One of the chief supporting arguments of globalization is that, in an era in which war between great powers is no longer conceivable, free trade between all countries is now desirable, in as great a quantity as is possible, because trade is a positive sum game that generates gains for everyone.

Within its confines, this logical argument isn’t refutable. But when the sub-component facts change, so does the validity of the overall argument. If war between great powers actually is conceivable, even likely and ongoing in a covert manner, then open trade between possible enemies is a great danger: you could simply be feeding in to the economic development of your own enemy, selling him the guns and bullets with which he will use to shoot you tomorrow.

In such an environment, trade is still absolutely necessary, just as it has been necessary since the dawn of civilization. However, promiscuous trade becomes much dumber than it was before, and maintaining some measure of autarky as a fail-safe for times of war begins to make more logical sense.

In effect, the United States has accepted as logically and permanently true that war between great powers is over thanks to the theory of mutually assured destruction. It considers the record since 1945 as proof of this theory, and especially the record since the early 1990s as further ratification of its solidity as a guide to action.

Most of the arguments around free trade in the United States are of a torpid quality, because they either rest on impossible assumptions (a war-free world for the foreseeable future) or logically invalid propositions (like arguments against the positive-sum nature of trade). In modern America, as with everywhere else, there’s a tendency towards going after lazy solutions that can be simplified for the TV audience. Why international diplomacy has always been so complicated is because of these complex needs to balance the goods of trade with the risks of war.

In a magically perfect free-trade world, there is no reason to worry about the balance of trade. In a world in which war is always a risk to be calculated, then the balance of trade and what goods are traded suddenly takes enormous importance. For example, Japan’s dearth of oil supplies once the US began to cut its trade routes shortly before WWII was critical enough to encourage the former country to ambush Pearl Harbor. The lack of that particular good, and the diplomatic incapacity for Japan to secure adequate substitutes, changed the course of history. Perhaps if they had known about the existence of the Daqing field, not discovered until the late 1950s, they would not have needed to bother with the US. But they didn’t know, and they didn’t have a network of strong foreign allies to fall back on.

In a world of theory, you could ask why Japan didn’t simply trade for oil. The answer is that they tried, but Yankees embargoed all their boats, and most of their previous existing trade relationships were with Americans.

As we enter into an era of renewed conflict between great powers, the stuffy pre-Globalization concerns about free trade must begin to loom larger. One can argue for world peace as much as one likes, but maintaining it isn’t possible given the many conflicts that divide the human species.

The computerized fiat money system which encourages de-industrialization in the West becomes much weaker when it must go up against competition through gold-backed monetary systems. An empire can force the use of its coin upon its subjects. A shadow of a former empire is not capable of such a thing.

Whereas for generations now, the American financial elite has reaped profits by dismantling domestic industry, collecting an exorbitant privilege of being the first-users of the inflationary global money supply, that exorbitant privilege is likely to reverse into a horrible disadvantage, as those with the actual physical stock of productive capital equipment will have a trump hand to play against those who only own paper claims to symbolic capital.

The Islamic State puts Western democracies into a difficult position.

Since World War II, governments have decided to construct massive oil-hungry infrastructures. There are many problems with this infrastructure that are beyond the scope of this post to get into. Due to this reliance on oil, these countries with oil-dependent public infrastructure have had to pay more diplomatic attention to the Middle East than they might otherwise want to. The effective politicking of the global Jewish community has also encouraged unusual affinity towards Israel, a new state formed from previously British territory in the special context of the postwar period.

Further, the modern European governments and the US have imported vast numbers of Muslim workers through their open immigration policies, pursued since the 1960s. Elites pursued these policies in response to falling birth rates, and, initially, especially in countries like West Germany, thought that they would be temporary guest worker programs.

The effect of this is that we have Muslim populations distributed worldwide that are sympathetic or overtly affiliated with the new Islamic State, which claims to be a caliphate, with good reason.

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the Western government pursued a policy that promoted a ‘tolerant’ variety of Islam that has no historic roots, much like the ‘tolerant’ universalist version of Christianity has shallow roots.

This plant, tended to with great care and trillions of dollars, has not taken root anywhere that it has been planted.

The Islamic State has openly baited the United States to attack it multiple times. The US will likely take this bait. It is mistaken to take this bait, if only for the reason that ceding the initiative to an enemy is always a mistake. Taking this bait also risks making even more of a mess of world diplomacy.

This new state does not pose a direct threat to American interests. The only way that it can pose an indirect threat is through terrorism, which only remains dangerous thanks to the American open immigration policy, which welcomes Muslims, Arabs, and countless other foreigners onto American soil, granting them America’s over-generous host of rights without obligations.

The way to neutralize this threat is to end the open immigration policy, which is of recent vintage, regardless of whatever consequences there might be to foreign relations in the short run. This might also need to be accompanied by deportations and some measure of illiberal segregation against people of the Muslim faith, particularly Arab Sunnis. This would be regrettable and shameful, but necessary.

It could be possible to frame this change in the context of fiscal responsibility and of reducing the need to maintain an enormous and intrusive internal security state. We can no longer bear the material and moral costs of fighting war internationally and maintaining a police state at home.

I would argue that it is much crazier to spy upon the domestic Muslim population illegally than it is to detain and deport them through a legal process. It’s also far more illiberal to monitor and interfere with the lives of supposed citizens based on their religion while legally guaranteeing that religion the same rights as everyone else. In the spirit of formalization, we should speak honestly about how we treat different classes of people with respect to the law. If we were to formalize what is already being done illegally, the debate would look quite different.

Because it isn’t practical to treat Muslims the same as everyone else under the law, because we have shown ourselves to be incapable of safely treating them equally under the law, we must formalize the discrimination if we are to maintain the integrity of our legal system.

What we have currently is corrupt: a system that purports to be color blind that in fact subjects Muslims and non-Muslims from Islamic territories to harassment and extralegal surveillance. It is both better for security and for rule of law to perform these processes above the board.

This is necessary for all of the different ethnic and religious groups in the United States and throughout Europe. Muslims aren’t completely special in this regard. Excessive diversity makes governance excessively challenging and less effective than it could be otherwise. Ironclad segregation is not entirely necessary in all places and with all people, but it is prudent in this particular case, probably more so than it was prudent to place the Japanese within internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I’m comfortable that this advice will not be followed, because the Western governments have over-committed to a multicultural doctrine. What’s instead likely to happen is that the US will bomb the Islamic State, delay aground invasion, attempt to ally with hostile groups overseas ineffectively, and provoke terrorist attacks on Western innocents through these errors.

The Islamic State and its allies will be able to manipulate Western governments into behaving in exactly the way that it wants them to behave.

This loop will intensify until the Western democratic governments begin to flop over due to financial and moral exhaustion.

The best way to neutralize the threat that they pose is to disengage from the region and to return to our domestic affairs.

The US and other Western governments are particularly incapable of effectively fighting the Islamic State, and in any case, it’s not in our direct interest to do so. We must pursue a more honest domestic political strategy before we can even begin to confront the Islamic State internationally.