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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   32490 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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US military offers immigrants fast track to citizenship in effort to boost recruiting

I have some thoughts about this.

First, this looks suspiciously like textbook "How to lose your empire in five easy steps" guide:

  1. Have your citizens grow fat, lazy and unwilling to risk their lives, especially in far away wars that they see no benefit from anyway

  2. Hire strong and hungry barbarians to serve in the imperial military

  3. Have the barbarians realize they are now doing most of the work holding up the empire together, while not getting commensurate benefits, which go to the fat and lazy citizens instead

  4. Have the barbarians take over the reigns of power

  5. The empire suffers bouts of "bad luck"

  6. The historians write "Decline and fall of the $EMPIRE"

(Side note: since we live in the clown world, I feel compelled to add a disclaimer that the word "barbarian" is used in purely descriptive, not pejorative, meaning - as "somebody who is not part of the imperial culture" - and, in fact, for the purposes of this definition, I am a barbarian myself and many of my friends are Barbarian-Americans)

Second, we have been actively sold the notion that DIE efforts in the military are vital if we want to keep the recruiting targets and the strength of the military. I do not see this idea being empirically confirmed, and what is even worse - I am not seeing anybody even interested in empirically confirming or disproving it. I expect that from the left - you don't seek an empirical confirmation of your religion, you already know it's the true faith. But I would expect people on the right - and I mean all those talking heads, think tanks and high-flying politicians - be interested in figuring out whether DIE actually makes the army stronger - and if not, pushing that fact hard. I don't think I am seeing this. For the most of the 20th century, The Right sleep-walked into giving up almost every major societal institution to The Left's takeover, but I'd expect at least they'd put up some fight for the military. Doesn't seem to be the case. Is it that the only thing that can get people really caring nowdays is when a piss water manufacturer offends them? I'd say the military going woke is a bigger deal than piss water going woke, but I don't see the red tribe treating it this way.

As a Hegelian synthesis of the above, the third thought is that the barbarians should be, at least at the start, the least woke part of the society. Thus, them joining the army in large numbers (provided that indeed happens) should constitute at least a temporary impediment to the further assimilation of the military into the woke collective. However, again, I see very little interest - at least where I could observe it, maybe I'm not looking in correct places? - in the red-tribe thought to exploring this opportunity and building some kind of "welcome wagon" track to ensure these people will join the Right Side and vote accordingly once they become citizens. I am not sure how it should look like, but that's what these "think tanks" are for, aren't they? Do the thinking thing and figure it out. Or at least try - I don't see the trying, really. Am I wrong here?

Is it that the only thing that can get people really caring nowdays is when a piss water manufacturer offends them? I'd say the military going woke is a bigger deal than piss water going woke, but I don't see the red tribe treating it this way.

This is somewhat tangential to your main point, but the point of the Bud Light boycott was specifically to avoid getting into endless arguments about what's the best or most important target or how there are X many other deserving targets. It's to pick a single target for maximum visible effect and hit it with everything you've got while avoiding any distractions. If people are awed about how effective it was and afraid that they might be targeted next, then it did its job. In this view, those complaining about why we aren't going after some other target should be seen as concern trolls.

This is not new, it's been law and policy for fifty years at least. A fair few of the guys I served with were getting papers that way. If you're mad about it now, you haven't been paying attention.

All that said, the pointy end of the military is mostly born citizens (a lot of Puerto Ricans), mostly white, mostly southern. Texas alone is probably a quarter of all infantry units.

Is there a recent historical example of barbarian mercenaries taking over the empire? There's instances in Africa where one ethnic group within a state created by an Empire dominates the military and uses that to rule society. I'm not sure African post-colonial states have comparable social and economic situations to the U.S. though.

If the American military suddenly became 70% Uzbek or something they wouldn't have a substantial share of the civilian population behind them, and there wouldn't be a primary export industry like oil or rubber or diamonds to seize control of and distribute revenue from to cronies.

Distribution to cronies is now strongest than it's ever been, but you are probably right - the military is not a good way to gain access to it in the US...

That almost certainly isn't true considering political patronage has been much more explicit in the past (e.g. prior to the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act).

That's definitely true in nominal terms but it also feels like a popular sentiment you could say at anytime in American History and people would agree with you which makes me curious if we have any objective metrics on it.

The American military also isn’t going to suddenly become 70% Uzbek. Or majority Guatemalan. Besides which, the privates don’t matter very much, military coups come from officers(who are going to be mostly white American even in a military with a lot of centracos).

Exactly. The normal wait time for processing an N-400 naturalization petition is 8-12 months, depending where it is filed. This program just puts otherwise eligible applicants at the head of the line. As far as I can tell, it does not even accelerate eligibility (normally, one must be a permanent resident for five years) nor exempt applicants from other normal requirements. There is a statute that renders a person eligible for naturalization after he or she has served in the military, but that is a longstanding statute and is separate from this program.

The military lying to people in order to have them enlist is such a time-honored tradition that, clearly, we can be confident and glad that nothing has changed.

I'm currently reading Wilson's Europe's Tragedy on the Thirty Years War, which confirms, lying is as traditional as enlistment.

Wilson talks about how soldiers' pay went into such heavy arrears, that monarchs had to keep them fighting in the field purely to kick the can down the road on paying what was owed. The debt could be kept in arrears while the army was in the field, but the army would never disband while they were owed money, so the last thing the king would ever do is bring the army back to his own territory and send them home. At least deserters in enemy territory would become bandits over there instead of at home.

Part of what sustained the war for so long was the ability of leaders to borrow against the future by hiring men they would never be able to pay, and fall into such deep debt that it was impossible to dig themselves out of it. Peace, bringing the army home, required the participants to declare a particularly grim form of bankruptcy.

(Side note: since we live in the clown world, I feel compelled to add a disclaimer that the word "barbarian" is used in purely descriptive, not pejorative, meaning - as "somebody who is not part of the imperial culture" - and, in fact, for the purposes of this definition, I am a barbarian myself and many of my friends are Barbarian-Americans)

It has nothing to do with "clown world", you are straight up analogizing the US to older empires that were far more explicitly formulated on a racial or ethnic basis, likewise analogizing illegal immigrants as less-civilized. You are free, of course, to idiosyncratically define "barbarian" as those who don't belong to the culture of the US (insofar as such a thing exists). But let's not pretend that this is some "clown world" shit, and that everyone in a "saner" world would understand that you weren't trying to insult those who are the "barbarians" here. It was an insult long before the advent of the "clown world".

that were far more explicitly formulated on a racial or ethnic basis

Were they really? As far as I know, Romans didn't have the racial hangups Americans do, and in general most empires were quite tolerant to who they include. That's kinda the point of the empire - to assimilate as much of the other people and territory, and it's easier to do if you don't have weird hangups about skin colors. Of course, xenophobia and kinship existed since forever, but in somewhat different form than now - scientific racism with all its theories is quite recent invention and couldn't exist before the modern era.

It is true that in some empires, there were limitations (including ethnic) on who could be in the topmost levels of power - e.g. among Mongols, only a direct descendant of Temujin could be a ruler - but I think if you go down the pyramid a bit, it was much less restrictive.

But let's not pretend that this is some "clown world" shit, and that everyone in a "saner" world would understand that you weren't trying to insult those who are the "barbarians" here.

So, after I explicitly told you I am not trying to insult, you are saying "no, I know better than you, you actually are!". Of course, you are much better expert on my intentions and thoughts than I am, so I must defer to you. For you personally - please feel free to be as insulted as you like. This post is not for you anyway - you already know what I think, and intend to ignore my actual words about it, so it is a waste of time for you to actually consider anything I say, you can move on directly to being insulted and not bother to actually try to understand what I meant. Too much work, I understand completely.

Rome was kind of the exception, though, most empires had a clearly dominant ethnic group or small number of groups- Greeks in the diadochi states, white English and Scottish people in the British empire, Japanmen in the Japanese empire, ethnic Russians in modern Russia, Shiite Persians in Iran, etc.

white English and Scottish people in the British empire

I suspect mixing English and Scottish here as if they were the same thing would be met with significant opposition from both sides at many periods, but in Victorian times, excepting the political issues, I don't see how a person of Spanish or French or German descent would be excluded from British society because of their ethnic origin. Of course, it would be hard for them to become Lord or Prime Minister, possibly, but not harder than for an English commoner without necessary connections, I think.

ethnic Russians in modern Russia

Ethnic Russian in modern Russia do not have any noticeable benefits compared to ethnic Belorussians or ethnic Tuvanians, for example (or ethnic Ukrainians, before the current catastrophe started, or, in fact, ethnic Jews). With all the horrors that the current fascist regime inflicted on Russia, and while Russian culture by itself is pretty xenophobic, the official imperial bureaucracy is pretty ethnicity-blind, and operates on principles which assign very little importance to genetic traits. It helps that there's no racial division in Russia similar to one characteristic to the US, but in general they have completely different issues.

Of course, it would be hard for them to become Lord or Prime Minister,

There were two pre-eminent Prime Ministers during the era when the British Empire was at its height. Gladstone was ethnically British. Benjamin Disraeli, as his name suggests, was not. He came from a Sephardi Jewish background, although his father converted to Anglican Christianity (taking the family with him) when Benjamin was a teenager.

Amusingly, the first and second ethnic minority prime ministers (Disraeli and Sunak) as well as the first, second, and third women (Thatcher, May and Truss) were all Conservatives.

I couldn't speak much to their prejudices but as late as the second century 80-90% of people in the Roman empire were peregrini, or second class citizens with lesser rights. Even the rest of Italy itself had to fight a whole war for their citizenship.

Were they really? As far as I know, Romans didn't have the racial hangups Americans do, and in general most empires were quite tolerant to who they include. That's kinda the point of the empire - to assimilate as much of the other people and territory, and it's easier to do if you don't have weird hangups about skin colors.

The use of race or ethnicity as the basis for the higher or highest classes of society was far more explicit in previous empires, that's my point. Telling me that it makes no sense doesn't change that, because people are not always rational.

So, after I explicitly told you I am not trying to insult, you are saying "no, I know better than you, you actually are!".

I offered you charity, actually. I'll repeat myself.

"You are free, of course, to idiosyncratically define "barbarian" as those who don't belong to the culture of the US (insofar as such a thing exists)."

See, here's the thing. I don't think you're lying about not intending insult. I don't think you're trying to "as a black man" me when you say that you are a "Barbarian-American". I'm more than willing to grant your use of the term as you want.

But where I draw a line is in trying to claim that the only reason someone could object to the use of "barbarian" to describe immigrants (illegal if you want that qualifier) is that they are some kind of social progressive. That's precisely the point of invoking "clown world", one is explicitly appealing to a nihilistic viewpoint that is often socially conservative to say the least. The word "barbarian" is understood by non-progressives as an insult, and that should be obvious in the way that people use it. No one appreciates being told, to their face, that they are a barbarian. If you doubt this, go and talk to any of the non-progressive immigrants you are talking about and call them that, see what happens.

If you doubt this, go and talk to any of the non-progressive immigrants you are talking about and call them that, see what happens.

Not who you're responding to and from a different country, but I've actually done this and a lot of them responded with satisfied pride. Maybe you don't think that there's anything worthwhile about being a barbarian, but a lot of men actually really like the connotations of being a powerful warrior unbound to a sinking, decadent society. Conan the Barbarian is a famous character from literature and a lot of men viewed him as a kind of role-model. Hell, I know people who actively try to claim the barbarian label for themselves because of how much they esteem it!

It's hardly a refutation if the meaning isn't carried across. Tell them that you mean they are uncivilized, inferior, primitive savages who only babble and don't speak a proper language. They may laugh it off because you are not part of their status hierarchy, but I doubt they'd be so eager to claim that description.

Pop culture use of the word barbarian has created in my mind an image of a tall, muscular, aggressive male who is proficient with melee weapons and is not afraid to use them. I would guess most males would not be offended to be described as, or compared to, such a figure.

And that's great, but that's not how people use it when they trying to describe IRL people in a negative way.

Well was the meaning carried across in the OP post?

It seems to me that the word "barbarian" usually evokes a different meaning in modern culture, more in spirit of what @FirmWeird suggests. Books, movies, video games seem to have reformed the "barbarian" label into a somewhat high-status designation; a "noble savage" archetype of sorts.

Well was the meaning carried across in the OP post?

The OP clearly defined how they use barbarian, and I'm fine dealing with idiosyncratic definitions to engage with a post if I wish. It's this justification for why it's necessary to make the idiosyncrasy obvious that I reject.

Books, movies, video games seem to have reformed the "barbarian" label into a somewhat high-status designation; a "noble savage" archetype of sorts.

Certainly possible! But the way in which people use that word does not only reflect the new definition. While it's true you can find inoffensive definitions (DnD 4, to my recollection, lets players be Barbarians as a class, with greater emphasis on the martial prowess part and the spirituality), I do not think my social studies teacher in high school meant it in such a manner when he said the conservative world view was to see the world as divided between the civilized and the barbarians.

Put another way, if the word "barbarian" had come to mean "noble savage", then people who use it as an insult against IRL groups seem more interested in focusing on how ignoble those groups are. My father hates Muslims and I'm fairly certain he does not see anything noble in them when he calls them barbarians.

The use of race or ethnicity as the basis for the higher or highest classes of society was far more explicit in previous empires, that's my point

I understood the point, but I am not convinced at all that is is actually true.

But where I draw a line is in trying to claim that the only reason someone could object to the use of "barbarian" to describe immigrants (illegal if you want that qualifier) is that they are some kind of social progressive

I didn't ever mention progressives, but everybody knows who are the clowns, right? ;) But it's not exactly what I meant. What I meant is that there are people who are interested in discussing issues, and there are people who are interested in policing other people's behavior, online and offline. That comment was intended to emphasize that I am not interested in the second part, I consider them largely clowns, regardless of their political affiliation (though truth be told, they mostly lean to the left). And if there's a tiny part of them that are not clowns but seriously worry that people may inadvertently and unknowingly cause offense and they would be helpful if they tactfully point it out - this case is not that case. This usage is specific usage in context, and I explained the context and the intent. I do not require your "charity" here - it's not "charity" to not call me a liar and attribute me something that is contrary to my explicitly expressed intent, it's just basic decency, and default expected behavior for which one gets no bonus points.

If you doubt this, go and talk to any of the non-progressive immigrants you are talking about and call them that, see what happens.

I talk to them (us) every day, and what I usually find is that they (us) are much less triggered by words - especially taken out of context - than the clown crowd.

I didn't ever mention progressives, but everybody knows who are the clowns, right?

When a Nazi talks about 108 countries in a vague manner, both sides are aware that it's a reference to the Jews. Likewise, "clown world" is largely a right-wing word used to condemn liberal/progressive/materialist things.

This usage is specific usage in context, and I explained the context and the intent.

And I am criticizing your justification. You do not get to handwave away the accuracy of that justification just because you don't want to talk about it.

I do not require your "charity" here - it's not "charity" to not call me a liar and attribute me something that is contrary to my explicitly expressed intent, it's just basic decency, and default expected behavior for which one gets no bonus points.

"Basic decency" is precisely to be charitable. It's the same thing.

I talk to them (us) every day, and what I usually find is that they (us) are much less triggered by words - especially taken out of context - than the clown crowd.

You are telling me that you go around and tell those people that they are uncivilized savages who are culturally inferior and don't even speak a proper language, and they don't mind? I'll believe it when I see it.

I must object to the idea that “policing other people’s behavior” is “mostly lean[ing] to the left.” And that the dominant form of behavior-policing consists of objecting to “triggers.”

I don’t see how the basis of empire has anything to do with it. The issue is whether or not those making the wheels turn have bought into the Imperial system. You could have an internal coup just as easily (see the fall of Czar Nicholas II) or from immigrants or imperial subjects in the hinterlands.

Increasingly, both at home and abroad, the benefits of supporting the Neoliberal Empire don’t really come to those outside of the elite circles of power. The White working class doesn’t get much of anything from support for the NLE, nor do recent immigrants who get shunted into jobs that don’t pay well. The outer providences don’t see much benefit. And I’d class most of these as barbarians.

Tbf many if these jobs can pay a lot (construction etc). There is a growing middle class of immigrants

Yes, it is possible that what kills the supposed Empire is its lower-class citizens. But the OP is explicitly about the "barbarians", hence why I'm talking about them. It's a common talking point amongst those who don't like immigrants and/or a "loose" immigration standard.

the benefits of supporting the Neoliberal Empire don’t really come to those outside of the elite circles of power

What counts as a benefit? There are many pieces of technology that drastically improve my QoL that I couldn't or wouldn't own if said empire didn't benefit. I'm about as tangential of an elite as you can get. A farmer may very well consider it a benefit to have an automated tractor that can't be made without an empire that doesn't even think about him.

The White working class doesn’t get much of anything from support for the NLE, nor do recent immigrants who get shunted into jobs that don’t pay well.

The latter part isn't true. They wouldn't come to work under an NLE if they didn't think it was worth it.

The outer providences don’t see much benefit. And I’d class most of these as barbarians.

Spoken like a true Blue Tribe heretic! You retain mostly the same definitions of who is or is not a barbarian, you just tweak them a bit!

I’d count a benefit as something you get as a member and supporter of the empire than you cannot get any other way. So like in America being a citizen gets you the rights listed in the constitution, the right, in other countries, to appeal through the embassy to the government of the USA to gain release from prison. As far as economics, the economy of scale allowed by being part of the empire where ports are rarely closed to American or European goods.

Have the barbarians realize they are now doing most of the work holding up the empire together, while not getting commensurate benefits, which go to the fat and lazy citizens instead

This just doesn’t at all seem like what the US military does. The actual territory of the US is held together just fine, it’s not like there are far-flung territories with constant foreign incursions and we need troopers on the ground to fight off raiders.

I guess you could say we have a bunch of far-flung military bases? But again these are in friendly locations and anyway aren’t kept in the empire by weight of local arms.

The actual territory of the US is held together just fine

I'm not sure people who live along some stretches of the southern border actually agree. Of course, the border with Canada is secure, that is true.

But I'm not talking about Chinese army marching on Washington, at least not for a long, long time. Something like China taking over Taiwan, despite US's promise to protect it, could be happening much sooner though.

I've always been somewhat annoyed by signs and bumper stickers that say the Marines or the Army protect my freedom. The guys manning the ICBM's protect my freedom and safety, everybody else does power projection in service of sometimes praiseworthy and sometimes horrible foreign policy objectives.

I don't really find this account compelling. The Roman Empire was damaged heavily by the efforts of popular military leaders to seize power, but this pattern started long before the use of foederati in the army. Far from decadence and complacency, Rome was damaged by the irrepressible ambition and ruthlessness of generals and soldiers.

But I would expect people on the right - and I mean all those talking heads, think tanks and high-flying politicians - be interested in figuring out whether DIE actually makes the army stronger - and if not, pushing that fact hard.

Does it matter? If foreign wars are pointless, and America should turn away from military adventurism, does the strength of the army actually matter that much? Is the army naught but an appendage of the state - in which case, it hardly matters what the people in it believe? Or is the expectation that the army could provide a bulwark against leftism - in which case, the army is now interfering in politics? Is it wise to invite interference from an institution that is vulnerable to capture by your opponents?

I think it's worth asking exactly what people want from the military before they treat it as a political battlefield. Because it doesn't seem to me like Americans really have a consensus there.

Far from decadence and complacency, Rome was damaged by the irrepressible ambition and ruthlessness of generals and soldiers.

Rome always had issues with civil wars but the real crisis was a loss of the will to fight on and win, no matter what. The Battle of Adrianople was a bad defeat but nothing compared to the walloping Hannibal delivered, wiping out a whole bunch of (much larger) armies. The late Roman empire simply could not field large armies to win decisive battles in the field, in civil wars or otherwise. There was some population decline due to plague and mismanagement but it's inconceivable that Punic War-era Italy and Sicily were richer or more populous than the entire Eastern Roman Empire as of Adrianople, or the West when it was just getting crushed.

The Roman Empire went from being able to mobilize resources very effectively to a basket-case, that's the key change.

Theodosius was unable to recruit enough Roman troops, relying on barbarian warbands without Roman military discipline or loyalty. (In contrast, during the Cimbrian War, the Roman Republic, controlling a smaller area than the western Empire, had been able to reconstitute large regular armies of citizens after greater defeats than Adrianople. That war had ended with the near-extermination of the invading barbarian supergroups, each supposed to have more than 100,000 warriors.

I don't really find this account compelling. The Roman Empire was damaged heavily by the efforts of popular military leaders to seize power, but this pattern started long before the use of foederati in the army. Far from decadence and complacency, Rome was damaged by the irrepressible ambition and ruthlessness of generals and soldiers.

It's really more complex than this.

The late Roman Germanic Federates who systematically dismantled the Western Empire to their own benefit were the heirs to a tradition of Roman military federates stretching back beyond the beginning of the Republic. The term itself referred originally to the agreement between the Romans and the other Latins, back when Rome was a first among equals in the Latin League (foedus just means pact or treaty). While the exact relationship between citizen and non-citizen military units in the Roman army evolved over the entire course of the evolution of the state, barbarians (from both within and without the limits of the Empire) were recruited heavily even at the peak of Imperial power. There were whole tribes who specialized in providing recruits to the Roman military, such as the Belgae in Northwestern Europe. In fact, this recruitment of barbarians served as a major engine of Romanization for centuries prior to the arrival of the Germanic federates.

The difference between the Germanics and prior barbarian recruits into the Roman Army is that the Germanic Tribes were adopted wholesale as units into the Roman military, with their military leaders/kings being given high ranks and allowed to continue leading their own men. Whereas, in the past, barbarians were recruited as individuals/small groups and they served under existing Roman officers, the new situation meant that there was a growing component of the Roman Army that was essentially a legitimized foreign military force serving under their own leaders. What happened wasn't a bunch of outsiders conglomerating together into an anti-government force (as mentioned, the individual groups of outsiders had, in the past, had heavy incentives to learn Latin, adopt Roman culture, and bring those things back to their homelands after they mustered out), it was that a potential anti-government force was given legitimacy as a conglomeration.

When the US starts hiring military units wholesale from foreign countries and allowing them to operate under their existing leadership, that's when you start to worry.

Have the barbarians realize they are now doing most of the work holding up the empire together, while not getting commensurate benefits, which go to the fat and lazy citizens instead.

And how exactly does this apply to a policy which provides the barbarians with citizenship, and also with all the benefits available to veterans?

Not immediately. It's part of the process - which involves turning more and more to outside where current citizens are unwilling to invest in supporting the empire anymore. It's not a binary switch caused by one specific decision - it's a long process and this decision just illustrates the direction.

So, in the long run they will no longer get those benefits? Why do you assume that?

The would get some of the benefits, but much less than the fat and lazy incumbents. Formal citizenship - and formal eligibility to one of another entitlement programs - is not all that the society can provide to a person.

Yes, as I noted, they also get a long list of veterans' benefits, which the fat and lazy citizens who do not serve do not get.

First, this looks suspiciously like textbook "How to lose your empire in five easy steps" guide:

The historians write "Decline and fall of the $EMPIRE"

I feel like most people who cite "Hard Times stronk men..." memes haven't actually read Gibbon. Because something they miss: It's an INCREDIBLY long fucking book, 795 pages in a Penguin edition on Amazon.

Barbarian recruitment started in earnest under Hadrian, who was definitely a top-10 Emperor. I don't recall exact dates for when barbarian recruitment began within his reign, but certainly by the end of his reign in 138 AD much of the border defense was handled by barbarian immigrants resettled in the Empire.

Depending where you lived, this was somewhere between 250 and 1200 years from the final end of the Roman Empire. Maximinius Thrax, who iirc was the first barbarian Emperor, ruled in 235 AD.

Barbarian recruitment still puts the US Empire potentially hundreds of years from collapse if you are lucky enough to live in the imperial core. Unless you live in the imperial core at a time of civil war, in which case you're more likely to get murdered in a power struggle anyway. And if you live in Armenia, you're likely to get traded back and forth to the Persians a dozen times regardless of how Rome is doing.

When we talk about historical cycles, we need to take account of what a reasonable career for an empire looks like. The majority of the Roman Imperial era was one of decline. If you go through and rank all the emperors, there weren't more than twenty good ones out of about 70 who held the title in Rome. Hell, out of the biblical kings of Israel, there were like four who (according to the bible) weren't complete shit, the Jews are still riding on that Saul-David-Solomon run of decent kings. Same story for France, HRE, Romanovs, Han, Ming, Qing, Ottomans. Competency is the exception. Human history is built off brief periods of empire building, followed by long periods of decline.

As an aside, I don't think we can call NATO seriously desperate in Ukraine until they start recruiting African legions on promises of EU visas for up to four members of their families if they serve a 3 year spell in Ukraine. Forget manpower problems. How many applications from 18-25 year old men do you think they could get if they opened up recruitment?

Judging by the general competence of the elites and how poorly correlated success in politics and competence are, I don’t hold us in much higher regard than the worst of the emperors. Given the crises that we simply cannot possibly deal with as responsible people, I don’t think the cliff is as far away as we think it is.

I didn't say it will happen tomorrow. But also, things tend to happen much faster in the modern era. I personally hope to be dead before the empire begins to collapse in an obvious way. But I do think we're somewhere in the "decline" path already.

I don't think we can call NATO seriously desperate in Ukraine until they start recruiting African legions on promises of EU visas

NATO is doing its very best to avoid being a side of the conflict, for now (their explicit words, not mine) so I don't think this tells us much. But I don't want to get too deep into Ukraine matters here, it would be very distracting from the main points.

NATO is doing its very best to avoid being a side of the conflict, for now (their explicit words, not mine) so I don't think this tells us much.

It seems such an obvious, and from the perspective of neoliberal elites cost-free, method to achieve the goal that to leave it on the table tells us something about seriousness. The EU accepts that a certain number of migrants from third world countries will arrive each year, and most EU elites seem to view this as a broadly good thing for the countries involved. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

The major difference here is that the barbarians that constituted the ranks of the late Roman army were Germanic, so barbarian recruitment resulted in the Germanization of the Roman army in contrast with the increasingly multi-racialized Roman empire. Earlier writers, in a non-PC manner, have described the Germanization of the Roman army and subsequent barbarian invasions as having a cleansing effect on the decaying empire. Contrary to popular conception, there is basically no non-European genetic contribution to modern Italians today despite the multi-racial character of the late Roman Empire.

The operative characteristic here is that barbarian recruitment preceded what was essentially the barbarian expulsion of non-European people on the continent vis-a-vis the destruction of the multi-racial Roman empire, whereas today the US military increasingly being made up of non-Europeans is the culmination of a demographic replacement that you can't really recover from in the same way. Political systems come and go, when a people change they change.

barbarian recruitment preceded what was essentially the barbarian expulsion of non-European people on the continent vis-a-vis the destruction of the multi-racial Roman empire

I wasn't aware of any expulsion of non-Europeans on the part of the post-Roman Germanic kings. My impression was that the multiethnic urban Romans simply died out on their own due to below-replacement fertility rates, repeated sackings of major cities during Justinian's wars of reconquest, and the subsequent plague. Their replacement by peasants from the countryside with a more traditional conservative culture was the most likely source of any moral "cleansing" of the former empire, rather than the influence of the small and soon assimilated Germanic minority that ruled them for a time.

I mean the multi-racial project, which was Imperial Rome, was destroyed by the barbarians. It was the destruction of those institutions and subsequent gene flow from Europe, not actual deportation policies by the barbarians, that removed the genetic legacy of non-Europeans from the imperial age in Italy. Although the population of Rome collapsed due to violence, epidemics, etc.

no non-European genetic contribution to modern Italians today

What about the Arab conquest of Southern Italy? IMO, that's the moment when Southern and Northern Italy began to be distinguished. In the North, Renaissance, industry, glass, cloth, Ferrari, Fiat. In the South, backwardness, corruption, mafia, clannishness. There was nothing like that back in Roman times, Syracuse (and Alexandria for that matter) were great centres of learning and highly developed.

North African admixture is 0-2% of Italy depending on the location, with the exception of Sicily where the DNA contribution is highest and maxes out around 6% overall. The largest non-Italian genetic legacy in Italy is the Greeks in Sicily.

The Bell-Beaker tribes that conquered the Italian peninsula emerged from the North. As you move North to South, you get relatively less Indo-European admixture and relatively more admixture from Early European Farmers. The outliers are the Sardinians who have almost no Indo-European admixture and are ~95% genetically identical to the EEF of Neolithic Italy. Sardinians provide a good illustration for how Southern European phenotype is derived from European populations and not Arab admixture.

There is somewhat a lack of DNA samples from Latin Romans since they practiced cremation, but Wikipedia has a pretty good description:

Latin samples from Latium in the Iron Age and early Roman Republican period were generally found to genetically cluster closest to modern Northern and Central Italians (four out of six were closest to Northern and Central Italians, while the other two were closest to Southern Italians).[16] DNA analysis demonstrates that ancient Greek colonization had a significant lasting effect on the local genetic landscape of Southern Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia), with modern people from that region having significant Greek admixture.[17][18] Overall, the genetic differentiation between the Latins, Etruscans and the preceding proto-Villanovan population of Italy was found to be insignificant.[19] In 2019, aDNA analysis of Roman fossils detected substantial genetic ancestry shift towards Central and Northern European ancestry in the inhabitants of the city of Rome in late antiquity and the medieval era. The authors tentatively link the origin of this ancestry with Visigoths and Lombards.[2][20] A 2020 analysis of maternal haplogroups from ancient and modern samples indicates a substantial genetic similarity and continuity between the modern inhabitants of Umbria in central Italy and ancient inhabitants of the region belonging to the Italic-speaking Umbrian culture.

The barbarians, ironically, brought the genetic profile of Rome back to be more in line with the Iron Age / Early Roman Republic and reversed the massive changes in the Imperial Age with almost no genetic legacy of non-Europeans from that time:

In the Medieval and early modern periods (n = 28 individuals), we observe an ancestry shift toward central and northern Europe in PCA (Fig. 3E), as well as a further increase in the European cluster (C7) and loss of the Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean clusters (C4 and C5) in ChromoPainter (Fig. 4C). The Medieval population is roughly centered on modern-day central Italians (Fig. 3F). It can be modeled as a two-way combination of Rome’s Late Antique population and a European donor population, with potential sources including many ancient and modern populations in central and northern Europe: Lombards from Hungary, Saxons from England, and Vikings from Sweden, among others (table S26)... This shift is consistent with the growing ties between Medieval Rome and mainland Europe.

... Huh?

Germanic people stepping in to fill a warrior-caste type arrangement with Rome is very different than white people being demographically displaced.

How is it different for people who don’t care about skin color?

If you remove the assumption that genes matter then there's no limits to the imagination to be honest. But if we want to talk about two instances of demographic change, it's highly relevant that the case of the Barbarians in Rome represents a reversion from the multi-racial Imperial Roman project back towards a European population type, whereas this project in the United States represents... something else.

I mean aside from the fact that pretty much everyone in the Roman Empire was white-ish(the only province with a large population that didn’t have a predominately euro appearance was Egypt, and even that wasn’t universal) that’s an argument that has to be made, which you haven’t done.

‘Guatemalans are ruing our HBD potential’ is semi plausible, but it hasn’t been made as an argument(and anyways Hispanic tfr tends to decline very fast once north of the border while red tribe tfr is stable at replacement, so it’s not as if the HBD argument is undefeatable).

I mean aside from the fact that pretty much everyone in the Roman Empire was white-ish(the only province with a large population that didn’t have a predominately euro appearance was Egypt, and even that wasn’t universal) that’s an argument that has to be made, which you haven’t done.

That was true until Imperial Rome gave everyone citizenship. This was observed in a paper I linked in a different comment.

Look at the radical shift in the genetic profile from the Roman Republic to Imperial Rome. Granted, this may likely be exaggerated as non-Latin citizens would have been less likely to have been cremated than Latin Romans, so they may be oversampled in this analysis.

Late Antiquity and Fall of Rome:

The average ancestry of the Late Antique individuals (n = 24) shifts away from the Near East and toward modern central European populations in PCA (Fig. 3D)... This ancestry shift is also reflected in ChromoPainter results by the drastic shrinkage of the Near Eastern cluster (C4), maintenance of the two Mediterranean clusters (C5 and C6), and marked expansion of the European cluster (C7) (Fig. 4C).

Medieval Period:

In the Medieval and early modern periods (n = 28 individuals), we observe an ancestry shift toward central and northern Europe in PCA (Fig. 3E), as well as a further increase in the European cluster (C7) and loss of the Near Eastern and eastern Mediterranean clusters (C4 and C5) in ChromoPainter (Fig. 4C). The Medieval population is roughly centered on modern-day central Italians (Fig. 3F). It can be modeled as a two-way combination of Rome’s Late Antique population and a European donor population, with potential sources including many ancient and modern populations in central and northern Europe: Lombards from Hungary, Saxons from England, and Vikings from Sweden, among others (table S26).

So non-European clusters emerged during Imperial Rome, and then disappeared by the Medieval period.

The immigrant Air Force recruits undergo seven weeks of training, and once that process is complete, they are sworn in as citizens.

Wow, that is a very fast track. You'd think they'd at least have to serve out their term before getting the reward. I expect we'll see a lot of immigrants join for seven weeks and then find some way to back out (injury, vague mental illness, pregnancy) before they get deployed.

Have your citizens grow fat, lazy and unwilling to risk their lives, especially in far away wars that they see no benefit from anyway

The fun part is they can probably recruit enough citizens to fill the military, but only if they weren't actively repelling the half of the country that is patriotic and nationalistic.

I don’t think the existence of diversity training is what tips the scales on Joe Smith deciding to get the hell out of Kansas.

Military recruitment tends to correlate with what the job market looks like for young, blue collar men- for reasons that are obvious once you think about it.

There are demographic reasons why the young, male, blue collar job market is going to be very employee- friendly for the forseeable future, to say nothing of the declining labor force participation rate and all that jazz.

US demographic decline and the lack of medical waivers probably have more to do with it.

Yep.

When the military is (rightfully, imo) seen being used to defend other country's interests, or to line special interest pockets, and is also used as a tool of the regime to attack the exact values that people would otherwise join the military to uphold, AND your society starts undermining the privileges that society usually extends to veterans to honor their sacrifice.

What the hell is the point of joining up?

Especially when private sector jobs are offering commensurate pay with much less risk.

Read the article. They’re recruiting people who already have (usually permanent) residency, which means they’re merely accelerating the citizenship process by a few years. They’re not recruiting soldiers from abroad. Everyone they hire through this program would get US citizenship eventually anyway if they never enlisted.

That said, the problem with the military in the US is that it no longer serves as a guaranteed pipeline for smart young people. One of the things that’s so important for ambitious young people is a clear path to wealth, status and power. For example, the military could offer an ‘accelerated leadership program’ in partnership with the state department, White House and prestige private employers like Google or Goldman Sachs to funnel officers into great jobs after they serve for several years. Not a ‘maybe Harvard will accept you for a JD’ like it is now, but an actual, relatively ironclad guarantee.

When it comes to enlisted soldiers, it’s even simpler. Just offer them more money. No shit recruitment has gone down when flyover country construction workers are making $70k a year now easily, whereas in 2014 they were making $40k and in 2011 they were unemployed. Double enlisted wages and see whether the recruitment problem subsides.

flyover country construction workers are making $70k a year now easily

This is untrue unless they are working 70+ hr weeks

Agreed. If I was a factchecker I'd rate this statement as "mostly untrue". Fortunately, we don't have to guess.

We can look up the wages for carpenters, construction laborers, and roofers.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472031.htm

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472061.htm

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472181.htm

Based on working 40 hour weeks with no vacation, the median wages in 2022 were as follows: $51,390, $40,750, and $47,920.

Nationwide the $70k figure quoted is near the 90th percentile. In flyover states, wages would likely be lower. You can check if you want.

Too many people on this site and elsewhere don't understand how poorly blue collar workers get paid.

Too many people on this site and elsewhere don't understand how poorly blue collar workers get paid.

I think the necessary addendum to this is that blue collar pay is highly unequal, and often in counterintuitive ways. High school graduates in rural Oklahoma frequently see inexplicable seeming success stories and conclude that not going to college is the best shot at a nice life because 18-year-olds are bad at probabilities.

I think it’s still somewhat a problem simply because you have a huge potential for conflicts of interests. If we go to war with China, having a large contingent of Chinese nationals fighting will create the potential for defections. There are already cases of Americans choosing to compete for their ancestral home Olympic teams, which while low stakes (it’s just sports) does highlight the issue. If your officer corps is full of people who might not feel connected to America, they might not fight, or might give away intelligence, or simply defect with all the training that we’ve given them.

Has this ever actually been a problem? All the hand-wringing about treacherous immigrants during the world wars came to nothing.

During the invasion of Mogadishu the only translator of Somali the Marines had, Hussein Mohamed Farrah Aidid, was the son of the man, Mohammed Farah Aidid, we were ostensibly fighting against - unsurprisingly the US did not cover itself in glory in that operation though it’s impossible to prove whether it was because our main translator was giving info away or just general incompetence.

The lesson I'm taking away from that is not "All immigrants are treacherous", it's "have more than one translator on hand".

There was the Ni’ihau Incident, in which the Japanese-Americans on the island immediately went to help the downed pilot — but in the context of, for example, the 442nd Infantry Regiment, this one incident can likely be counted as a rounding error.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder whether changing attitudes towards assimilationism also change the calculus. My cursory intuition: immigrants were far more pushed to assimilate back in the ‘30s and ‘40s than they are in these ‘20s, where metaphors like the “melting pot” are derided, the very notion of a “cricket test” is tarred as racist, and having a non-American (or better yet: non-Western) culture and family living in their Old Country is treated as a sign of moral worth. As such, I’d expect the number of “would-be-treacherous immigrants” to have risen.

(I recognize that this last bit contains a large number of rather unfounded assertions; I would like to provide concrete examples and details, but alas, phoneposting won’t allow me to do so.)

As such, I’d expect the number of “would-be-treacherous immigrants” to have risen.

It seems to me that the only country we have a lot of immigrants from where these sorts of activities would be a major concern is China, and the young 2nd generation Chinese-Americans I know are at worst superficially anti-assimilationist, but in practice can barely speak the language and are made fun of by the tiny minority of truly anti-American Asian commentators/tankies within the community as "boba liberals."

The instances of corruption or treason I see with ties to the Chinese government are just as likely to be committed by white Americans and are usually done just for profit rather than ethnic solidarity. In the long run, the costs of unfounded suspicion are probably greater than that of treating people the same regardless of ancestry in these situations.

Very reasonable analysis. Thinking about the younger second-generation/first-generation-but-moved-at-a-young-age Chinese immigrants that I know, they tend to be rather anti-CCP (and although that doesn’t necessarily mean “pro-America”, it counts for something). And on the flipside, as you said, I’ve met young whites who are very careful to not say anything that might be recorded as being anti-China, lest it impair a future career eastward.

I suppose that in my original post, I was thinking more along the lines of young progressive second-generation immigrants I’ve met (often Latino) who loudly proclaim the evils of America (think “woke”, not “tankie”), put on affected accents, and declare their intent to return to their mother country — eventually. But lots of these progressive values that manifest as anti-Americanism are fundamentally American, and in the anecdotal cases I was remembering, it doesn’t look like the fabled return to the motherland is coming any time soon. I guess that I was conflating Blue-Tribe-ism with anti-Americanism.

FWIW, my intuition would be that 1st generation legal immigrants are probably MORE assimilated than 1st generation immigrants in the early 1900s due to higher requirements for entry, but it does seem that young 2nd generation immigrants are much less pushed to assimilate / are less interested in assimilating.

I'll add the caveat that this impression is mostly from East Asian and African immigrant families I've interacted with in the US- the parents generally seem to want to emphasize their Americanness while their children seem to want to emphasize what makes them different, to the extent that quite a few of them resent their parents for trying to raise them as American rather than keeping up cultural traditions/keeping them fluent in their parents' native tongue.

it does seem that young 2nd generation immigrants are much less pushed to assimilate / are less interested in assimilating.

What would your metric for this be? As far as I can tell, contemporary immigrants are assimilating just as fast or faster than historically as measured by things like language or intermarriage rates (e.g. my German ancestors moved to Iowa in the 1850s and didn't stop speaking German until WWI killed off German American subculture).

I'll add the caveat that this impression is mostly from East Asian and African immigrant families I've interacted with in the US- the parents generally seem to want to emphasize their Americanness while their children seem to want to emphasize what makes them different.

That's common with second generation immigrants everywhere (again, as far as I can tell) - first gen immigrants don't necessarily fit in as well, but they chose to uproot their lives and move to a different country, so they're eager to make it work. Second gen immigrants are more likely to be in an awkward limbo were they don't quite fit into their country of birth (often exacerbated by racism from their peers) and didn't choose it. For some, their parents' country of origin takes on conceptual role similar to how some adoptees treat their (unmet/absent) biological parents. Cue a soul-searching trip to the old country where they find out it kind of sucks and also they don't fit in even a little.

What would your metric for this be? As far as I can tell, contemporary immigrants are assimilating just as fast or faster than historically as measured by things like language or intermarriage rates (e.g. my German ancestors moved to Iowa in the 1850s and didn't stop speaking German until WWI killed off German American subculture).

It seems like the US census information for bilingualism etc for 2nd gen immigrants doesn't start until 1940 (only for either 1st gen or those unable to speak English before that), which is of course after many of the European immigrant groups of the late 1800s and early 1900s had pretty well assimilated.

That is to say while this was not revealed to me in a dream, take this as basically my unsupported impressions from 1st gen immigrants vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 16-35 age range vs 2nd gen immigrants in the 50-80 age range (which of course also opens up the possibility that the older group are simply more assimilated due to age rather than anything generational) rather than any sort of rigorous analysis.

My own impressions are that children of immigrants are a lot more likely to claim a foreign identity than they used to be, but without actually having one. In their eyes, their parents' culture consists of a handful of traditional foods that trigger their childhood nostalgia, a colorful outfit they wear once or twice for an instagram photoshoot, a language they speak at best at the level of an unschooled toddler, and if they are progressive enough the right to blame systemic racism for their challenges in life.

But I would expect people on the right - and I mean all those talking heads, think tanks and high-flying politicians - be interested in figuring out whether DIE actually makes the army stronger - and if not, pushing that fact hard. I don't think I am seeing this.

One of Biden's first orders was to implement political purges in the military to establish firm left wing control. So the right isn't so keen on having a functional military at the moment.

The red tribe has been refusing to sign up since that announcement was made.

The right already lost much easier cases. Women in combat. Women on ships. Trans soldiers on hormone treatments know to cause suicidal thoughts. Female soldiers don't have to meet the strength standards men do and have to find men to help them move heavy equipment. I've heard of navy ships crippled from having to send home large numbers of pregnant women.

It's forbidden for officers to have sex with women under their command, but pregnancy tests are never done.

The immigration fast track for services isn't obviously terrible, so the right has no chance of winning the fight.

Also I believe it's actually an expanded version of an already existing program. I remember hearing about it circa 2012 or so. It's possible it was just being proposed.

One of Biden's first orders was to implement political purges in the military to establish firm left wing control. So the right isn't so keen on having a functional military at the moment.

Citation needed. What are you on about?

The red tribe has been refusing to sign up since that announcement was made.

There doesn't seem to be much evidence of that in the Army data for 2021

What empires were destroyed like that? I know you had Rome in mind, but Rome faltered when it closed the path to citizenship to the barbarians it hired. If the US settled several Ukrainian divisions in western Texas to guard the border or just paid the governor of Coahuila to protect the border from the other side, that would be closer to what Rome did.

And Greg Abbott won re-election by a bigger than usual margin in part by claiming to have strong armed the governor of Coahuila into guarding the border from the other side.

or just paid the governor of Coahuila to protect the border from the other side

Sounds quite similar to RIM.

While it is true that the US isn't using Kurds and Ukrainians to guard the imperial core, the dynamics are similar. The French and British empires had militaries full of colonials towards the end yet few of them were stationed in the UK itself.

War has historically been an elite endeavour. Knights were elite, samurai were elite, patricians fought in the first line in early Rome. WWII was the last war with a meaningful upper class representation in the US. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq were low class wars. This represents a shift from the elites viewing themselves as stewards of an empire that are on a mission to build a divine empire to seeing the empire as a vehicle for their own personal benefit. This is a major symptom of the decline of the American elite and will show in other aspects of society.

By now, the working class is in poor health and too many think the elites are lizards or hate their leaders to fight. If Iraq happened today, it would be exceedingly difficult to find 150 000 men per deployment cycle. The US has 340 million people yet can't find enough soldiers, which is a massive failure. Military personnel per capita in the US is not high. The deep underlying issue is that few Americans want to serve. After 9/11 there were line-ups outside recruiting offices. If there was a repeat today, there probably wouldn't be.

The US military is recruiting foreign mercenaries. This brings a set of issues:

  1. Mercenaries are there to get paid. They don't want to die, they aren't fundamentally motivated by the mission, and they want to do the minimum. Expect small level corruption, feet dragging, women getting pregnant in order to skip deployments, cowardess in battle etc.

  2. The quality of large mercenary armies drop. Small groups of mercenaries motivated by a yearning for adventure can be high quality. In large numbers, mercenaries will mainly be people looking to get paid. They will get people who can't get a better gig. This means high wages combined with mediocre recruits.

  3. A rift between the elite and what happens on the ground. A mercenary military is lower in skin in the game. People living on Manhattan and the troops fighting will have almost nothing in common. Expect a lower trust society with less cohesion.

  4. Mercs have low loyalty. Expect more instances of enlisted leaking secrets on discord servers for personal clout, discipline problems, people selling secrets to foreign governments etc.

In England a hugely disproportionate number of senior officers are still from the upper class, having taken the Eton/Harrow to Sandhurst pipeline, the same way they have for 200 years or whatever. In fact in investment banking it’s very common to hire former officers who’ve taken that route and done their 5 years, many of my coworkers are in this category.

But it doesn’t seem to make a difference to the capability of the UK vs US military on a proportional basis. And American ‘elites’ or at least the PMC are well represented in the officer class still.

I can't verify the veracity of the claim, but apparently 163 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are Marines. Whether there's a formal pipeline for it or not, it appears that at least that generation had a substantial path for officers to power, success, and money.

There is indeed a robust but not quite formal military —> (possibly elite MBA) —> elite corporate/finance job pipeline. Military guys, typically former officers (but not always, and not always academy guys) are anecdotally very overrepresented in positions like this.

Despite a lot of rhetoric on sites like this, the actual elite who run things (and not the proverbial pink haired HR lady) like working with people who have demonstrated strong moral commitments, discipline, and the ability to show up on time and work hard.

Regardless of what the “actual elite who run things” prefer, HR pinkhairs are the gatekeepers when it comes to hiring. And while the “actual elite who run things” are preoccupied with running things, the pinkhairs have been busy slicing the salami behind their backs, increasingly prioritising characteristics that are orthogonal to—even negatively associated with—traits such as “discipline, and the ability to show up on time and work hard.”

Likewise, their counterparts in MBA admissions are doing the same.

The actual elite running stuff could give a shit about their pink-haired employees doing whatever; people like them are above ordinary hiring practices. It's middle class strivers who suffer.

The "actual elite who run things" know exactly what the pinkhairs are up to and are fine with it.

But are they well represented in Arlington? What the gp meant was that the elite bled during wwi and ii. Quentin Roosevelt was not some unheard of exception

Many Islamic empires was overthrown this way. The (Egyptian) Mamluks, the Seljuks, Ghaznavids of the top of my head all orginally gain power as the "barbarian" slave armies of previous Islamic dynasties. Even the Ottoman Empire towards the end of its life was engaged in a power struggle with the Janissaries, which were made up of Slavs who were kidnapped as children.

There are probably other examples.

This is correct. The early history of Turks in Islam is basically a repeating pattern of imported hardened Turkic warriors realizing that they don't have to eat shit from their Arab/Persian/Even Turkish patrons since they have all the weapons.

But I would expect people on the right - and I mean all those talking heads, think tanks and high-flying politicians - be interested in figuring out whether DIE actually makes the army stronger - and if not, pushing that fact hard.

My impression of the Anglo world is that establishment conservatives are on the same side as progressives. I just can't explain their actions otherwise.

As in every society everywhere, the fact that they are "establishment" counts much more than the ideology they coalesce around. Humans are very open to changing their minds about philosophical trivia or their lifestyle when maintaining or gaining power and wealth is the expected outcome.

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