we need big ideas and we need them fast...

Ultimately this is a really boring time to live in. I mean that. For the vast majority of the citizens of what remains of the West, while life may not be easy, it certainly is no longer a struggle. Instead of worrying about what we're going to have for dinner, we worry about what we shouldn't have dinner. Interesting turnabout there. Wasn't too long ago that most people worried about what would be dinner, not whether what they were eating was a nutritionally sound meal. What's next, the unbearable thought of life without Dr. Scholls? People standing in sovietesque lines to make sure they get the new Mach 5 from Gillette?
But of course, nothing much changes about nothing. And ultimately we're content with that, because so far what has only sort of kind of worked has sort of kind of worked and after all, that's better than most of human history when even the things that sort of kind of worked weren't really working at all, and if they were working, it was because you had fixed them, defended it from wandering barbarians or tribes or nature...because order had been brought from chaos.
Trouble with bringing order to chaos is that no matter how hard you try, the laws of thermodynamics will stop you. Every change affects another, and before you know it, you've upended the entire social order and now you can't even read the street signs in your hometown because they've been printed in Terroc, the new language of the continental empire which once was the western hemisphere. Stranger things have happened.
I must admit that I have personally always longed for an American empire. I remember being sorely disappointed that we didn't engage the Soviets after World War II, that MacArthur was pulled from combat by Truman, that Kennedy didn't just nuke the bastards into oblivion, and that Reagan didn't give ole Gorbie one right where it counted. So many missed opportunites. That we didn't simply make Mexico part of the United States during the Mexican-American war, that we never managed to peel off most of Canada, that the nation's the Caribbean aren't states, the central American states, the Phillipines, Japan, Germany, the list goes on and on. Of course, I can hear now the quotes that will be selected from this blog twenty years from now proving that I am militant fascist hellbent on world dominiation.
Quite the contrary, I'm merely hellbent on getting as many people to agree that the rule of law, the market economy and representative, limited, constitutional government is the only way to go. And if that means absorbing nations into the United States than so much the better--why, we have the only built-in mechanism for doing so of any nation; within the Constitution itself are instructions on how to add new states to the Union.
Instead, we limited ourselves to this little expanse of the Western hemisphere, one nation under Canada and above Mexico with that piece of Alaska and Hawaii and some other random places throughout the Pacific and Atlantic that are ours...but noooooooo....instead, we've got all this bullshit going on and no big ideas.
A few years ago I came up with the idea of Anti-Terrorist Treaty Organizations; ATTO's. I now think that's a mistake. While the threat of Islamofascists is immense, they are quickly being relegated to the ash heap of history, or at least, everyone who wants to fight us in open combat is. Meanwhile, the shadowy elements of the post-Jihad are beginning to come to light. And the light is not looking very pretty.

-A weakened and strategically impotent western continental europe and a resurgent, patriotic eastern europe find themselves at each other's throats concerning the fate of the EU and it's constitution--only Britains emerges unscathed and still a global power.
-Virtually every Sunni Muslim shamed into obseqious deferrence to the demographic reality concerning their religion: there are simply a lot more Shiites than Sunnies. That almost sounds like the ending to a real good insensitive ethnic joke. And of course, the bereaved will undoubtedly form a secret organization that future conspiracy theorists will ascribe all sorts of fantastic events to, such as the infamous Maltor-Maltor sighting in 2403 over the Rhein river valley. It's actually quite unimportant, since nobody knows yet what a Maltor-Maltor and those pesky little Germans certainly do still know how to yield firearms, but that's another story for another time
-did you know that China and Russia were performing joint military operations on the peninsula directly across from North Korea and the Chinese have constructed effective security perimeters around three of the four main routes into China from NK and that the Chinese also ejected all the civilians from the area....nope, neither did i, here's the link.
SUBSCRIPT: to the last point, dummy. oh, ah yes. North Korea is the perfect opportunity for what will indefinitely constitute the genuine "Axis", namely Russia, China, France and a host of their minions to enshrine "preemption" as a legitimate tool. After all, if Dubya actually gets serious and realizes that there's only way to go about this in the Middle East and he preempts in, say Syria, then FrancoSinoRusso Axis will really be put to shame. The Chinese want to prove that they are ready for world leadership; think of the deferential press coverage the Chinese would get concerning their humane treatment of North Korea's impoverished people, how there was no local "resistance" as their was in Iraq. It would be the ultimate apparent PR coup--it would only really look that way to the people of the MSM and their minions. And it would remove a thorn in the Chinese and Russians side, eliminate a dangerous maniac and simultaneously make them that much more capable of taking on another unstable regime and or carrying out extensive repression at home. Imagine then the magnamity of the FranceSinoRusso Axis when they are able to reunite North and South Korea and expel American forces from the oh so strategically important peninsula....
--Taiwan anyone? North Korea seems to be the perfect opportunity for China to practice staging a massive amount of troops and moving them in to possible combat. China hasn't tried anything of significant external military activity since the 1970's when they fought Vietnam and damn near fought the Soviet Union. If this actually transpires, then be very very aware that sooner than sooner, the PRC will invade the ROC. Say hello to the first major engagment of the post-Jihadi conflict.
--At that point the Jihadis become an unstable element. Loyal to neither side, interested only in seeing the two combatants injured beyond repair, they pursue a policy of all out attrition. Suicide bombings whenever and wherever possible under any circumstances, larger attacks when possible, but the desperate Sunnis will do whatever it takes to preserve their traditions and of course, their modern, politically shaded interpretations of Islam and the Koran, which of course allows them to indulge in all the excesses of the West without suffering the punishments incurred by regular Muslims...sounds like the Plenary Indulgence of Indulgences. Oh how I wish someone in the Muslim world would think of Martin Luther as his spirit guide. But, not too many Muslims probably know who Martin Luther was or that I would think he might be their spirit guide. Oh well, I could use a good ole fashioned primitive spirit guide. At least it would be physically embodied and maybe it'd be something ferocious and evocative, like a venemous coral snake or maybe just a wild boar; always been partial to bears myself. No matter!
-SIDE NOTE: when open conflict between the Anglosphere and FrancoSinoRusso Sphere begins, you better be damn sure that the Jihadis see the FSR as the one who have the potential to do real damage. Let them know that we won't divert resources to hunting them down unless they shift their attention to our enemies. We must be prepared for this possibility, not to negotiate, but to take advantage of the situation. We must turn our enemies against each other. We must study Bismarck. We must learn to use our advantages and turn our weaknesses into advantages. We must awaken from the myopia.
But who wants to pay attenion when, gosh, things are just fine the way they are?