Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • My Rifles
  • Concentrate on Dividend Record and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Your Health
  • Old Confederacy
  • Main Street Conservative
  • BLM’s Marxist Agenda
  • Ron Paul
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Freedom Force
  • Dick Young’s Safe America

Jon Basil Utley Guides Thinking on America’s Proper Defense Planning

January 9, 2018 By Richard C. Young

By Ivan Cholakov @ Shutterstock.com

My friend Jon Basil Utley, who I have known since we met years ago at functions hosted by the Cato Institute, took time recently on The American Conservative website to address some disturbing events in the world of foreign policy. Jon discusses a conference on terrorism held by the Jamestown Foundation. At the conference, Gen. H.R. McMaster outlined a foreign policy vision of Iran and the Arab world that look strikingly similar to the failed policies of the past. Jon writes (abridged):

A disturbing exchange occurred during the Jamestown Foundation’s 11th annual conference on terrorism at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last month. Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies, was asked if he thought Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s newly announced domestic reforms would include an effort to rein in the Wahhabi clerics who have been fanning the flames of Islamist radicalism for years.

Hoffman, an expert on the subject, replied that it really didn’t matter much anymore because Wahhabi teachings had taken on a life of their own throughout vast stretches of the globe, and Saudi action or inaction probably wouldn’t affect the course of that movement.

This could strike many as all the more disturbing given that the European Parliament in Strasbourg identified Wahhabism in 2013 as the “main source of global terrorism.” Based on Hoffman’s observation, it isn’t likely to be subdued any time soon.

Gen. H.R. McMasters, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, told the conference that the president’s anti-terrorism efforts consisted mainly of denying safe havens to terrorist organizations, cutting off funding and rooting out, or responding directly to, terrorist ideology. He said—without elaboration—that Iran continues to foment sectarian violence and directly strengthens jihadist networks “across the Arab world.”

The conference opened a window on recent developments in thinking about the threat of terrorism emanating from the Middle East. Much of it ran counter to views expounded by TAC writers and editors, who have attempted to get attention focused on America’s role in agitating Mideast Islam through military actions there and regime change activities. The conference didn’t touch on the possibility of addressing terrorism through the kinds of containment approaches advocated by TAC’s military strategist, William S. Lind. Nor did the discussion linger over Patrick Buchanan’s oft-expressed observation that “they’re over here because we’re over there.”

For this observer, one point of interest was how little of America’s vast defense budget goes to supporting the so-called war on terrorism. Most of it now seems more designed for war with China and/or Russia, while Congress seems to use the terrorism threat as a way to pad and expand Washington’s military budgets. But it could be argued that Washington itself created much of the terrorist threat. For example, the Boko Haram threat increased greatly by the weapons it got after the U.S. contributed to the overthrow of Libya’s Qaddafi regime. America’s destruction of Iraq brought about ISIS (and Iran’s growing regional influence). In Syria, ISIS got many of its weapons from CIA deliveries of advanced weaponry to supposedly “moderate” forces, particularly anti-tank weapons to neutralize the Syrian Army’s forces and so prolong the civil war. Unending war is Washington’s rationale for unending multi-hundreds of billions of dollars.

Jon Basil Utley is the publisher of The American Conservative. Here’s some more about his life from the magazine’s website:

Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with language studies in Germany and France. He first worked for American International Group insurance in Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia. He was founding editor/publisher of The Bogota Bulletin. Later he worked in finance and insurance in Peru. Then he became a foreign correspondent in South America for Knight Ridder newspapers. For 17 years, starting during the Reagan Administration, he was a contract commentator about communism and third world issues on the Voice of America. After the collapse of communism he worked with the Atlas Network on supporting the creation of free market think tanks in Russia and Eastern Europe. He managed an oil drilling partnership in Pennsylvania and later worked in real estate development. He has written for the Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, Journal of Commerce, Miami Herald and other papers. He was associate editor of The Times of the Americas, and a contributing editor to Conservative Digest. Utley was born in Moscow. His father, Arkadi Berdichevsky, a Russian trade official, was arrested in 1936 and later executed during the Soviet purges. His English mother, Freda Utley, escaped Russia with him. They immigrated to America in 1939, where she became a prominent anticommunist author and activist.

For more detail on Jon, read this interview by Barbara Hollingsworth of cnsnews.com.

Related Posts

  • Jon Basil Utley on Unnecessary Middle East Interventions
  • Will Even More Defense Spending Make America Safer?
  • VIDEO: Let America Be America Again
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.
Latest posts by Richard C. Young (see all)
  • SARS-CoV-2: Probability of Outdoor Airborne Transmission Very Low - January 22, 2021
  • Biden’s Inaugural, the Most Confusing, Contradictory, Incoherent Ever? - January 22, 2021
  • Ten Republican Senators to Get Behind - January 21, 2021

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • How S.D. Surged in Vaccination Inoculations
  • To Me There Isn’t a Better Way to Live
  • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • U.S. Survival AR-7
  • Yes! Money Can Bring You Happiness
  • 751 “No-Go” Zones in France
  • The Worst President in American History, Part I
  • Why Some Kids Won’t Go Back to School, Ever
  • Protection While Traveling in France
  • The Fed – “Independent” and “Non Political” – Joins The Resistance

Our Most Popular Posts

  • The Recklessness of Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • The Stock Market Is About Money Flows Not Politics.
  • Dick Young’s Safe America: Chapter 1, Part I
  • Smith Family Robinson in Live Free or Die, NH
  • Who Are Those Urging Violence?
  • Warmongering Firestarters Victoria Nuland and Samantha Powers Back
  • Cancel Culture, the Great Purge, Double Standards
  • How Are You Doing on a Local Level?
  • How S.D. Surged in Vaccination Inoculations
  • Ten Republican Senators to Get Behind

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Your Retirement Life: Meet Your BMW Club Racing Program Director
  • Corporations Rush to Reap Equity Windfall
  • Do You Know Who’s the Largest Owner of Farmland in America?
  • Investors Are Being Conditioned Not To Recognise the Danger
  • I’ve Been in Richard Young’s Maximizers for Years
  • What Is the Stock Market’s Link to the Economy?
  • Smith Family Robinson in Live Free or Die, NH
  • Dick Young’s Safe America: Chapter 1, Part I
  • Whether Through Audacity or Ignorance, Stock Fundamentals Are Being Ignored
  • Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Absentee Ballots Not Verified

SARS-CoV-2: Probability of Outdoor Airborne Transmission Very Low

Your Personal Safety: Concealed-Carry How to Carry Your Freedom

Mostly Peaceful, Ungovernable Protestors

Biden’s Inaugural, the Most Confusing, Contradictory, Incoherent Ever?

Is the GOP Over? Not Even Close: Here’s Why

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives