February 11, 2023

To continue as a prosperous nation, we must have a “business plan” for national security, which includes foreign policy, to ensure survival and allow us to work towards expanded prosperity.

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National Security means protecting the homeland from internal and external threats. It means secure borders. Truly, it is the government’s primary function, perhaps even the only legitimate function of government. Foreign policy concerns itself with external threats and minimizing such threats. Protecting our homeland does not mean protecting or providing for another nation that offers nothing in return.

Large businesses will often have a three-tiered plan for prosperity, which includes near, mid-term, and long-range goals. It only makes sense. Often, near-term goals dominate government because of election cycles. Thus, we went to war in Vietnam and Iraq for the individual political goals of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush. The costs to our country in terms of treasure and human life were disastrous. You would think we would have learned from those mistakes but, clearly, leadership has not (although I think the American people have).

A good foreign policy requires convincing other nations, the friendly or neutral ones, to work with us to secure our goals, which usually means a concomitant promise to secure their goals.

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What happens, though, when dealing with an adversarial relationship? Must we physically force our will upon the recalcitrant party, or are there other ways?

President Eisenhower avoided war despite the ongoing hostility of the “Cold War.” Richard Nixon ended our mistake in Vietnam. The means was wretched but, still, he ended it. President Reagan toppled the Soviet Union without firing a shot.

Image: Democrat representatives meet with Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022. YouTube screen grab.

Most recently, Donald Trump intuitively understood Chinese Warlord Sun Tzu’s famous dictum, “It is best to win without fighting,” included in Sun Tsu’s still-relevant The Art of War. Therefore, Trump refused senseless military conflict. The current administration has gone on record as saying that, if Trump were president, there would not be fighting in Ukraine—as if that would be a bad thing.

Going back to our “business plan,” who in his right mind would have made Ukraine the centerpiece of America’s foreign policy? This conflict is devolving into the very real threat of nuclear war. Tucker Carlson has been the most visible opponent of this mad war. Meanwhile, the formerly anti-war Democrats are banging the war drums.

While the threat of nuclear war should be at the forefront of America’s concerns, Biden and the war hawks have committed another deadly error in judgment. The government is depleting our necessary weapons supply so substantially that we risk being unable to defend against true threats to our national security interests:

Top officers in the U.S. Navy warn that the Ukraine war is putting a strain on an already stretched industrial base, complaining defense contractors continue to fall behind in keeping up with the Navy’s needs, according to media reports. “If the conflict goes on for another six months to another year, it certainly continues to stress the supply chain in ways that are challenging,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a follow-up to his remarks at the annual Surface Navy Association conference Tuesday.