Welcome to the Age of Strategic Triage
A member of the U.S. Ceremonial Guard Drill Team during training. Flickr/U.S. Department of Defense
Marc GenestJames Holmes
The next U.S. president will have to face the harsh reality of a war-weary public, contentious domestic politics, uneven economic growth, and a world in which America’s influence seems to be fading. Regardless of who wins this November’s election, the new administration will be forced to set priorities and concentrate national attention and scarce resources on the serious foreign-policy challenges facing this country.
Governing requires hard decisions concerning whether to maintain, expand, or shed commitments. The new administration will have to address questions pertaining to reducing operations in Afghanistan, maintaining obligations in Iraq, and expanding security commitments in the South China Sea. U.S. leaders must constantly evaluate the costs, risks, and potential benefits connected with the myriad of competing interests facing this country. Some obligations may promise too little gain to justify their expense in lives and resources. Others drag on, trying popular and elite patience. Some outlive their usefulness, siphoning resources from more pressing commitments.
Source URL (retrieved on August 24, 2016): http://nationalinterest.org/feature/welcome-the-age-strategic-triage-17450
Well, for starters, if the Government would stop battering the productive with regulations, quit encumbering them with requirements, and quit looting the productive to subsidize the lack of productivity, there might be enough capital around for the private sector to make improvements and expand business. If that happened, and government spent the money it got on the duties assigned in the Constitution instead of worry about what my grandkids eat for lunch in school or how much water my toilet flushes, things would work a mite better.
Governing requires hard decisions concerning whether to maintain, expand, or shed commitments.
--be those foreign or domestic.
Because of the 'great society', we have gone from the strategic triad to strategic triage.
If we are going to fight a war, go there, kick a$$, break some stuff, and come home. Let them replace that with the sort of nation they want to live in, and if that becomes a threat, hit 'em again, harder.
All this 'lingering conflict' stuff does is wear out good people and their equipment.
