WHO IS ELDRIDGE COLBY?

Eldridge Colby is an American elite born with a silver spoon in his mouth, eduated at Groton College an exclusive preparatory school prior to Yale Law School (surprise, surprise). He then worked in various American security institutions, the department of defence (war), the state department and then as part of the administration of Iraq where he learned how to be really nasty to Arabs and other similar non-white people.

His father was a banker his grandfather was William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – May 6, 1996) an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from September 1973 to January 1976. A grand line of upper class bastards.

Colby wrote the book "The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict" Yale University Press 2021. The denial part isn't self denial it is the denial of resources, trade routes, technology and other treasures to China. I doubt that Colby has ever been denied anything in his life.

He is obsessed with China most likely because he cannot stomach the idea that non-European communists could achieve as much if not more than the white, Christian fascists like him who run the USA.

One of the early paragraphs in his book includes:

"The international arena in which the United States pursues these objectives remains anarchic, in the sense that there is no global sovereign to make and enforce judgments in a dispute. In this context, security, freedom, and prosperity cannot be taken for granted; they are not self-generating. This is for two reasons. First, in an ungoverned situation, actors may rationally seek advantage and profit by using force to take from or undermine others. Second, inherently vulnerable actors may find it prudent to take preventive action against potential threats: the best defense may be a good offense. These factors mean that the prospect of force shadows Americans’ pursuit of these goals."

To take the following points:

The arena is anarchic:

He is of course correct. Without a supreme ruler of the world it is by definition an anarchy. But anarchist are not inherently violent. Anarchy may be enjoyed without violence. Violence is not intrinsic to anarchy. However, throughout its history the US has promoted violence as the currency of anarchy. Violence is not intrinsic to anarchy it is intrinsic to American elite's culture.

This is well demonstrated in the case of the US by:

• Its unilateral bullying of weaker countries through direct violence or coercive action of proxies,

• Its failure to adhere to the UN charter which prohibits violence of one state against another.

• Its use of its economic power to subjugate other states purely in its own interests and with the cruel, gratuitous suffering of the other. (Cuba, Iraq, Central America, Iran...)

• Its disregard for international norms designed to reduce conflict and violence. The ICC, ICJ WTO, UN, Security Council.

• Its failure to adhere to the UN charter of non violent action to resolve disputes.

I agree with a lot of what that other realist John Mearsheimer says about states and power, but anarchy is not by definition a violent system. It is the participants who resort to violence as their first option in resolving disputes rather than the last that create the violence that people automatically assign to anarchy. This continual and chronic reliance on violence is the modus operandi of the USA and it's egregious prodigy Israel.

The implication is states require a supreme arbiter to resolve the issues between them, i.e. the more powerful state

People use diplomacy, cooperation, acquiescence, withdrawl from the relationship and all sorts of other mechanisms to resolve disputes far more often than they resort to violence and coercive power that damges the other. Where great difficulties arise they may agree to an independent and wise mediator or an arbiter to get them through the conflict. Yet Colby like all "realists" sees violence and coercive action as the first and only key to resolution; you have to be powerful so you are the supreme arbiter. There are very few conflicts that cannot be resolved non violently. The US set up mechanisms to resolve conflicts non violently, the WTO being but one example. The US however exempts itself from the deliberations of these organisations with the impunity granted to bullies in an anarchic world.

Second, inherently vulnerable actors may find it prudent to take preventive action against potential threats: the best defence may be a good offense.

Again Colby focuses on violence (offense). What he means by a vulnerable actor is not spelled out. Vulnerable to what. If the vulnerability is lack of a powerful military, offence by such an actor would be an unwise approach. So what is he really saying? It makes no sense.

it is interesting to look at communities of non-human primates and how individuals behave within them. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford Unviversity studied Baboons in Africa. He studied one troop for decades and recorded their interactions. The troop he studied was for some time dominated by large, violent males who continually picked on weaker males, females and children often resulting in murder. Sapolsky came to believe that baboons were an inherently and particularly aggressive species. It was a consequence of their DNA.

At one point in Sapolsky's studies a hunting lodge opened up near the troop and the larger more aggressive males and their “hangers on” raided the dump where kitchen waste was disposed of. They got tuberculosis from the waste and died. This made Sapolsk'ys troop "top heavy" with older females and less violent males and they took over the "running" of the troop. The way reproduction works with baboons is that when a male reaches puberty it has to find a new troop. So lots of goofy, obnoxious, adolescent males roamed around trying to join a troop.

When new adolescent males arrived at Sapolky's troop after the females had taken over, any new male who exhibited anti-social behaviour was collectively disciplined by the females with directed non-lethal violence. Basically chasing the male and bearing teeth. The males soon learned that they could stay with the troop if they behaved. The entire troop became much less violent, there was much more grooming, much less hierarchy and a lower infant mortality. Sapolsky was studying stress hormaones, this was the aim of his reseach, and sure enough the lower levels of violence was reflected in lower stress levels and better health.

It thus turned out that baboons have culture and that it can change. A baboon troop survives in an archetypical anarchic situation. There is no baboon god. But violence is not a given it is a product of troop culture.

If one looks at the history of American relationships at elite levels it is clear that violence is incorporated in their culture, and it therefore is their mode of choice for solving all of America's international conflicts. In her book Dying by the Sword: The Militarisation of US Foreign Policy, Monica Toft points out that use of lethal force by the US invariably against less powerful actors has been carried out approximately 390 times over the period from 1776 to 2019. Since 2019 you can add Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and now Iran to that list. That works out at an average of 1.6 military interventions per year. No other country in the world comes close to this. Since WWII there have been around 12 million people killed either directly of indirectly through US militaristic foreign policy.

These statistics demonstrate that the US is a Mafia state.

As our friend Mark Sleboda explains of American diplomacy:

"If you don't do what I want I will brake your legs and murder your favourite uncle"

I would add beware of a horses head in your bed.

Colby in his book and in his strategy for Trump is counselling for more of the same. Colby is just another Savage European colonialist with no moral compass and no intellectual capacity to see that other people don't see the world through his lens of coercive power and violence.

Colby and his ilk are why we now have the conflict in Iran and I hope he chokes on it.