No, the substantive point is that we need to focus on understanding what our truly vital interests are, and where those interests manifest geo-strategically around the globe (or in space, cyber, etc) and focus our energy there. That allowing emotional, often temporary, feelings of "friend or foe" to get in the way of that is both something that we often do, and something that we should seek to not do.
As an example, our relationships in NEA. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan = "friends"' and China, North Korea, Russia = "foes". We are currently prepared to come to the aid of the friends against those foes if need be. Is that because of vital interests and geo-strategic analysis that is current to the world we live in today, or is it skewed by assessments of such factors that are 50 years out of date and being sustained forward by the inertia of loyalty/enmity?
Certainly Taiwan serves to "contain" China; but that is that still something that we need to be overly focused on? Does not the US possession of Alaska, Hawaii and Guam provide more than adequate assurances that not China, or anyone else, can similarly contain the US?
Yes, North Korea possess nuclear weapons and a large military (the latter that I suspect is as rusty and ineffective as that of Saddam's), but are they really a threat to South Korea, Japan or the US? I seriously doubt they would launch a ground attack into the South, and no nuclear attack they dared launch on Japan could hurt the Japanese worse than they hurt themselves with their recent nuclear accident (though would surely result in a retaliation that would devastate the current North Korean regime).
When I talk to my Air Force and Navy brothers I suggest that we cling to many of these issues because their services rely so heavily on scenarios tied to them to justify much of their current programmatics and budgets. They declare with even greater energy how that is ridiculous and then go into long monologues as to the strategic criticality of various aspects of the status quo. Perhaps they are right, but in an era where military belt tightening is in order, just as shrinking the Army makes a lot of sense, so too does updating policies and associated plans that might drive us into costly forays that are unnecessary in the current global environment. I just don't think we need to use the Cold War to validate the Navy or the Air Force, and we build a better version of both if it is validated by an updated set of geostrategic priorities.
I would just like to see us take a fresh look. Start with a blank globe and build up from there in terms of shaping our geo-strategic priorities. Clean some of the boogie men out of our closets, and run some of the extended stay house guests out who have been sponging off our good graces and our happy to do so so long as we lack the will to cut off the free room and board. Do this all at once, like yanking off a band-aid, its better than slowly dragging it out for fear of if it will hurt or not.
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