Wolves at the door

Democracies (countries run by popularly elected politicians) tend to not pay much attention to wolves until they are at the door.  There is instead a constant cry that the democracy causes the presence of wolves and that military spending in particular is (always, no matter how small) excessive.

The reason is mainly because wolves often self-destruct, and besides it interferes with re-election.  The public does not like to make sacrifices to protect itself.

I read a nice piece in Huffington yesterday about the history of Wahhabism in Saudi.  It seems terror and brutality have been a core part of not just that part of Islam but part of Islam in general through its existence -- that killing and raping the non-believer is not only acceptable behavior but is commanded.  (I add that Islam is not unique in this respect).

As a tactic, up to maybe the end of the nineteenth century, it usually was successful.  People will and generally should submit to preserve themselves and their families.  Alexander the Great was generous to cities that surrendered without a fight and engaged in general slaughter and rape and enslavement and looting when there was resistance.  It worked and he was able to take Asia Minor with only a few real sieges.

I don't think it works at all in today's world.  What it does is alert democratic politicians and the public to the presence of a wolf.  The wolf needs to wait until its power is too great for the democracy to resist, and, until then, play ball, for the most part -- as the Chinese seem to be doing.

Politicians like Obama and the Clintons love to save money by weakening the country's military, so they can buy votes with social programs.  (I don't know that it is as crass as that -- maybe they think they are doing the right thing -- hard to understand though.)

Of course if one spends really excessive amounts on the military, one can weaken the domestic economy, and this ain't good either -- and ends up reducing the amount available.  In the States, though, the weak economy is from other causes.

The Muslim terrorist and extremist groups think the old brutality and fear tactic still works.  That was behind 9-11, which only served to give Bush the chance to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, although what he achieved has now been frittered away.  At least for a couple of years the public understood the danger, but they don't like sacrifices and want them to stop.  A couple of years is about all a determined leader has before the clamor forces compromise with evil.

Now ISIS, or whatever it will be called, is doing as much, telling the world the wolf is at the door.  If they had pulled their uprising and then been civilized about it, instead of going on a murder spree, the world would have seen it and not liked it, but have done nothing.  As it is Obama is being dragged into doing something (it seems as little as possible) by his own public.

In other words, terrorism today is stupid.  It achieves very little if anything except alert the world to your evil.