Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Author: Sean Paul Kelley Page 3 of 7

'89-'93 BA History, Houston
'95-'07 Morgan Stanley, Associate Vice President
'99-'02 MS International Relations and Economic Development, Saint Mary's University
'07-'13 International Software Sales Manager, Singapore
'13-'16 MA, History, Thesis on Ancient Silk Road City of Merv, UTSA
Kelley lives in San Antonio, Texas.

What Is Post-Modern Thought?

By

On September 5, 2025

Comments

Until I went back to graduate school 12 years ago, I really had little exposure to post-modern thought. Let’s just say after getting my master’s I’m very familiar with it now. It just wasn’t taught in the 90s when I got my bachelors. But now? I got a rude awakening.

Post-modern thought is not a complete philosophy like say the Enlightenment or the Renaissance, or even Aristotle’s great efforts at systematizing human experience. Nor is it an ideology. What the totality of post-modern thought represents, both its Continental version and its Anglo-American offshoot, is a highly adaptable toolset to critique the modern world, to learn to understand it in very uncomfortable but real ways: a toolset that alters a persons perception away from preconceived notions they are often born and indoctrinated into at an early age, that will inevitably challenge their view of the world and the processes that dominate their lives. But it is not an ideology like capitalism—backed up by the fantasy of Chicago School economics, or socialism or Communism. It is incomplete, not a totality of ideas for living and creating government like the Enlightenment philosophers imagined.

That said, the collection of post-modern thought is a highly worthwhile corpus of texts to read, which soon becomes a very useful toolset to engage in modern and ancient texts, modern media, nationalism and government. At least, that’s been my experience. Yes, I know I kind of repeated myself. Sue me.

Perhaps an example will be efficacious. Let’s go with Foucault’s discussion of the nation owning a person’s biology. An excellent example from my own life is my father had stem cells harvested to rebuild the cartilage in his knee several years ago for a procedure in Mexico. He had the stem cells harvested in the US and they prohibited the export of them to Mexico. So he had to start all over. I can think of many other examples, such as female body autonomy in the United States. I would never have conceived of my own nation owning my biology, but when I consider that corporations can now patent DNA Foucault’s ideas first ring true and second increased my analytical rigor towards just how much power “they” have and how little choice I truly have. Not to mention how my choices are only growing less and less as we go full fascist and I grow older.

Why do I bring this up? I have no idea. It’s 2:11 AM central time and I can’t sleep. My unsleeping brain got stuck on Foucault so I decided to write this up. Maybe I should read some Foucault next time. That guarantees sleep.

Nominal GDP or Purchasing Power Parity

By

On September 5, 2025

Comments

Serious question. In your opinions, dear readers, which is a more accurate measure of an economy: nominal GDP or purchasing power parity? I lean towards PPP myself, as I’ve traveled so much (65 nations and counting) I’ve internalized what the local value of a currency can buy versus what a dollar can by at home. So, I can mentally compare. It just makes more sense than this amorphous nominal GDP. Am I wrong?

Nota bene: Measured by nominal GDP the USA is 25% of the global economy. But,  measured by PPP it is 15%. PPP makes more sense.

Follow Up On My China Post

By

On September 3, 2025

Comments

Someone asked me to back up my claim that since 1976 China has lifted more humans out of poverty than all of nations combined in the entirety of human history. Since it would be hard to go back to Greek and Persian times I made an executive choice (capricious no doubt) to begin with the year 1500.

Global population was estimated tobe between 450-500 million world wide and fully 90% lived in dire, subsistence poverty. You can google those numbers, they are everywhere. So, 50 million humans were not poor at this time. Way to go humanity!

By the year 1900 the worldwide population had grown to between 1.6 to 2 billion. Of those, fully 75% lived in dire subsistence or industrial poverty. Yes, the incipient industrial revolultion had lifted about a quarter out of poverty, some into a middle class, but most fabulously wealthy. At this time between 400-500 million people were not poor. Better but still shitty.

Now, lets talk about China between 1976 and 2018: their standard of living multiplied 26 times. While the United States lifted 28 million people out of poverty between 1945 and 1975, China lifted 800 million people out of poverty between 1976 and 2018.

Now, go back and do the math between 1500-1975 and compare world growth versus Chinese growth between 1976-2018. My claim may not be 100% accurate but it is damn close.

 

Short Addendum To Ian’s Post On the Effectiveness of the Chinese Government

By

On September 2, 2025

Comments

Since 1976, when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, China has lifted more people out of poverty than all other nations combined throughout the entirety of human history.

The US-UK Special Relationship is Officially Dead

By

On July 11, 2025

Comments

I doubt any of you will recall, but in 2003 I wrote a long post over at a different place, that NATO was dead. It was useless, much like the Concert of Europe that emerged after the 1848 Revolutions in Europe recast and sought to revise the settlement of 1815, set up by Castlereagh-Metternich and Talleyrand.

So, today it’s official: the US-UK Special Relationship is dead. It’s been moribund for a long time, since after the Iraqi invasion there was a huge groundswell of UK citizens that resented their country being the American poodle. Lip service was paid, but now, no longer. That the Brits have to turned to the French says a lot.

With the Northwood Declaration the Brits have indicated their nuclear arsenal will no longer be under the unified command of SACEUR. The Brits will instead “Decouple” from the Americans and integrate with their continental ally, France. For decades the UK’s nuclear arsenal was inoperable without the USA, as it is so much based on American technology, command and control dependency, even the Brits boomers (SSBN) are dependent on US technology, namely the UGM-133 Trident II, a submarine launched ballistic missile made for the US and Royal Navies in America.

The UK has four Vanguard-class boomers in service, which each carry a potential total of 16 SLBMs. Each SLBM Is MIRVed, deploying a potential total of 192 nuclear warheads with yields of 100kt each per submarine. In 2021 the government of Boris Johnson implemented a policy of ‘deliberate ambiguity’ so the exact size and scope of the UK’s nuclear arsenal is unknown.

France, like the UK, maintains a small fleet of four Triomphant-class boomers. Each French boomer can carry up to 16 French-made M45 or M51 SLBMs, that are MIRVed, and French warhead yields fall between 150kt-300kt. Both British and French boomers have four torpedo tubes, the French can also launch the Exocte anti-ship missile while underwater. French boomers got some teeth.

France also maintains a small aircraft deliverable stockpile of nuclear weapons. The UK decommissioned their nuclear aircraft years ago. By French and UK law each country must have at least one boomer at sea at all times.

In the video I linked above the Deutsche Welle interviewer asks Phillips O’Brien the main question, “how historically significant this is this shift in nuclear posture from France and the UK?”

Phillips answers with typical British understatement, “well particularly from the UK but also from France because both of their nuclear deterrence particularly the UK has basically been inoperable without the USA that it’s been based on American technology a lot of it and very close cooperation uh and the idea that sort of the British would would go in a way to try and establish a nuclear deterrent that could be operated, developed and operated without the USA would be something quite extraordinary because they’ve not done anything like that before. I think it’s a sign that the United States is no longer seen as quite a reliable defense partner.”

This is decline observable in real time. This is the world that Trump has created. The nation that I once called the USS Unsinkable, no longer finds the US a reliable security partner. Imagine what our allies in Asia are thinking?

The Northwood Declaration is a concrete manifestation of how the rest of the world now sees the United States: the primary rogue nation. I knew the world would change a great deal in my lifetime, but I honestly did not think that I would see this. Thirty one years ago this summer I got my first passport and headed to Europe. I remember thinking about my passport as almost like one would think of an American Express card. It was my key to the world and I could go anywhere. That was true until about 10 years ago. What a world we Americans pissed away.

 

As Churchill once said, “friends are not permanent, interests are.”

Equal Tests For Men and Women in Front Line Combat Roles: Progress or Regression?

By

On July 10, 2025

Comments

There has been a lot of back and forth about men and women being tested equally for front line combat roles.

First, let me make it very clear, I am one hundred percent for equality between men and women. I’ve worked under women bosses, had no issue with it. While at Morgan Stanley I had a woman business partner for a year and a half. It was a very sucessful relationship, we’re still friends.

I’ve learned a lot from the women in my life, begining with my mother; the vast majority of which has added significant value to my life. And although I can’t say much nice about my two ex-wives: I learned hard lessons from each of them as well.

Finally, I’ve no issue with men and women serving in combat roles together on the front lines. To put it at its most crude: a woman can stop a bullet just as well as I can.  But, and it is a big one, in any physical role in which men and women serve together as physical equals, they must be physical equals. Full stop.

So, this new army fitness test rolling out this summer is a very good outcome. 

Disagree? Please explain then.

If you’ve read this far, and you’ve read some of my articles and most if not all of Ian’s, then you might wish to Subscribe or donate. Ian has written over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, need the money to keep the shop running. So please, consider it.

Verdun Then and Now

By

On July 1, 2025

Comments

Thirty-one years ago on my first trip overseas I visited Verdun in France. Specifically to see the battlefield of Verdun, where von Falkenhayn sought to bleed the French white. From 21 February 1916 to 18 December 1916, 9 months, 3 weeks and 6 days the Boche–the term the French used for the Germans–did exactly that. I’d written my senior’s honor thesis in history on Verdun and felt it was right to visit.

Fallen Lion of France at the Verdun Battlefield

I’m not going to go into too much detail. You can read about it in its fullness here. I only want to add a few things. First, this was the first time any general attempted a strategy of attrition. Some of what Grant did during the Wilderness and the siege of Fredricksburg is semi-attritional, but it wasn’t Grant’s spoken intent as it was the explicit aim of the Cheif of the German General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn’s. He knew he could not break through the ring of forts surrounding the Meuse Heights and the medieval city of Verdun. His aim was to take the heights and dig in and then take the strategic defensive, forcing France to regain her honor at any cost. 50 German divisions squared off against 75 French. von Falkenhayn succeeded in forcing France’s hand, certainly. In the end his strategy was a failure and he was dismissed by the Kaiser and replaced by Ludendorff and Hindenburg, who quickly established a military dictatorship over the Second Reich for the remainder of the war. Needless to say that over a million men–French and German–died fighting in the trenches along and up the heights and into the forts Douamont and Vaux trading them back several times.

Fort Douamont on the Meuse Heights

If the Miracle on the Marne was the most important battle of the 20th century–and it was we ought paraphrase Churchill and call it France’s finest hour. That being so makes the Battle of Verdun one the finest last stands in the annals of human endeavor. To a man the good, stolid French poilus stood and died in the mud, the filth, the lice, the decaying bodies and the artillery shells shattering overhead all day long, every day for almost a year.

When I visited in 1994 I walked from the city of Verdun all the way up the heights along the single supply route the French called the “voie sacrée” – the sacred way. It was ten miles there and ten miles back. A long day. I walked through trenches, both forts Douamont and Vaux and at the end of the day I walked, rather solemnly through the hallowed arches of the Ossuary, which holds the bones of over 130,000 unidentified French and German soldiers. There was no entrance fee for anything and I was free to roam just about anywhere I wished, except when I saw signs that declared, “Non! Munitions non explosées!” Unexploded ordnance, still active almost a hundred years after being fired.

Ossuary of Verdun

So this morning I watched a video made by a young French woman of the battlefield and its environs. A lot has changed. There is a new, modern museum, and to walk the grounds and see the museum cost about $20. The young woman does an admirable job of guiding the viewer through the most important parts of what I now guess is a monument park of sorts called Mémorial de Verdun Champ de bataille. She’s tactful, sincere, respectful and cognizant of the sacrifice the men made for her. She honors them in her own way. I was pleased to see their sacrifice is still remembered and revered. (As some of you may recall, I had the good fortune to befriend an American WWI veteran in the 1990s before he passed away. So, WWI is important to me, I carry the memory of one of the last American soldiers to fight in the war and I cherish that memory.) She also pays her respects to the Germans who fell during the battle (part of the site was re-dedicated in the 50’s after the Franco-German rapproachment after WWII). She even visited the graves of our doughboys who fought in the area in 1918.

In all honesty, I can’t say I would have enjoyed walking through the museum. Of course seeing the uniforms and the kit of the poilus was fascinating, but there was a rich, chilling awe of gravitas to my imagination that day as I walked through the empty echoing halls of forts Douamont and Vaux. There were no wax figures as there are now. Only a haunting silence. If I listened closely enough I could almost hear the distant echoes of incoming artillery. The shots of mausers. The cracks of the countering French Berthiers. And the loud pops and booms of French and German grenades.

Sometimes less is more.

Regardless, it was an unforgetable experience.

The Changing Interpretations of Gobekli Tepe

By

On June 30, 2025

Comments

The foreman in 2008 and his sons offer me tea.

Before Gobekli Tepe became an internet sensation due to psuedo-archeologist Graham Hancock, I visited the site in 2008. That was 17 years ago. It was not a tourist site at the time, it was a working archeological dig. I was greeted by the foreman, and I asked if I could take photos. He said yes, and I did. Some of you might recall them. Here is what it looked like then, and here is a link to the photos:

Gobekli Tepe in 2008

Here is how awful it looks now:

Gobekli Tepe at present

That’s a lot of change. The Turkish government co-opted it for its own reasons and turned it into a Kurdish-region mega-tourist attraction in as a way of asserting some control, but also as a way of dishing out some money to keep the Kurds, at the very least, content. Gobekli Tepe has nothing to do with Turkish history. The site dates back to the Younger Dryas, or, the last Ice Age — it probably dates back further than that. The first interpretation was that it turned our idea of civilization on its head. It went like this: “Before Gobekli Tepe man built the city and then the temple. But at Gobekli they believed the temple came first.” I felt it a compelling reason and I’m a touch saddened it has been revised. But that is how empircal data works. This view has now been revised. Here is a shortish video discussing the dating issues. A key point he makes in his video is that there is real specialization in labor. A division in labor. Not a collection of hunter gathers but proto-civilization, if you will. If you really want to do a deep dive on this very important subject I cannot recommend Ancient Architects highly enough. This video and this video are a great place to begin. What ever you do, do not listen to Graham Hancock. He is full of shit. The bottom line is that Gobekli Tepe is only one site now considered a part of the Taş Tepeler civilization in the highlands of southern Anatolia. There are between 40-80 sites in a 250 square mile area in the highlands above the headwaters of the Balikh River and the Harran Plain–Turkey’s gateway to Mesopotamia–and where the Roman general Crassus died at the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.

The battlefield of Carrhae, where Crassus died, smack in the middle of Turkish Mesopotamia.

That’s simply huge. And that there was lots of trial and error going on there about domesticating all kinds of things. Plus, pottery has been found and dated at one site to the pre-pottery neolithic! I recommend we rename the pretty pottery neolithic to something else, please?

Last thought, Slovenian political scientist Samo Burja has an absolutely compelling essay based on Gobekli Tepe and other archeological sites on how civilization might be very much older than we currently believe. He speculates there is a real possibility that in our lifetimes we might discover attempts at it close to 100,000 years old. Given what I have seen, I would not be surprised if he were very close to correct.

Give some of the videos a watch if your inclined in the speculation on our origins, like I am.

If you’ve read this far, and you read a lot of this site’s articles, you might wish to Subscribe or donate. The site has over over 3,500 posts, and the site, and Ian, take money to run.

Page 3 of 7

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén