Uhuh, fine. Yes I read Tom Clancy, but I also read real world analysis. And are you telling me we never f’d up like idiots ? Would this have been your reasoning after Bay of Pings, Vietnam retreat, Iran hostage crisis, and a number of other screwups ?
Real crises in the world are borne of being wrong how much it really matters to the other guy. And then you’re all of a sudden locked in a course you cannot change. I believe we’re seeing a things play out that have been set in motion in ‘91, and that our ‘smart guys’ are misreading Russian resolve on this issue.
>>And are you telling me we never f’d up like idiots ?<<
Nope. We do it all the time. But what do either of us mean by “we”. After all, none of the decision makers here were a part of the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
But ultimately, we are a little like the grunt in the trench second guessing our generals, not knowing that our particular group is a mere diversion. Or it could be Galipoli.
We won’t know until after the fact, and even then we may think it went badly when it actually would have gone far worse if we had NOT done what we did. Sometimes we never really know what “good” long term consequences came from apparent boneheaded decisions.
It really is like chess.