A Loss of Clarity in a Confusing World
Americans have a hard time dealing with nuance. We love black and white and we need clarity on good guys versus bad guys. Maybe it’s the byproduct of Hollywood’s Cowboys and Indians movies, professional wrestling’s heels versus baby faces, or because we have been told to ‘root root root for the home team.’ And it certainly doesn’t help when President George W. Bush tells the world “you’re either with us or against us.” Seemingly, during the 1 st half of the 20 th century things indeed were simpler, we fought the Huns, the Nazis, and the Japanese. We were attacked and responded with fierce determined force; it was black and white. But things started getting cloudier soon after, and perhaps ignoring President Eisenhower’s dire warning of the ‘military industrial complex’ we chose to rely almost exclusively on military solutions as opposed to diplomatic solutions. We had no long game, just short game. And as we have seen in the last twenty years, t...