Then help direct it where you want it to go
by gregmorrissey (2024-02-08 12:08:11)

In reply to: Quite frankly, yes.  posted by BeijingIrish


Instead we got the equivalent of a tsk, tsk.

I didn't post or imply that the border isn't a vital national security interest. I said it's "generally unrelated" to your broader post. I guess it's up to you to decide if you feel differently that discussing Middle East strategy and it's interplay with Eastern Europe/Russia or Southeast Asia should naturally segue to our southern border security.

As for the deep well of foreign affairs expertise here, I'll just point out that the three posters you noted all participated in the thread as did the handful of others that I would hope or expect to participate. Beyond those, I'm sure there are many others with expertise or insightful thoughts. They just don't regularly contribute to the board.


High dudgeon and feelings and advice and mistakes

My last paragraph was not an emotional throwaway or a response in "high dudgeon". Kevin and WilfordBrimley touched on it a bit in their subthread. I just took it to an extreme end. If we're talking "strategy" then I'd suggest it would behoove us to start with "does it matter?". I don't mean this in the nihilist "in the end we're all dead anyway" viewpoint, but rather to extrapolate out the "what if we don't do anything" scenarios. Where do our feelings diverge from reality?

Change is uncomfortable and painful, so we place excess value on stability and expend excessive energy on trying to maintain stability. This happens in everything. Often, we lament the change (since we're lamenting it, it's invariably a change for the worse) as a failure to act, but just as often, if not more so, the change is a result of action -- just the wrong action. I'll also note that we rarely celebrate changes for the better in the moment. We bemoan them and only after time and reflection and experiencing the benefits do we concede "that was a good change".


So, I'll reword my ending paragraph...

If Russia takes over Ukraine, how does it affect our vital national security interests? Does it empower Iran? Does it empower China? In the inverse, does us stepping up more forcefully to help Ukraine also put Iran and China in check or does it make them think we're distracted? Flip flop Ukraine with Taiwan or Israel and Russia with China and Iran as desired.

If we do nothing, how does it affect our vital national security interests? Is it a sign of weakness or a sign of focus?


I don't think there are clear actions to take, so we do what we've been doing --- help Ukraine but keep our troops out officially, bomb the desert, try to calm Israel down. It may not feel like action, but no action is probably our best move.