Getting beyond the daily concern over the immediate details of the Islamoterror War, it is instructive to back up, and take a look at “the big picture” of the Great War on Terror (* GWOT) in a historical and strategic sense.

The Chief humbly offers this posting from the Gates of Vienna blog as being a worth while offering towards doing this.

Islamic Jihad vs. the Western Way of War

I [written by a noted Norwegian blogger posting as Fjordman] had a conversation recently with a good friend of mine regarding the situation in Western Europe, with rapidly rising ethnic and religious tensions caused by mass immigration. Historically, the usual situation is that Muslims keep the lands they have taken possession of. There are a few exceptions, for instance with the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula, but this took centuries. If this pattern still holds up, the situation does admittedly look bleak.

The problem is that the circumstances this time around are very special. We are dealing with the unprecedented situation where a militarily inferior group is allowed by the authorities in technologically stronger countries to settle in their lands and harass the local population. Muslims haven’t actually defeated us in warfare. Do the old rules then apply? Nobody knows for certain. It is difficult to predict the future, apart from the fact that there will be a lot of turbulence here in the coming years and decades.

In my book Defeating Eurabia I quoted the American scholar Daniel Pipes, who believes that the decisive events in Europe have yet to take place, perhaps within the next decade or so. As Pipes puts it, the situation is historically unprecedented: “No large territory has ever shifted from one civilization to another by virtue of a collapsed population, faith, and identity; nor has a people risen on so grand a scale to reclaim its patrimony. The novelty and magnitude of Europe’s predicament make it difficult to understand, tempting to overlook, and nearly impossible to predict. Europe marches us all into terra incognita.”

I write about European history in order to gain inspiration from our past so that we can face the future with self-confidence. While reading about our artistic and scientific contributions to world culture is inspiring, we should not leave out our military traditions. They, too, constitute a part of our heritage, and we may soon need to revive some of those traditions.

Go to the original full posting for a lot of details and further analysis…if you have a serious interest in what we REALLY have to consider in dealing with this continuing “long war”.

As an additional historical note, Gates of Vienna takes it’s name from commemorating the successful defense of Vienna against the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1683, which should reinforce for the reader the idea that fighting against Islamic aggression is nothing new, and continues to this day.

This fact remains, in spite of “politically correct” changes in terminology from B.O., Napolitano, et al,and their ilk referring to “overseas contingency operations” and such like, refusing to admit that there IS a continuing (if asymmetric) war declared on us by an Islamic militancy rejuvenated by petrodollars.

They (and we) ignore this cardinal fact at our peril.