I have had the good fortune to see this tendency challenged by my generation, the “Ron Paul” generation if you will. For the first time in a long while, the idea that we ought to maximize personal liberty so that we may freely choose to do what is good is beginning to catch on. The contraception mandate has awakened many Catholics from a statist slumber, a dream-like state in which government as such was seen as the guarantor of the public peace and common good. But there is much more that needs to be seen, many more areas of life besides religious practice or our weekly paychecks that governments across the nation are intruding upon in the name of safety and order.

Producers and sellers of raw milk are being targeted for raids across the country; even the Amish aren’t safe. You won’t fare better if you attempt raise pigs or chickens in a manner that displeases local or state governments and the agribusiness interests who successfully lobby them. It was only after a wave of protest and indignation that the Obama administration rescinded a law that would have barred children from working on their family farms.

Speaking of children, if you believe that yours would be better off without vaccinations, you may see a S.W.A.T. team at your front door when you refuse to relinquish your child to Child Protective Services. And if you send your child to a public school, make sure you instruct her not to burp in class or write on her desk, or even blink or breathe in a way that could be interpreted as “disruptive“, lest they be arrested, put in handcuffs, and hauled off to jail.

These are only a few examples of the sort of things that were once part of normal, everyday life for millions of Americans becoming criminalized or at least attracting police involvement in an unprecedented way. One could also look to the sexually-invasive security methods of the Transportation Security Administration, which may spread well beyond airports and into shopping malls, sporting events, and other places that Americans casually frequent on a daily basis. It is also a guarantee that they will be accompanied by mechanical drones in the near future, the same sort of technology used to keep track of people assumed to be violent threats to national security.

What is at stake in these examples, and there are thousands more like them, is not only liberty but human dignity. It is a violation of human dignity to force a 95-year old woman to remove her adult diaper, or to expect a reasonable person to feel as if a serious security risk is being addressed by such measures. It is a crime against decency to terrorize a four-year old girl as a potential terrorist suspect for hugging her grandmother, or this child, or that child, for whatever reasons. In these cases we are to believe that we must be degraded and humiliated in order to “keep us safe” from the terrorists.

There are more than a few Americans who agree with this sentiment. And yet one hopes that we have reached a point at which we say to ourselves: what exactly are we keeping safe? What happened to the nation that was inspired by Patrick Henry, who cried “give me liberty, or give me death”? If the majority of Americans eventually decide that life is worth living without liberty, they will soon find themselves living without dignity either, for the two are inseparably linked.

This is confirmed in the teaching of the Church. Pope Leo XIII begins his encyclical Libertas by stating as much: “Liberty, the highest of natural endowments, being the portion only of intellectual or rational natures, confers on man this dignity – that he is “in the hand of his counsel”(1) and has power over his actions.” To be endowed with liberty is to be endowed with dignity, not to mention moral responsibility and accountability; to be denied liberty in an arbitrary fashion is to be denied dignity as well. Thus it will not do to speak of human dignity while forgetting human liberty.

The battle for liberty and dignity is inseparably tied up with philosophy and theology as well. This becomes clear if one watches some of the “God debates” between Christian and atheist philosophers, such as this one between atheist Sam Harris and William Lane Craig. As Craig repeatedly points out (to no satisfactory response), in Harris’ view of the world, human beings lack free will, and therefore lack moral accountability as well. To broaden the point a bit, mere animals that lack freedom can have neither morality nor dignity. To assign them dignity is arbitrary and subjective; on such a foundation, human dignity cannot stand.

We can only insist upon our dignity if our liberty is something more than a chimerical illusion, if it is really a property, a defining characteristic, of the human being. Not only that, but it must be understood that liberty is not the product of a random, meaningless series of historical events, but instilled in man for a specific reason, by a specific being. There may well be atheists who strenuously object to the sort of gross violations of human dignity and liberty I provided examples of above, and this is on balance a good thing. What will ultimately become of such objections, however, if they lack a solid foundation in reality? The approach of the secular Leviathan is at least consistent with the view that man is nothing more than an atypically complicated animal with no special meaning or purpose for existing. Pleasure and pain, as Bentham wrote, are his sovereign masters; the preservation of his life, as Hobbes insisted, is his sole concern. If he lives without liberty or dignity, it is enough that he merely lives.

Maximizing our liberty and dignity does mean accepting some restraints. But the Church has not proclaimed dogmas and morals so that man can be weighed down with unnecessary burdens. On the contrary, it is only through knowledge and acceptance of the truths revealed to us by our Creator – the very being responsible for the creation of our inherently free souls – that we can exercise our liberty in accordance with our nature and with an eye to our ultimate and eternal destiny. To cherish liberty is always to invite some risk. We may choose sin and damnation; we may choose to harm ourselves and others and disrupt the common good.

But the idea that evil can be eliminated in this life by the rational planning of man is far more dangerous. Scientific progress can create the impression that such a fantasy may one day become a reality; the totalitarian dictatorships of the 20th century were infatuated with the possibilities of total social management. And yet, as F.A. Hayek argued in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, such dreams are based upon a “pretense of knowledge”, an unfounded assumption that the methods that have produced such marvelous results in the hard physical sciences can be applied or mimicked in the social science. But one would only assume that such methods could be easily transferred if they already tended to view human beings as atoms or cells, without free wills, pushed about entirely by external forces.

When I look at our intrusive state – put whatever adjective in front of it you will, be it “police”, “nanny”, “managerial”, etc. – I can’t help but see the pretense of knowledge in full swing. There is no need to make rash comparisons to Hitler or Stalin, because our own intrusive state is not the product of one man’s will imposed upon a nation; it is a product of attitudes, assumptions, and policies that have gradually been adopted by the social and political elites of the country. Who can resist them? Only those who have the full and complete understanding of who and what man is; and this is found only in the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church.

For too long, this country has suffered from a severely misguided understanding of church-state separation, fostered by secular liberals/progressives. And now, those same forces—or at least those devoted to President Obama and so-called “abortion rights” above all else—are employing that very misunderstanding in an assault upon the religious freedom and consciences of Catholics. They are doing so, of course, via the Obama mandate on contraception and abortion drugs.

The problem begins with the very notion of “separation of church and state.” Huge numbers of Americans mistakenly believe those words are chiseled into the Constitution, ascribing to them a tremendous weight and power that plainly do not exist. In fact, those words are not found in the Constitution at all.

To the contrary, the First Amendment ensures “the free exercise” of religion.

Well, if the words “separation of church and state” appear nowhere in the Constitution, then where are they?

The phrase is found in an 1802 letter from Thomas Jefferson, written to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut.

Jefferson, the newly elected president, assured his Connecticut friends that they had no fear from the federal government, which would not intrude upon them and the practice of their faith—nor, as Jefferson put it, their “rights of conscience”—given that their relationship with God was between them and God. The purpose in this historic Jefferson-Baptist exchange was to protect not government from religion but religion (that is, religious people) from the intrusion of government.

And now, 200-plus years after Jefferson’s letter and the signing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we are left with too many liberals/progressives too often incorrectly telling us that at the crux of religion in America is a sacred “Constitutional” anchor called “separation of church and state,” which means that your individual faith should not disrupt or disorder society and the state. You must take your faith out of the public square and confine it to yourself, your home, your church.

That’s wrong. And that wrong is now breeding yet more wrongs.

For Catholic Exchange and Ave Maria Radio, I’m Paul Kengor.

The campaign offered no explanation for the drop in fundraising – actually, it didn’t mention the drop.

The cause of the decline is unclear. There doesn’t seem to have been any lessening of Obama’s personal fundraising efforts, which remained robust. And the drop off came as the Obama campaign continued to ramp up operations and as the Republican race clarified, with Mitt Romney becoming the presumptive nominee.

Romney, with his glass-of-milk persona, may not be a galvanizing force for conservatives, but Obama’s fundraising drop off also suggests he’s not scaring Democrats the way a more severely conservative candidate might have.

In a video, Obama campaign Manager Jim Messina bragged about the grass roots nature of the fundraising, saying that 98 percent of donors contributed less than $250 and that the average donation was below $50.

These small donor numbers are pumped up, of course, by the relentless calls for $3 donations by the campaign, including $3 raffle tickets for a meal with the president.

But the numbers also point to what some have described as a problem for the campaign – the unwillingness of big donors whose income and industries have been vilified by Obama to give him money this time around.

The first problem is: widespread economic illiteracy. Hollande campaigned on a platform of economic growth and expanded job creation, to be accomplished by raising taxes on the rich and increasing government spending. Well, good luck with that one. Even Lord Keynes himself advocated lowering taxes rather than raising them to stimulate economic activity. And the record of net job creation via government stimulus is one of dismal failure. Hollande’s program can’t work, and yet a majority of the French electorate voted for it. How sad.

The second problem is the utter cynicism of today’s politics. One wonders whether Hollande himself truly believes his own campaign rhetoric. One senses that he knows that his socialistic policies would drive France’s struggling economy into the ditch: According to the World Socialist Web Site (www.wsws.org)—who were cheerleaders for Hollande’s campaign promises of more tax & spending—Hollande’s team has told Reuters that he is going to change course and “carry out reactionary policies … and intensify social cuts.”

The third problem is that people sometimes believe in fairy tales. Who knows what Hollande believes or understands about economics, but let’s give him credit for being politically astute. He understood that the key to electoral success is to tell voters what they want to hear. In France’s case (as in the recent elections in Greece and northern Germany) most people are opposed to “austerity.” Hollande sized up the public mood and won the presidency on the theme of, “You don’t want austerity, and under me, you won’t have it.” That’s bunk. There is going to be “austerity” (in France and elsewhere) whether the people want it or not.

The fourth problem is that the public is in denial about reality. What is commonly called “austerity” is more accurately termed “sobriety.” For years, people in the democracies have been voting themselves economic freebies and subsidies—getting high on the drug of government wealth transfers. They became addicted to politicians who promised and voted more and more monetary fixes for their present and future desires. That means that politicians who indulge voters’ fantasies and play along with the delusion that the government is a bottomless cornucopia of goodies will have the electoral advantage over those who are courageous enough to tell people the truth about the hard choices that must be made.

What the voters didn’t reckon on—and what they are still in denial about—is that just as a feel-good drug addiction eventually brings one to the point where additional fixes could prove fatal, so the democratic Santa Claus state has neared the breaking point. Either the binge stops—that is, government spending and promises of future benefits are trimmed back—or the system breaks down. The ineluctable fact is that there simply isn’t enough real wealth in existence to make good on all these government promises. The penalty for not facing up to this painful economic truth will be either a market rejection of sovereign debt or a central bank “quantitative easing to infinity” that debases the currency, either of which will convulse markets horribly.

The biggest problem underscored by the French election is the degenerate state of modern democracy (with apologies to Aristotle and our Founding Fathers, who would consider “degenerate democracy” a redundancy). Democracy today is both childish and cannibalistic. It is childish in the sense that masses of people believe that if they want something, all they need to do is vote for it and they will get it—as if economic reality can be transformed by a mere act of will, and government can conjure desired benefits out of thin air. It is cannibalistic in that so many have fallen into a state of moral depravity and pathetic impotence in which they believe that the only way they can have the comfortable life is for government to take other people’s wealth and give it to them.

Many people believe that government is the answer to their problems. They are about to learn the painful lesson that government isn’t the answer. I doubt many of them will recognize that their pain will be self-inflicted. As H.L. Mencken once put it, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” The French, the Greeks, and a lot of other people living in democracies are about to get a jolt of economic reality and sobriety “good and hard.”

But after Joe told David Gregory of “Meet the Press” he was “absolutely comfortable” with homosexuals marrying, Barack Obama could not maintain his credibility with the cultural elite if he stuck with the biblical view that God ordained marriage as solely between a man and woman. The biblical view had to go. Obama had to move, or look like a malingerer in secularism’s next great moral advance into post-Christian America.

Consider. Obama had an appearance coming up on “The View,” where Whoopi Goldberg would have demanded to know why he lacked the courage of Biden’s convictions. He has a $40,000-a-plate fundraiser at George Clooney’s, where the Hollywood crowd would want to know why he does not end discrimination against homosexuals. He has appearances lined up before gay activists raising millions for his campaign. Monday, his press secretary was pilloried for his feeble defense of Obama’s now-abandoned position.

His hand was forced. Yet the stand Obama took could cost him his presidency. Same-sex marriage may yet be a bridge too far, even for a dying Christian America.

On the plus side for Obama, his decision is producing hosannas from the elites and an infusion of cash from those who see same-sex marriage as the great moral and civil rights issue of our time.

But Obama may also have just solved Mitt Romney’s big problem: How does Mitt get all those evangelical Christians and cultural conservatives not only to vote for him but to work for him? Obama, by declaring that homosexual marriages should be on the same legal and moral plane as traditional marriage, just took command of the forces of anti-Christian secularism in America’s Kulturkampf. And Nov. 6, 2012, is shaping up as the Antietam of the culture war.

Obama’s second problem is that he may soon be seen as America’s champion of same-sex marriage, but an ineffectual advocate. For Obama can do nothing, as of now, to impose homosexual marriage on the American people. Thirty-one states have voted to outlaw it. A constitutional amendment supporting same-sex marriage could not win a majority of either house of Congress, let alone the necessary two-thirds of both.

Hence, Obama is going to spend six months winning cheers by calling for same-sex marriage. But the price of those cheers will be the rallying of millions of opponents of homosexual marriage, who will fight this battle where they are winning it, at the state level. Only six states have approved homosexual marriage, while 30 have imposed a constitutional ban. In North Carolina, a ban not only on same-sex marriage but also civil unions, though opposed by Obama and Bill Clinton, carried on Tuesday with 61 percent of the vote.

Republican turnout in North Carolina’s primary was up half a million, the highest in history. And this is a state Obama carried in 2008, a state whose largest city, Charlotte, will host Obama’s convention.

Even in liberal California in 2008, while John McCain was getting a smaller share of the vote than Barry Goldwater in 1964, Proposition 8, restricting marriage to men and women, won.

How does Obama propose to win this battle?

He has one path to victory — the Supreme Court.

The New York Times, declaring that homosexuals’ right to marry is “too precious and too fragile to be left up to the whim of states and the tearing winds of modern partisan politics,” is looking to the court as the last, best hope to impose same-sex marriage on the nation.

Can’t trust voters, can’t trust elected legislators, can’t trust Congress. Homosexual marriage, says the Times, is too important to be left to democratic decision. The republic must be commanded to accept it by unelected judges who serve for life and against whom the people have no political recourse.

That process of judicial tyranny has begun. A California judge has overturned the decision of California’s voters to ban gay marriage, and his ruling is headed for the high court.

The Supreme Court thus will tell us whether this issue is to be decided democratically by voters and their elected state and federal legislators, or dictatorially by themselves.

Four liberal activists on the Supreme Court — Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor — are probably ready to declare that homosexual marriage is a constitutional right, as their predecessors declared abortion to be a constitutional right.

But Obama needs one more justice. If elected, he will get it, and same-sex marriage will be forced on all of America. If Romney wins, the Supreme Court will likely leave the issue of same-sex marriage to be decided by the people and their elected representatives.

Thus everything is up for grabs this November: the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court and whether we still call the United States of America God’s country.

Game on!

I want to say three things relating to West’s remarks: First, some criticism of West’s critics. Second, a defense of West’s critics. And, finally, some criticism of West, which I offer constructively. I like Allen West and want him to succeed.

First, on West’s critics:

Their concern about West’s exaggeration and name-calling has little credibility coming from an ideology (liberalism) and political party (Democrats) who constantly engage in exaggeration and name-calling. I could point out a litany of examples. It’s as easy as the latest liberal/Democrat gambit accusing Republicans of a “war on women” merely because they believe the federal government shouldn’t force taxpayers to fund contraception and Planned Parenthood. For that crime, West’s colleague Maxine Waters called Republicans “demons.” Nancy Pelosi said they want women to “die on the floor.” Dianne Feinstein insisted they want “to sock it to women.” Harry Reid claimed Republicans have placed a “bull’s eye on women.” Barbara Boxer described it as a “vendetta” against women. Congresswoman Barbara Lee summed it up as a GOP “war on women.”

I could go on and on. Google the words “George W. Bush” and “Hitler” or “Nazi.” Or recall the obscene statements from Democratic lawmakers regarding the Iraq war. Remember that Senator Dick Durbin compared our troops to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others.”

But only when a Rush Limbaugh blows his top—or someone like Allen West issues charges like this one—does the New York Times start issuing calls for civility.

Point made. Now, for my second and third points:

Allen West needs to be much more careful. He sloppily overlapped categories and blurred lines of distinction. The reality is that the left side of the political spectrum is very broad. It includes Democrats, liberals, progressives, “social-justice” Christians, socialists, communists, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, and more. There are distinct differences, even when a liberal Democrat favors something that Marx favored. For instance, point two in Marx’s 10-point plan inThe Communist Manifesto calls for “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax.” Advocates of this include basically the entirety of the Democratic membership of the House of Representatives—but it doesn’t make them Marxists. Consider point three in Marx’s 10-point plan, which calls for “abolition of all rights of inheritance.” Many “liberals” and “progressives” advocate that to some degree (via taxation), but I know of no Congressional Democrat calling for complete abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Likewise, Marx wrote this: “the theory of the communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Yes, liberals place all kinds of restrictions on private property, but I know of no Congressional Democrat who would go as far as Lenin and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and Castro.

Here’s the reality that often complicates things for conservatives when looking at the political left: Liberals agree with communists on many key sympathies—workers’ rights, spreading and redistributing wealth, a narrow to non-existent income gap, an expansive central government offering a wide array of “free” government services, favoring the public sector over the private sector, class-based rhetoric (often demagoguery) toward the wealthy, progressively high tax rates. The differences are matters of degree, but they are crucial differences.

Sure, Allen West didn’t say that every liberal in Congress is a communist. Yet, he did say that there is a huge portion. Even worse, he initially said that “78 to 81” were actual Communist Partymembers, or about 40 percent of the Democratic membership. Clearly that’s not accurate. If it is, then West should be chiseled into Mt. Rushmore for exposing the greatest threat to Washington since the War of 1812—and we should commence a national march to the Capitol right now, with torches.

I assume that West misspoke, and meant communists (lower case “c”) in ideology, not actual card-carrying Communist Party members.

Allen West has forgotten the painful lesson of Joe McCarthy: If you’re going to call certain people communists, you better be absolutely, 100 percent certain. There’s nothing that liberals detest more than anti-communism. Their preferred villain is Joe McCarthy, not Joe Stalin. They and their mass media will go ballistic, demanding a level of precision from you that they never demand from their own name-callers. Our side must be more cautious; that’s the deck stacked against us.

Allen West, your courage and boldness is refreshing, but please be more careful.

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author of the book, “The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.” His other books include “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” and “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.”

Activist Chen Guangcheng

A “no vacancy” sign has been posted on the gates of the US Embassy and its consulates in China. Two high profile Chinese individuals seeking political asylum – one a blind

dissident, the other a government official fearing for his life — have been turned away in recent months. Washington has shamefully placed its economic jitters above the principles upon which the land of the free and home of the brave was founded.

Sure, a deal has been brokered to allow blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng to leave China to study in the US, if he chooses. But before that deal was cut, US Embassy officials drove Chen, who had been at the Embassy for six days, to a local hospital and left him there alone to obtain treatment for a leg that had been injured during his daring escape from house arrest and a 500 km journey to find sanctuary in Beijing. Chen later contacted friends who posted to social media sites that he feared for his life in the absence of the US officials.

Police Chief Wang Lijun sought political asylum

The other would-be asylum seeker turned away by the US government in recent months was Wang Lijun, the Chongqing chief of police. In February, fearing for his life, Wang had driven some 300 kilometres from Chongqing to the US consulate in Chengdu to ask for political asylum. Wang supposedly had information to trade about his boss, the now deposed Chongqing Communist Party Secretary-General Bo Xi Lai.

He had been investigating Bo’s wife Gu Kailai, a high-profile international lawyer, for possible involvement in the murder of one of her business partners, a British national, Neil Heywood. After spending a night in the US consulate, Wang left the next morning and surrendered to the police who had surrounded the consulate. He hasn’t been heard of since but is said to be enjoying “resort-style treatment” in Beijing.

While the US claims it did not force or try to persuade the two men to leave, it is unlikely that either would have left of his own volition. It seems more likely that they entered the darkness of the Chinese legal system because their families had been threatened.

Three factors probably influenced the US attitude towards the two fugitives.

The first was diplomacy. Just before Chen’s unannounced arrival,  Mrs Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner arrived for the Sino-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue. A messy diplomatic quarrel would have spoiled important negotiations on geopolitical and trade issues. Persuading Chen and Wang not to defect would have been a high priority for the Obama Administration. Washington may have achieved several wins in those talks (eg, promises to further open its automotive insurance sector to foreign investment and to allow greater foreign investment into its stocks and bonds) because US diplomats had shoved the two incidents off the agenda.

The second factor is money. Growing commercial links make it increasingly difficult for Washington to give Beijing lectures on human rights. China is now the US’s largest trading partner. Additionally China is one of the largest holders of US treasury bonds –US$1.1 trillion. Neither of the troublemakers affected US strategic interests. Wang was a relatively lowly official and Chen was a mere human rights campaigner. America had nothing to gain and much to lose by protecting them.

The third factor is cynical pragmatism.  America wants to deter other people from scaling the gates of its missions in China. Until now, many Chinese regarded the US as the only nation which would stand up to their authoritarian government. By turning Wang and Chen out into the cold, Washington has sent a powerful signal that there is no room in the inn. Defectors and dissidents have been scratched from the invitation list which was once extended to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

Times have changed. Back in the days of the Cold War, defectors and dissidents from the Soviet Union were welcomed. But in the 1980s the fight was ideological and the Soviet Union was an expansionist power. China, despite its socialist rhetoric, is not an ideologically driven expansionist power. It does not seek to impose its political and economic structure on the rest of the world the way the USSR did. Nowadays State Department apparatchiks are reluctant to risk trade and security ties over a few unknown dissidents.

While it is likely that Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney, will exploit this incident in his campaign, don’t expect him to behave differently. Ronald Reagan negotiated the release of the famous refusenik Anatoly Scharansky from the Soviet gulag. But those days are over. As President, Romney would be lobbied by the foreign policy establishment against “rash actions” which would jeopardise American trade.

But they forget that cynicism jeopardises something more important, America’s honour. People like Chen Guangcheng speak truth to power. Their ideals of democracy, freedom and human rights resonate with the American people. By ignoring dissidents in China – and in other nations suffering under oppressive regimes – isn’t America in danger of repudiating the ideals of its founding fathers? Secretary Clinton and President Obama talk the talk of human rights but they don’t walk the walk.

The US is looking like a nation with double standards. Allies in Asia must be wondering whether it will support them if they are threatened by China.  Although the US held joint naval exercises with the Philippines last month to demonstrate its solidarity against China’s claims to islands in the South China Sea, the treaty between the US and the Philippines is so vaguely worded that there is no guarantee that American warships will come to Manila’s aid in a real conflict. A fair weather friend is not what the region needs as China continues to increase its military budget year-after-year to further enhance the world’s largest standing military force.

America’s treatment of Chen shows that it is no longer Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill”, a beacon to freedom. It is time for America to stand up for its principles again. To do this at a time when so much is at stake commercially will take true courage. America needs a president made of sterner stuff than Barack Obama.

Constance Kong is the pen name of a Shanghai-based business consultant.

The Russian Empire subverted the assumption that political and military power requires a strong economy: It was never prosperous, but it was frequently powerful. The Russians defeated Napoleon and Hitler and confronted the far wealthier Americans for more than four decades in the Cold War, in spite of having a less developed or less advanced economy. Its economic weakness certainly did undermine its military power at times, but to understand Russia, it is important to begin by understanding that the relationship between military and economic power is not a simple one.

Economy and Security

There are many reasons for Russia’s economic dysfunction, but the first explanation, if not the full explanation, is geography and transportation. The Russians and Ukrainians have some of the finest farmland in the world, comparable to that of the American Midwest. The difference is transportation, the ability to move the harvest to the rest of the empire and its far away population centers. Where the United States has the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio river system that integrates the area between the Rockies and the Appalachians, Russia’s rivers do not provide an integrated highway to Russia, and given distances and lack of alternative modes of transport, Russian railways were never able to sustain consistent, bulk agricultural transport.

This is not to say that there wasn’t integration in the empire’s economy and that this didn’t serve as a factor binding it together. It is to say that the lack of economic integration, and weakness in agricultural transport in particular, dramatically limited prosperity in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. At the same time, the relative underdevelopment of the empire and union made it impossible for them to successfully compete with Western Europe. Therefore, there was an economic motivation within the constituent parts of the empire and the union to integrate with each other. There could be synergies on a lower level of development among these nations.

Economics was one factor that bound the Russian Empire and Soviet Union together. Another was the military and security apparatus. The Russian security apparatus in particular played a significant role in holding first the empire and then the union together; in many ways, it was the most modern and efficient institution they had. Whatever temptations the constituent republics might have had to leave the empire or union, these were systematically repressed by internal security forces detecting and destroying opposition to the center. It could be put this way: The army created the empire. Its alignment of economic interests was the weak force holding it together, and the security apparatus was the strong force. If the empire and union were to survive, they would need economic relations ordered in such a way that some regions were put at a disadvantage, others at an advantage. That could happen only if the state were powerful enough to impose this reality. Since the state itself was limited in most dimensions, the security apparatus substituted for it. When the security apparatus failed, as it did at the end of World War I or in 1989-1991, the regime could not survive. When it did succeed, it held it all together.

In the Russian Empire, the economic force and the security force were supplemented by an overarching ideology: that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which provided a rationale for the system. The state security apparatus worked with the church and against dissident elements in other religions in the empire. In the Soviet Union, the religious ideology was supplemented with the secular ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The Soviet Union used its security apparatus to attempt a transformation of the economy and to crush opposition to the high cost of this transformation. In some sense, Marxism-Leninism was a more efficient ideology, since Russian Orthodoxy created religious differentials while Marxism-Leninism was hostile to all religions and at least theoretically indifferent to the many ethnicities and nations.

The fall of the Soviet Union really began with a crisis in the economy that created a crisis in the security force, the KGB. It was Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, who first began to understand the degree to which the Soviet Union’s economy was failing under the growing corruption of the Brezhnev years and the cost of defense spending. The KGB understood two things. The first was that Russia had to restructure (Perestroika) or collapse. The second was that the traditional insularity of the Soviet Union had to be shifted and the Soviets had to open themselves to Western technology and methods (Glasnost). Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a reformer, but he was a communist trying to reform the system to save the party. He was proceeding from the KGB model. His and Andropov’s gamble was that the Soviet Union could survive and open to the West without collapsing and that it could trade geopolitical interests, such as domination of Eastern Europe, for economic relations without shattering the Soviet Union. They lost the bet.

The Soviet Collapse

The 1990s was a catastrophic period for the former Soviet Union. Except for a few regions, the collapse of the Soviet state and the security apparatus led to chaos, and privatization turned into theft. Not surprisingly, the most sophisticated and well-organized portion of the Soviet apparatus, the KGB, played a major role in the kleptocracy and retained, more than other institutions, its institutional identity. Over time, its control over the economy revived informally, until one of its representatives, Vladimir Putin, emerged as the leader of the state.

Putin developed three principles. The first was that the security system was the heart of the state. The second was that Moscow was the heart of Russia. The third was that Russia was the heart of the former Soviet Union. These principles were not suddenly imposed. The power of the KGB, renamed the FSB and SVR, slowly moved from a system of informal domination through kleptocracy to a more systematic domination of the state apparatus by the security services, reinstituting the old model. Putin took control of regional governments by appointing governors and controlling industry outside of Moscow. Most important, he cautiously moved Russia back to first among equals in the former Soviet Union.

Putin came to power on the heels of the Kosovo war. Russia had insisted that the West not go to war with Serbia, what was left of the former Yugoslavia. Russia was ignored, and its lack of influence left President Boris Yeltsin humiliated. But it was the Orange Revolution in Ukraine that convinced Putin that the United States intended to break Russia if someone like Yeltsin led it. Ukraine is economically and geographically essential to Russian national security, and Putin saw the attempt to create a pro-Western government that wanted to join NATO as Washington, using CIA-funded nongovernmental organizations pushing for regime change, attempted to permanently weaken Russia. Once the Orange Revolution succeeded, Putin moved to rectify the situation.

The first step was to make it clear that Russia had regained a substantial part of its power and was willing to use it. The second step was to demonstrate that American guarantees were worthless. The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 achieved both ends. The Russians had carried out an offensive operation and the Americans, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, could not respond. The lesson was not only for Georgia (which, similar to Ukraine, had also sought NATO membership). It was also for Ukraine and all other countries in the former Soviet Union, demonstrating that Russia was again going to be the heart of Eurasia. Indeed, one of Putin’s latest projects is the Eurasian Union, tying together Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, a large economic and military part of the former Soviet Union. Add to this Ukraine and the former Soviet Union emerges even more.

Remaking the Union

For Russia, the recreation of a union is a strategic necessity. As Putin put it, the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe. Russia needs the economic integration, particularly given the new economic strategy of post-Soviet Russia, which is the export of raw materials, particularly energy. Aligning with states such as Kazakhstan in energy and Ukraine in grain provides Moscow with leverage in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe. As important, it provides strategic depth. The rest of the world knows that an invasion of Russia is inconceivable. The Russians can conceive of it. They remember that Germany in 1932 was crippled. By 1938 it was overwhelmingly powerful. Six years is not very long, and while such an evolution is unlikely now, from the Russian point of view, it must be taken seriously in the long run — planning for the worst and hoping for the best.

Therefore, the heart of Russian strategy, after resurrecting state power in Russia, is to create a system of relationships within the former Soviet Union that will provide economic alignment and strategic depth but not give Russia an unsustainable obligation to underwrite the other nations’ domestic policies. Unlike the Russian Empire or Soviet Union, Putin’s strategy is to take advantage of relationships on a roughly mutual basis without undertaking responsibility for the other nations.

In achieving this goal, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a godsend. Until 9/11, the United States had been deeply involved in peeling off parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltics and integrating them into Western systems. With 9/11, the United States became obsessed with the jihadist wars, giving Russia a window of opportunity to stabilize itself and to increase its regional power.

As the United States extracts itself from Afghanistan, Russia has to be concerned that Washington will supplement its focus on China with a renewed focus on Russia. The possible end of these conflicts is not in Russia’s interest. Therefore, one piece of Russian external strategy is to increase the likelihood of prolonged U.S. obsession with Iran. Currently, for example, Russia and Iran are the only major countries supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Russia wants to see a pro-Iranian Syria — not because it is in Moscow’s long-term interests but because, in the short run, anything that absorbs the United States will relieve possible pressure on Russia and give more time for reordering the former Soviet Union.

The crisis in Europe is similarly beneficial to Russia. The unease that Germany has with the European Union has not yet matured into a break, and it may never. However, Germany’s unease means that it is looking for other partners, in part to ease the strain on Germany and in part to create options. Germany depends on Russian energy exports, and while that might decrease in coming years, Russia is dealing with the immediate future. Germany is looking for other potential economic partners and, most important at a time when Europe is undergoing extreme strain, Germany does not want to get caught in an American attempt to redraw Russian borders. The ballistic missile defense system is not significant, in the sense that it does not threaten Russia, but the U.S. presence in the region is worrisome to Moscow. For Russia, recruiting Germany to the view that the United States is a destabilizing force would be a tremendous achievement.

Other issues are side issues. China and Russia have issues, but China cannot pose a significant threat to core Russian interests unless it chooses to invade maritime Russia, which it won’t. There are economic and political issues, of course, but China is not at the heart of Russia’s strategic concerns.

For Russia, the overwhelming strategic concern is dominating the former Soviet Union without becoming its patron. Ukraine is the key missing element, and a long, complex political and economic game is under way. The second game is in Central Asia, where Russia is systematically asserting its strength. The third is in the Baltics, where it has not yet made a move. And there is the endless conflict in the northern Caucasus that always opens the door for reasserting Russian power in the south. Russia’s foreign policy is built around the need to buy time for it to complete its evolution.

To do this, the Russians must keep the United States distracted, and the Russian strategy in the Middle East serves that purpose. The second part is to secure the West by drawing Germany into a mutually beneficial economic relationship while not generating major resistance in Poland or an American presence there. Whether this can be achieved depends as much on Iran as it does on Russia.

Russia has come far from where Yeltsin took it. The security forces are again the heart of the state. Moscow dominates Russia. Russia is moving to dominate the former Soviet Union. Its main adversary, the United States, is distracted, and Europe is weak and divided. Of course, Russia is economically dysfunctional, but that has been the case for centuries and does not mean it will always be weak. For the moment, Russia is content to be strong in what it calls the near abroad, or the former Soviet Union. Having come this far, it is not trying to solve insoluble problems.

Unless profound changes are made in the next decade, the president warned, the world will demand more oil than it can produce. He called for “strict conservation” and switching to “permanent renewable energy sources like solar power.” Because such sources promise future energy independence—or at least according to the president—his administration would spend billions of taxpayer dollars on wind, solar, and biodiesel, plus offer massive “clean energy” subsidies.

No, the president is not Barack Obama, and the speech was not delivered in 2012. It was President Jimmy Carter, speaking on April 18, 1977.

Since that time, American oil and natural gas production has skyrocketed. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that natural gas consumption has doubled since 1980, production is at an all-time high, imports are at a 20-year low and heating expenses are the lowest in a decade>. Meanwhile, the latest recession barely affected North Dakota, a state rich in oil and natural gas.

President Carter’s speech sounds familiar because it is based on the same flawed assumptions that underlie many current politicians’ belief that wise and enlightened central planners in Washington can manage the countless and infinitely complex transactions and calculations that comprise a $14-trillion-dollar national economy.

These politicians hold on to these flawed beliefs despite being regularly embarrassed by them. For example, a recent Capitol Confidential article and video showed President Obama and two senators from Michigan praising a heavily subsidized “green energy” battery manufacturer that is now under severe financial stress and has had its federal money pulled. Another Capitol Confidential piece reported a litany of similar embarrassments on a YouTube channel created by the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

Economist F.A. Harper once wrote, “If the planner could plan discovery for others, he probably would have made that discovery himself in the first place. If he is more able in this respect than the others, he is wasting his time not to do it himself; if he is less able, he can hardly plan it for others who are more able than he is.”

It’s much easier for politicians to make plans with other peoples’ money. It would show real leadership for government to actually do less.

Jarrett Skorup is a 2009 graduate of Grove City College and former student fellow at The Center for Vision & Values. He is the research associate for online engagement for Michigan Capitol Confidential at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the Centers are properly cited. Mr. Skorup can be reached at Skorup@mackinac.org.

Cover Photo Credit: Inhabitat.com

The agreement will lay out terms for the U.S.-Afghan relationship after the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of combat forces. Obama is currently in Kabul and will speak to the nation at 7:30 pm ET from Bagram Air Force Base.

The following is from pool reports by Josh Gerstein of Politico, who is traveling with the president:

Andrews to Bagram Air Base to Kabul

President Barack Obama is in Afghanistan for a whirlwind visit that will culminate in a live, televised address to the American people.

Obama is expected to sign a strategic partnership agreement shortly with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama’s scheduled to speak to the nation just after 730 PM ET wednesday from Bagram airbase.

Pool, which assembled Monday night at Andrews, has been under an embargo preventing reporting of the trip up til now.

Obama left at 1209 AM Tuesday morning. And arrived at Bagram at 1020 pm local time. He landed via chopper at LZ near presidential palace at just after 11pm local

Amb Ryan crocker and Lieut Gen Mike Scaparotti deputy cddr us forces afghanistan greeted Obama as he deplaned from the lower stairs of AF1 at Bagram.

Obama is currently at the presidential palace in Kabul . . .

Senior Administration officials said the unconventional timing of events on the trip, such as the scheduled midnight local time signing ceremony, was aimed at allowing Obama to address Americans on a schedule convenient for US television audiences. That speech, expected to run about 10 minutes, is scheduled to take place just after 730 pm ET tuesday, which is 4 AM here in Afghanistan.

The trip opens the White House up to new criticism that Obama is exploiting the killing of Osama Bin Laden by using it as a major piece of his reelection campaign.

Vice President Biden has been clear that the White House intends to use the killing for its political benefit, saying last Thursday that “Osama bin Laden is Dead” should be part of a campaign bumper sticker.

The Obama 2012 campaign has released a video celebrating Obama’s decision to take out Bin Laden and suggesting Mitt Romney would not have made the same move.