President Barack Obama has repeatedly failed to learn the lessons of history and the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli.  As a result, he has once again allowed Republicans to place the nation in mortal peril.

On December 13, the U.S. Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund almost the entire government through the September 30 end of the fiscal year.

But one Federal agency was pointedly exempted from full funding: The Department of Homeland  Security (DHS).

President Obama had requested $38.2 billion to fund DHS through fiscal year 2015. Republicans have ensured that its money will run out on February 27.

In 2015, Republicans will hold both the House and Senate.  And that’s when they will hold the security of the United States as a hostage–to force Obama to rescind the changes he has made in American immigration policy.

It will be Homeland Security that’s charged with implementing that policy. And Republicans intend to strip it of funding to implement that policy.

And if that means allowing DHS to “twist slowly, slowly in the wind” (to use a phrase made infamous by the Nixon administration) while Republicans play out their latest power-game, so be it.

This is no small matter.

With more than 240,000 employees, DHS is the third largest Cabinet department, after the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The Defense Department is charged with military actions abroad.  DHS is responsible for protecting the United States inside and outside its borders.

Its goal is to prepare for, prevent and–if prevention fails–respond to man-made accidents, natural disasters and terrorism.

Among the agencies now operating under its mandate:

• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• U.S. Coast Guard
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA)
• U.S. Secret Service
• Science and Technology Directorate
• Domestic Nuclear Detection Office
• Office of Intelligence and Analysis
• Office of Operations Coordination and Planning

Some of these agencies–like FEMA, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service–are well-known.  Others–such as the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office–are not.

Click here: Department Components | Homeland Security

Yet each has a vital role to play in protecting the nation.  A nation whose security Republicans are willing to threaten to get their way on a matter of domestic policy.

Ironically, it was a Republican President–George W. Bush–who launched DHS after the catastrophic 9/11 attacks.

It’s become fashionable in both Democratic and Republican parties to bash “Washington,” as though it’s a foreign entity waging war on a helpless American populace.

But consider the implications if there is no

• Secret Service to protect the President;
• TSA to ensure the safety of airline passengers;
• FEMA to respond to national emergencies (such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy);
• Domestic Nuclear Detection Office to prevent nuclear terrorism;
• Coast Guard to save those in ocean peril and defend our maritime borders.

President Bush learned–the hard way–what it means to have an ineffective FEMA.  The disastrous response to the 2005 flooding of New Orleans severely crippled Bush’s popularity for the rest of his term.

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

By contrast, FEMA’s effective response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 went a long way to ensuring the re-election of President Obama.

But DHS is best-known for its mission to prevent terrorist attacks on America.  And America may well be in the crosshairs of North Korean terrorism at this very moment.

On December 17, Sony Pictures cancelled the Christmas Day premier of “The Interview” after the nation’s five largest movie chains refused to show the movie, following a terror threat posted online.

The movie chains were Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas and Cineplex Entertainment.

“The Interview” is a comedy satirizing the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un by two American journalists.

Poster for “The Interview”

Since November 14, Sony Pictures has been under relentless attack by cyberterrorists, who have been tentatively linked to North Korea.

Calling themselves “Guardians of Peace,” or GOP, they shut down the company’s computer system and revealed employees’ personal information such as salaries, addresses, and Social Security Numbers.

Warning issued by “Guardians of Peace” (GOP)

Five unreleased Sony films–including Brad Pitt’s World War II epic “Fury”–hit the web on copyright-infringing hubs.

Then, on December 16, GOP released its most vivid threat yet:

“We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places ‘The Interview’ be shown, including the premier, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.

“…The world will be full of fear.  Remember the 11th of September 2001.

“We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.  (If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)”

Interestingly, “Guardians of Peace” has appropriated the same abbreviation–GOP–used by the Republicans (for “Grand Old Party”).

If the American GOP has its way and manages to indefinitely suspend the funding for DHS, North Korea’s own GOP may well take full advantage of the situation.

And then the United States will discover that “GOP” spells “terrorist” in both English and Korean.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Barack Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.

Yet he has repeatedly failed to learn from history that appeasing tyrants is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

History’s most infamous example of appeasement occurred in September, 1938, at Munich, Germany.

The prime ministers of England and France–Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, respectively–met with German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler

Hitler had demanded that Czechoslovakia surrender the “Sudetenland”–the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans.

England and France had pledged to defend Czechoslovakia against German attack.  But Chamberlain and Daladier desperately wanted to avoid war with Hitler.

On September 29, Hitler, Daladier and Chamberlain met and signed the Munich Agreement, which accepted the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland.

The Czechoslovak government had not been a party to the talks. Nevertheless, it promised to abide by the agreement.

Facing the threat of a German invasion, it had no choice, having been deserted by its pledged allies.

Chamberlain returned to England a hero.  Holding aloft a copy of the worthless agreement he had signed with Hitler, he told cheering crowds in London: “I believe it is peace for our time.”

Neville Chamberlain

Winston Churchill knew better, predicting: “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.”

Less than one year later, Churchill was proved right.

Hitler next turned his attention–and demands–to Poland.

When his generals balked, warning that an invasion would trigger a war with France and Britain, Hitler quickly brushed aside their fears: “Our enemies are little worms. I saw them at Munich.”

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.  And this time, France and Britain–reluctantly–honored their pledged word to declare war on Germany.

President Obama has repeatedly failed to learn that appeasing tyrants invites their contempt and emboldens their aggression.

In addition, he has failed to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.

In his classic work on politics, The Prince, Machiavelli warns:

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. 

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….

Men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared.  For love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose.  But fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails. 

Obama has failed to heed this advice.  And, predictably, his sworn enemies–which is what Republicans consider themselves to be–have felt free to demonize and obstruct him at every turn.

In 2011, Republicans threatened to destroy the Nation’s credit rating unless their budgetary demands were met.  Obama surrendered to their demands.

Yet he could have ended that threat via the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act

Passed by Congress in 1970, as Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968, its goal was to destroy the Mafia.

Originally, RICO was aimed at the Mafia and other organized crime syndicates.  But inUnited States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576 (1981), the Supreme Court held that RICO applied as well to legitimate enterprises being operated in a criminal manner.

After Turkette, RICO could also be used against corporations, political protest groups, labor unions and loosely knit-groups of people.

RICO opens with a series of definitions of “racketeering activity” which can be prosecuted by Justice Department attorneys.  Among those crimes: Extortion.

Extortion is defined as “a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion.”

The RICO Act defines “a pattern of racketeering activity” as “at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of this chapter and the last of which occurred within ten years…after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.”

And if President Obama had believed that RICO was not sufficient to deal with Republicans’ extortion attempts, he could have relied on the USA Patriot Act of 2001, passed in the wake of 9/11.

In Section 802, the Act defines domestic terrorism.  Among the behavior that is defined as criminal:

“Activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

The remedies for punishing such criminal behavior were legally in place.   President Obama needed only to direct the Justice Department to apply them.

Criminally investigating and indicting members of Congress would not violate the separation-of-powers principle.  Congressmen have in the past been investigated, indicted and convicted for various criminal offenses.

Such indictments and prosecutions–and especially convictions–would have served notice on current and future members of Congress: The lives and fortunes of American citizens may not be held hostage to gain leverage in a political settlement.

In short, Obama could have replaced the rule of fear with the rule of law.

Instead, he acted like a Chamberlain, when America needed a Churchill.