LITERALLY, TOO PAROCHIAL:

Resurrecting Christendom: A Blueprint (Timothy R. Furnish, 3/03/08, History News Network)

Indeed, as distasteful as it may be to secular fundamentalists, the only global civilization with the geographical expanse, politico-economic clout and—face it—military heft to put the genie of Islamic expansionism back into its Middle Eastern lamp, and keep it there, is the Christian one. Furthermore, while Europe’s assumption of post-Christian status may be overstated, the fact is that of the world’s nations with the 22 largest Christian populations, only seven are east of the Atlantic and west of the Urals:

1. U.S.: 235 million
2. Brazil: 170 million
3. Mexico: 103 million
4. Russia: 99 million
5. Philippines: 84 million
6. France: 57 million
7. Germany: 56 million
8. Nigeria: 54 million
9. China: 53 million
10. Italy: 51 million
11. Ethiopia: 47 million
12. Congo: 46 million
13. UK: 43 million
14. Colombia: 42 million
15. Ukraine: 42 million
16. Spain: 38 million
17. Argentina: 38 million
18. Poland: 37 million
19. South Africa: 35 million
20. Kenya: 29 million
21. Venezuela: 26 million
22. Canada: 23 million

Here’s how this data translates onto the world map:

The orange Islamic world may control the “heartland” of the Afro-Eurasian landmass, but the blue Christian world dominates most of the rest of the planet (“atheist” China and Hindu India excepted), as well as the seas.

Again, as Pinkerton points out, the purpose of the majority-Christian parts of the planet uniting against the Muslim world would NOT be to impose democracy or in any way to change that civilization—much less to wage a new “Crusade” (although we’d better inure ourselves to that inevitable charge): “not conquest, not occupation, not ‘liberation’” but rather “feasible strategies of containment, even quarantine.” A cordon sanitaire would be created around the Islamic sandbox until Muslims learn to play nice and stop inflicting both their near and far neighbors with anti-democratic, anti-women, anti-tolerance, and anti-modernist ideology—not to mention IEDs, assassinations and plane-bombs. And until that violent minority of Muslims obsessed with creating a global caliphate is eliminated, or at least convinced of the fruitlessness of their quest—hopefully by their own co-religionists, backed up by the resolve and non-interventionist support of the larger Christian world.

Pinkerton calls this the “Shire Strategy”—but there’s a better analogy from Tolkien. Other than four hobbits who rode off to help in the war against the arch-expansionist Sauron, the Shire folk stayed home—fat, happy and clueless about the serious and deadly conflict being fought to protect them. Even Frodo, the hobbit who eventually destroyed the Ring of Power, would never have been able to do so had not Men—dedicated survivors of the destroyed Kingdom of Arnor (called, fortuitously by Tolkien, Rangers!) and committed soldiers from the extant kingdom of Gondor—engaged Sauron’s legions in both covert and overt ops. As Boromir put it at the Council of Elrond: “it is by the blood of our people that your lands are kept safe.” Rather than Pinkerton’s Shire Strategy, we should envision the rather more muscular Gondor Strategy, which would entail setting a “Watchful Peace” upon the bloody borders of Islam, as in Tolkien the most poweful human kingdom did against Sauron’s land of Mordor.

This strategy would be implemented by a Global Christian Alliance, formed by representatives from the aforementioned countries with the largest Christian populations, minus the problematic ones: Nigeria (as many Muslims as Christians, thus on the fault line between the civilizations); China (officially Marxist); Congo (too politically weak and unstable); and Kenya (see “Congo”). At first perhaps only one or two official delegates from each nation would be sent to the formative meetings in the de facto, working “capital” of the GCA. Rome is undoubtedly the best location, since the only other truly viable candidate, Jerusalem, might be deemed too hot a political potato (although meeting there would demonstrate the GCA’s dedication to the preservation of Israel). Eventually, as the mechanics of the alliance are ironed out, some sort of proportional representation might well be incorporated, with the U.S. getting the most delegates, followed by Brazil, Mexico, Russia, etc. This would acknowledge the reality of the power differential between the nation-states involved—for this is not a revamped World Council of Churches, but a political and military alliance grounded in a shared Christian culture. [...]

This politically-reunited Christendom would, at a minimum, be worth the effort required to create it for the following reasons:

1. most importantly, staving off the creation of a global caliphate and the destruction of Western civilization as we know it that would follow

2. marrying the superior ELINT (electronic intelligence) and SIGINT (signals intelligence) of the U.S. to the better HUMINT (human intelligence) of member states more used to dealing with the Islamic threat on the ground, such as Russia and Ethiopia

3. reducing tensions and possible hostilities between member states, in general between the four Christian sub-blocs and in particular between neo-Orthodox Russia and the rest of the West

4. subsuming, to some extent, American foreign policy into a joint GCA one might help tame the interventionist, “cowboy” strain of the world’s only hyperpower and allays fears of the dreaded “American Empire” on both the domestic Left and Right and in the rest of the world.

Just as it would make little sense to yoke ourselves to such dying nations as Russia, Germany, and Spain, it would also be foolish not to utilize the non-Christian countries that can help with containment--thus, the incipient Axis of Good that W is forging which already includes Israel, India, Japan, Indonesia, etc. In fact, the most interesting question is whether the newly emerging and empowered Shi'a states (Iran, Iraq, Hezbollahstan) might not be formidable allies against what is basically a Salafist disorder.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2008 7:01 PM