His All-Holiness wrote an amazing Opt Ed article for the Wall Street Journal: Our Indivisible Environment – If life is sacred, so is the entire web that sustains it. It will be in tomorrow’s paper. View the article here at this link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704500604574485341504345488.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Our Indivisible Environment

By THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW

Last week, 200 leaders in the environmental movement gathered in New Orleans for the eighth ecological symposium organized by the Orthodox Christian Church. Participants included leading scientists and theologians, politicians and policy makers, business leaders and NGOs, environmentalists and journalists. Similar conferences have taken place on the Adriatic, Aegean, Baltic, and Black Seas, the Danube and Amazon Rivers, and the Arctic Ocean. This time we sailed the mighty Mississippi to consider its profound impact on the U.S. and its fate within the global environment.

It may seem out of character for a sacred institution to convene a conference on so secular an issue. After all, Jesus counseled us to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Climate change, pollution and the exploitation of our natural resources are commonly seen as the domain not of priests but rather of politicians, scientists, technocrats or interest groups organized by concerned citizens. What does preserving the planet have to do with saving the soul?

A lot, as it turns out. For if life is sacred, so is the entire web that sustains it. Some of those connections—the effects of overharvesting on the fish populations of the North Atlantic, for example—we understand very well. Others, such as the long-term health impacts of industrialization, we understand less well. But no one doubts that there is a connection and balance among all things animate and inanimate on this third planet from the Sun, and that there is a cost or benefit whenever we tamper with that balance.

Moreover, just as God is indivisible, so too is our global environment. The molecules of water that comprise the great North Atlantic are neither European nor American. The particles of atmosphere above the United Kingdom are neither Labour nor Tory. There can be no double vision, no dualistic worldview. Faith communities and nonbelievers alike must focus on the common issue of the survival of our planet. The natural environment unites us in ways that transcend doctrinal differences.

This is not to negate the need for action by nations, both individually and in concert with other nations. Quite the contrary—they are vital. The Obama administration has committed the United States to a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by the year 2050. And there are growing expectations that meaningful progress can be made in the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled to take place in Copenhagen this December. There are in fact many promising developments on the political front. But it would be a mistake to treat human impact on the environment simply as a political issue. Not only does it have a profoundly spiritual dimension, as we have shown, but that spiritual dimension offers a huge additional lever that can be used to motivate our brothers and sisters around the world to take action on this critical issue.

This is why we call upon leaders of all faiths to involve themselves and their communities in one of the great issues of our time. Ours is a powerful voice. And our belief in the unity and interconnectedness of all things constitutes a strong argument for immediate action.

Is this an issue for Caesar or for God? We believe it must be approached in both its political and spiritual dimensions. Climate change will only be overcome when all of us—scientists and politicians, theologians and economists, specialists and lay citizens—cooperate for the common good.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians. He is the author of “Encountering the Mystery” (Doubleday) and “In the World, Yet Not of the World” (Fordham).

Take Me Back to Constantinople
How Byzantium, not Rome, can help preserve Pax Americana.

BY EDWARD LUTTWAK | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009

Economic crisis, mounting national debt, excessive foreign commitments — this is no way to run an empire. America needs serious strategic counseling. And fast. It has never been Rome, and to adopt its strategies no — its ruthless expansion of empire, domination of foreign peoples, and bone-crushing brand of total war — would only hasten America’s decline. Better instead to look to the empire’s eastern incarnation: Byzantium, which outlasted its Roman predecessor by eight centuries. It is the lessons of Byzantine grand strategy that America must rediscover today.

Fortunately, the Byzantines are far easier to learn from than the Romans, who left virtually no written legacy of their strategy and tactics, just textual fragments and one bookish compilation by Vegetius, who knew little about statecraft or war. The Byzantines, however, wrote it all down — their techniques of persuasion, intelligence gathering, strategic thinking, tactical doctrines, and operational methods. All of this is laid out clearly in a series of surviving Byzantine military manuals and a major guidebook on statecraft.

I’ve spent the past two decades poring over these texts to compile a study of Byzantine grand strategy. The United States would do well to heed the following seven lessons if it wishes to remain a great power:

I. Avoid war by every possible means, in all possible circumstances, but always act as if war might start at any time. Train intensively and be ready for battle at all times — but do not be eager to fight. The highest purpose of combat readiness is to reduce the probability of having to fight.

II. Gather intelligence on the enemy and his mentality, and monitor his actions continuously. Efforts to do so by all possible means might not be very productive, but they are seldom wasted.

III. Campaign vigorously, both offensively and defensively, but avoid battles, especially large-scale battles, except in very favorable circumstances. Don’t think like the Romans, who viewed persuasion as just an adjunct to force. Instead, employ force in the smallest possible doses to help persuade the persuadable and harm those not yet amenable to persuasion.

IV. Replace the battle of attrition and occupation of countries with maneuver warfare — lightning strikes and offensive raids to disrupt enemies, followed by rapid withdrawals. The object is not to destroy your enemies, because they can become tomorrow’s allies. A multiplicity of enemies can be less of a threat than just one, so long as they can be persuaded to attack one another.

V. Strive to end wars successfully by recruiting allies to change the balance of power. Diplomacy is even more important during war than peace. Reject, as the Byzantines did, the foolish aphorism that when the guns speak, diplomats fall silent. The most useful allies are those nearest to the enemy, for they know how best to fight his forces.

VI. Subversion is the cheapest path to victory. So cheap, in fact, as compared with the costs and risks of battle, that it must always be attempted, even with the most seemingly irreconcilable enemies. Remember: Even religious fanatics can be bribed, as the Byzantines were some of the first to discover, because zealots can be quite creative in inventing religious justifications for betraying their own cause (“since the ultimate victory of Islam is inevitable anyway …”).

VII. When diplomacy and subversion are not enough and fighting is unavoidable, use methods and tactics that exploit enemy weaknesses, avoid consuming combat forces, and patiently whittle down the enemy’s strength. This might require much time. But there is no urgency because as soon as one enemy is no more, another will surely take his place. All is constantly changing as rulers and nations rise and fall. Only the empire is eternal — if, that is, it does not exhaust itself.

Edward Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire.

I would like to get started blogging again but don’t know where to start. Any ideas? I first started this blog to share my personal experience growing up in the Orthodox Church and it slowly also became to be more about my family, kids, education and a bit of politics. Now many of my friends that were interested in reading my blog are now Orthodox themselves and I am very proud of them and the local Orthodox Churches they become a part of. I am really out of the blogging flow. The past year or so I have streamlined my on line activities and communication with all my dear online friends to facebook. I definitely could use a new header and a more updated design. Any volunteers to design me something fresh and new? I hope to get my blogging mojo back. The kids have grown and changed so much since this blog began. If anyone knows away for me to make my blog into a keepsake book for my kids, please let me know. Last I checked with blurb it they weren’t Xanga compatible. Also, I switched back to Mac since I first began this blog. On my MacBook my Xanga blog doesn’t format the same way and the fonts appear different.

ETA: I could also use an editor/proof reader. lol! I have come back to this post three times to correct small mistakes.