The troubles we’re confronting at home are so many it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s understandable that most voter attention is focused here. We talk mainly about the consequences -- none good -- to the economy, the border, and crime should Biden -- contrary to the glaring, ongoing polling trends against him -- win reelection.
War -- not civil war, which is predicated on a lot of maybes -- is mentioned as a possibility if Biden returns to the White House. But it’s primarily a background consideration. It shouldn’t be.
War with Russia or China or both may not be something that Democrats want exactly, but their brazen arrogance, along with documented incompetence (the Afghanistan debacle) and a rightly perceived corrupted worldview, make those pulling Biden’s strings capable of catastrophic blunders. Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and the entire apparatus at the Department of State are Lilliputians. Statecraft is beyond their scope.
Then there are the neocons -- warmongers like Bill Kristol -- who, in part, have taken up residence among Democrats. The Democrats’ missionary zeal -- making the world safe for LGBTQIA and slaying climate monsters -- have dovetailed with the cynicism and sanctimony of neocons calling to remake the world in America’s image (while making other countries U.S. vassals).
Richard Nixon may be remembered for the Watergate break-in but needs to be better recalled for America’s phased extraction from LBJ’s Vietnam debacle while keeping the communist North in check. Nixon (and Kissinger) played the China card masterfully. The opening to China proved critical in bringing initial pressures to bear on the Soviet Union that led to its collapse in 1991.
The Democrat Party is distressingly free from people with strong strategic abilities. Diplomacy and projecting resolve in ways that define parameters, dangle carrots, while walking softly -- big stick in hand -- is beyond them. Donald Trump ran circles around all of them during his presidency. The GOP has jingoists, too. Lindsey Graham is conspicuous, as is what remains of Mitch McConnell. House Republican committee chairs Michael McCaul (Foreign Affairs) and Michael Turner (Intelligence) are reflexive........