ing or lacking oil, the more our enemies fixate on it. Why did Biden blow up en-


ergy dependence? Could not tomorrow Biden reverse course, greenlight the Keystone Pipe- line, reverse his mindless oppo- sition to the EastMed pipeline that would help allies Cyprus, Greece, and Israel to help other allies in southern Europe, and throw open new federal leasing to supply exports of liquid natu- ral gas to Europe? What is moral, and what


amoral: alienating Bernie Sand- ers and the squad or keeping our allies and ourselves safe from foreign attack? What is so ethical about fol-


lowing the green advice of bil- lionaires like global jetsetter John Kerry at the expense of the middling classes who cannot af- ford to drive their cars or warm their living rooms?


A DETERRENT MILITARY? Factor in the Afghanistan hu- miliation, the walk away from $80 billion in arms and equip- ment, a $1 billion Kabul embas- sy, a multimillion-dollar refit of Bagram Air Base, the woke po- liticization of the Pentagon, the McCarthyite hunt inside the ranks for white rage/suprema- cy, the inane rantings of retired admirals and generals, the re- volving door of four-stars to de- fense contractor boards — and in just three years, the military lost a half-century of American public support. All this and more have erod-


ed the global fear of the U.S. military. We have all but de- stroyed American trust in our own armed forces (only 45% of Americans poll great confi- dence in the military). The woke threat is in addi-


tion to spiraling pensions and social justice overhead that make the defense budget lean


52 NEWSMAX | APRIL 2022


on actual defense readiness. Enemies did not erode our mili- tary’s once feared deterrence, our own top military and civil- ian leadership did.


AMERICAN GOLIATH? America may be woke. It may feel it has transcended dirty fossil fuels and can thrive on wind, solar, and batteries. It may assume it is morally


superior, and like 19th-century pith-helmeted British foreign officers, can sermonize to the world, from pride flags and George Floyd murals in Kabul to no need for security in Benghazi. But we also are mired in


$30 trillion in debt. We print $2 trillion a year in mockery of inflation. Our major cit- ies are crime-ridden and the streets medieval with the homeless and sidewalk sew- ers. Race relations are the worst in memory. We have no southern bor-


der. Nearly 50 million residents were not born in our country — and this challenge at a time when we have given up on as- similation and integration. The woke virus has warped


racial and ethnic relations and is destroying the idea of meri- tocracy. We are in the hold of a Jacobin madness, in a top- down elite race to perdition. In short, the America of even


1990 no longer exists. To re- tain our deterrence abroad, we must tighten our belts at home, pump oil and gas, start to bal- ance our budget, junk wokeism as a nihilist indulgence, and re- calibrate our military.


NATO NATO is now a mere construct. It was birthed and exists to do three things in Europe: keep America in, Germany down, and Russia out. Now Germany is up. America is out. And Rus-


sia is in. The vast majority of the alli-


ance’s members followed Ger- many’s anti-American prompt to renege on promises to spend a mere 2% of their budgets on military readiness. How strange that only thou-


sands of deaths in Ukraine can soon persuade the arrogant German leadership that their own performance-art pacifism kills.


Think of the following ab-


surdities: Germans no longer like Americans all that much. But they do expect them to sub- sidize their defense and pro- tect them from Russians, with whom in turn they are cement- ing lucrative energy deals. The latter will eventually


make them dependent on Putin for 50% of their energy needs. So what is NATO? In truth,


25 or so of the 30 nation mem- bers are defenseless. They rely on the United States to protect them from enemies in their own backyard. Why are there any U.S. com- bat troops in Germany? Are


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