America and Europe are in trouble. The layperson just can’t see this yet.
We (the US) are looking for quick and easy solutions in order to disengage. These issues are dealt with in a limited response approach and we avoid escalation. Every course of action chosen is the lowest risk option, not the one of highest gain. We are dealing with many of these threats as if they can be managed and contained. Rhetoric and polemics are dispensed in great amounts, as if these are solutions in and of themselves.
Isolationism is a pipe dream that does not work and today our entire security focus is defensive. Conflicts are not won through the defense, at best this long terms achieves a stalemate. The boxer unwilling to punch back, at best can hope not to get knocked out, but he will never win. While it sounds like an oxymoron/contradiction or euphemism, you can go on the offense in a defensive war, either by first strike or territory fought on. It is by going on the offense where one gains the initiative, defines the battle-space, gains a psychological advantage, and ultimately can bring about a positive ending.
We will see the fruits of the American and European unwillingness to really deal with these threats soon enough. The great walls of Constantinople, that is our solution; through a massive intelligence apparatus, organizations like DHS/TSA, rolling back civil liberties, we have created a modern day version. Do I need to explain what happened to those walls?
This cannot end good.
Good analysis. Offence is the best defense.
Is any wonder the U.S. is hated around the world, dictating WHO has to go = slaughtered; Yugoslavia/Serbia, Libya, Syria, Iraq and other Heads of States, bombing the hell out of them???
President Reagan did it the right way with Gorbachev and he was not killed!!!