The Illusion of Peacetime

[Bob's World]

America is a nation at peace. Period.

We have interests in competition with a wide range of actors in a wide range of forms. But we are a nation at peace.

This call for perpetual war is far more dangerous than a naïve belief that peace means absence of conflict. If everything is war, then nothing is war.

America's biggest problem is not perpetual war; our biggest problem is that we think being a global leader means being in charge of everything and enforcing a family rules made up by us to facilitate our success.

We need to change our scope. We need to stop leading like the worst 2LT in the battalion who makes rules he is either unable or unwilling to enforce; attempts to exercise control over everything in his domain; delegates nothing; and is constantly telling everyone that he is in charge.

America's problem is not that we are at war with the world, or that the world is at war with us. Our problem is that we don't know how to be America in the world as it actually exists.