...only that we have a duty to understand what it is that actually must be done in order to get off of the path to instability, and onto the path toward stability. In the end, the Host nation must choose the path, and take their own journey. If we make the decision for them, or carry them down the path it is not likely to be an effective engagement as it will lack the legitimacy of self determination and popular sovereignty.
I post these thoughts not to prescribe what we must do, only to help us understand what must be done. There is a difference. Less is more. We over engage currently, often in the wrong places and in ineffective ways. DOD is reconfiguring itself currently to go even deeper down this path, I understand why they are doing that (we need to do something, and DOD is an action organization), but I believe the nuances of how to achieve success are not well represented by organizations such as CNAS that has the SEC DEF's ear.
This will all balance out, an over correction is probably better than no correction at all. But I believe that COL Gentile plays a critical role as well, in persistently reminding that there are still states that must be deterred, and wars that will need to be fought when deterrence fails. I would add to that that we must evolve to learn how to expand deterrence in new ways beyond state structures as we move into the future. We are indeed in an age of strategic uncertainty, where we end up on the other side will depend on how well we navigate in the fog and darkness, and how well we can focus on where we are going, not on where we came from.
Powers rise and fall in these historic cycles of uncertainty, and arguably the US was the first power to rise in the current cycle, and we need two hands to count all of those that have fallen. This cycle is likely to be several generations long, so the question is not who was first to rise, but rather who will be last. I believe that the US, for all of its current challenges has the best prospects to be last man standing; but only if we remain committed to our principles as a nation that brought us here (not the current values we assess to those principles), and continue to embrace change. To resist it and seek to consolidate and hold the world static is to be bypassed or defeated by those who continue to press.
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