh.

Despite many security disagreements in Washington, the USAF bomber and ICBM force modernizations—as well as the Navy’s submarine replacement program—are supported by both this administration and an overwhelming majority in the U.S. Congress. So are the warhead and command and control enhancements needed to upgrade and sustain the nuclear enterprise.

It is important to remember that such a political and military consensus is difficult to achieve on any subject– let alone the future nuclear deterrent of the United States.

But that consensus it is now in place.

The new deterrent would cost only 4% of the defense budget, a historically low figure and 1/2200th of the overall Federal budget.

Why would one jeopardize that?

Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland and Senior Defense Consultant to the Mitchell Institute of the Air Force Association and a guest lecture at the US Naval Academy on nuclear deterrent policy and the founder of the 36 year AFA-NDIA-ROA Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence, Missile Defense, Arms Control, Proliferation and Defense Policy.


[1] Treaty Between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 31 July, 1994, at www.nti.org; Mark Schneider of the National Institute of Public Policy and a former top nuclear expert in the Department of Defense explained to the author in a number of messages that the U.S. could have deployed as many as 10,000 warheads under START I but adopted reductions way beyond that number, while the Russians, luckily it turned out, also sharply reduced their nuclear arsenal below the START I required levels because they could not afford the cost of the higher number of weapons. He also points out that the U.S., under both START I and the 2002 Moscow Treaty, accelerated and went below the reductions required by treaty law.

[2] See for example the transcripts from the NDUF Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence for 1993-2000, and available from the author.

[3] Personal conversation with General Michael Dunn, President, National Defense University and President, The Air Force Association, for whom this author worked 2003-06 and 2011-12; Dunn was also Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff, Washington, D.C. in the Department of Defense.

[4] Congressional Studies have concluded that base closure costs consume some 40% of the imputed savings from the base being closed, not including the costs of personnel not finding work.

[5] Research and development costs precede a decision to acquire a weapons systems and generally are a fixed cost irrespective of the number of weapons systems one purchases. Thus stopping production of a defense weapon at say 100 units rather than 200 does not have any impact on the previous R&D expenditures as acquisition costs come after R&D is virtually completed;

[6] See especially Admiral Richard Mies, former Commander, US Strategic Command, in the Spring 2012, Issue No. 48, Undersea Warfare, “The Strategic Deterrence Mission: Ensuring a Strong Foundation for America’s Security.”

[7] It should be understood that when the D-5 missile leaves the submarine and goes toward its target, it releases its warheads virtually simultaneously. The warheads, when released from the missile “bus” or nose cone, each travel roughly the same distance from the missile. That is the missile “footprint.” Adding 4 more warheads to each missile would be superfluous unless there were more targets to be held at risk. But if the missile needed to cover more targets, it would carry that number of warheads to begin with, while the U.S. military commanders would adjust other missile loadings to keep total warheads within the 2010 New Start treaty limits.

[8] During the past 35 years, the author has hosted over 1000 seminars on Capitol Hill on nuclear deterrent issues and especially re the assumed vulnerability of the land-based missile-leg of the nuclear Triad. Many of the speakers, including seven USAF Chiefs of Staff, all former Strategic Air Command and Strategic Command heads, three Vice Presidents, and six Air Force Secretary’s as well as dozens of members of Congress all have discussed this critical issue and nearly without exception have explained that the flexibility of the nuclear Triad as a whole makes any large-scale attack on America’s three ICBM missile fields in the context of an arms control environment not credible.

[9] May 24, 2002, Treat Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (The Moscow Treaty).

[10] Clark Murdock, May 12, 2015, Remarks “Defining US Nuclear Strategy and Posture in 2020-2050,” AFA-NDIA-ROA Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series, www.afa.org and Huessy’s Corner

[11] General Garret Harencak, Remarks at the AFA-NDIA-ROA Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence; transcript available at www.afa.org

[12] “Exploring the Dichotomy Between New START Treaty Obligations and Russian Actions and Rhetoric”, James R. Howe, Vision Centric, Inc. Forthcoming, 17 February, 2016.

the problem is not migrants coming in, but

  • Uninhibited by the obvious fear of their citizens, the EU nevertheless carries on its immigration policies.Ironically, Western political elites consider this clearly widespread sentiment against Muslim immigration “racist” and “Islamophobic” and consequently disregard it — thereby empowering anti-immigration political parties.

  • “Islam has no place in Slovakia…. [the problem is not migrants coming in, but] rather in them changing the face of the country.” — Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia.

 

Europe, so many years after the Cold War, is ideologically divided into a new East and a West. This time, the schism is over multiculturalism. What Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has termed “liberal babble” continues to govern Western Europe’s response to the challenges that migration and Islamic terrorism have brought, especially to personal security.

The Western European establishment considers arming oneself against terrorists, rapists and other ill-wishers outlandish, even in the face of the inability of Europe’s security establishments to prevent mass terrorist atrocities, such as those that took place in Paris at the Bataclan Theater or the July14 truck-ramming in Nice.

The European Union’s reaction to terror has been to make Europe’s already restrictive gun laws even more restrictive. The problem is that this restrictiveness contradicts the EU’s own reports: these show that homicides committed in Europe are mainly committed with illegal firearms.

In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, it is still normal to want to defend yourself. Last summer, Czech President Milos Zeman even encouraged citizens to arm themselves against Islamic terrorism. “I really think that citizens should arm themselves against terrorists. And I honestly admit that I changed my mind, because previously I was against [citizens] having too many weapons. After these attacks, I don’t think so”.

Since the president’s remarks, the Czech Interior Minister, Milan Chovanec, has proposed extending the use of arms in the event of a terrorist attack. He explained that despite strict security measures, it is not always possible for the police to guarantee a fast and effective intervention. Fast action from a member of the public could prevent the loss of many lives.

Such reasoning, often seen as laughable in Western Europe, reflects an understanding of the fear that has become a recurring theme on the continent. In Germany, a recent poll showed that two out of three Germans are afraid of becoming the victim of a terrorist attack and 10% perceive an “acute threat” to their safety. Among women, the figures were even higher. 74% responded that they sometimes feel unsafe in crowded places, and 9% said they felt permanently threatened and scared.

Western European leaders, on the other hand, pretend not to understand this fear. In 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was asked how Europe could be protected against Islamization. Merkel, who does not move without her own personal security team consisting of 15-20 armed bodyguards around her, working in shifts, answered: “Fear is not a good adviser. It is better that we should have the courage once again to deal more strongly with our own Christian roots.” In December, she told members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who were asking how to reassure the public about integrating migrants, “This could also broaden your horizons.” (This is the same Merkel, who in 2010 said that multiculturalism had “utterly failed”).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center) was asked how Europe could be protected against Islamization. Merkel, who has a personal security team of 15-20 armed bodyguards around her, working in shifts, answered: “Fear is not a good adviser.” (Image source: Paralax video screenshot)

As Western Europeans are discovering, however, that the state is increasingly unable to protect them, they have begun acting on their fears:

In France, a survey showed an increase of almost 40% in gun license requests since 2011. “Before the beginning of 2015, it was only a vague trend. Since the ‘Charlie Hebdo‘, Bataclan and Nice attacks, [gun license requests] have become a growing phenomenon”, wrote Le Nouvel Observateur.

In Belgium, requests for gun license applications soared in one major province, Liège, doubling in just five years. “The explanation may lie in the current security context, which generates feelings of insecurity among the population”, said officials from Liège’s Arms Service, the state body in charge of granting gun licenses in the province.

In the wake of mass sexual attacks by migrants in Cologne, major German cities all reported an increase of requests for weapons permits. Cologne police estimated that they received at least 304 applications within just two weeks of the mass sexual assaults. In 2015, the city’s police force saw only 408 applications total over the entire year.

Switzerland has also seen a drastic rise in gun permit applications, with all 12 cantons reporting an increase from 2015. Interim 2016 figures show a further escalation. “There’s no official explanation for the rise, but in general we see a connection to Europe’s terrorist attacks,” said Hanspeter Kruesi, a police spokesman in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen.

Gun sellers in Austria also said that interest in weapons grew after a large number of refugees arrived. “Fear is very much a driving force,” said Robert Siegert, a gun maker and the weapons trade spokesman at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce.

Uninhibited by the obvious alarm of their citizens, the EU nevertheless carries on its immigration policies. “I believe Europeans should understand that we need migration for our economies and for our welfare systems, with the current demographic trend we have to be sustainable,” said Federica Mogherini, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. She added that the continent “does not and will not close its doors” to migrants.

Mogherini is probably not interested in a recent Chatham House study, in which an average of 55% of the people across the 10 European countries surveyed wanted to stop all future immigration from mainly Muslim countries. Only two of the countries surveyed were from Eastern Europe. A ban was supported by 71% of people in Poland, 65% in Austria, 53% in Germany and 51% in Italy. In the UK, 47% supported a ban.

Ironically, Western political elites consider this clearly widespread sentiment against Muslim immigration “racist” and “Islamophobic” and consequently disregard it — thereby empowering anti-immigration political parties.

Several countries in Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, have refused to take in more migrants, and several Balkan countries have completely closed their borders.

Czech President Milos Zeman has openly stated, “The experience of Western European countries which have ghettos and excluded localities shows that the integration of the Muslim community is practically impossible”.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has dismissed multiculturalism as a “fiction”. He has also refused to accept EU-agreed quotas on relocating migrants saying, “It may look strange but sorry … Islam has no place in Slovakia.” He added that the problem is not migrants coming in but “rather in them changing the face of the country.”

Western Europe has predictably responded with accusations of “Islamophobia” and “fanning hatred towards minorities and refugees”. One EU state, Luxembourg, even suggested expelling Hungary from the EU for its refusal to toe the EU line and, according to Luxembourg, for treating asylum seekers, “worse than wild animals”. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, in turn, harbors little respect for the way that his Western European colleagues have shaped politics: “We are experiencing now the end of an era: a conceptual-ideological era,” Orbán told supporters in 2015, “Putting pretension aside, we can simply call this the era of liberal babble. This era is now at an end.”

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

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