Quote Originally Posted by G Martin View Post
...when they write their own threat assessment and campaign plans ... I bet they won't match the ones that back our interests...
Nor should they.

If we could park our egos and our control fetish -- both overweening -- they'd probably get on with it. Our 'interests' there are for the most part fantasies in any event.

Imitation is flattery and that is a form of pandering -- it does no one any favors. We're making precisely the same mistakes we made with the Koreans and with the Viet Namese. Dumbbb. Of course, a cynic might say "but we don't know any better..."

We diligently ignore the fact our 'experience' shows us that trying to change other nations to our models of anything just simply does not work. This cynic says we know better but are afraid to embrace the changes required because that might be seen as an acknowledgement that we've, collectively, gotten a lot of things wrong and given the added fact that change is hard work, it's just easier to do what we've been doing.

No matter how wrong it is.