Sorry. Simply do not agree. Also certainly hope that the old axiom about California is dated, worn and not true.If the country follows the example of California then it is lost. The US can defend itself, stand alone if necessary and can continue to prosper by dealing with only the rational and the friendly. Those that wish us harm need only fear us. We do not have to engage them. Certainly don’t want any more young boys from Kansas to die or become maimed in the Mideast believing that they were defending their own country.
“Those that wish us harm need only fear us.”
Not gonna happen with capacity, alone.
If there is a manifest lack of will to exercise that capacity?
No will.
No fear.
And when nobody’s afraid of us anymore, the world OCONUS descends into chaos and darkness, as it began to do, before.
TWICE.
In the 1940’s we were shaken from out idiocy, and rose in the nick of time to take our place in the assertion of liberty across the globe. But the forces seeking to take it, had only arisen out of their observation of our commitment to focus inward. Our isolationism emboldened formidable enemies of freedom in the world beyond our borders.
Back then, weapons tech was such that our delayed response did not contribute to irrecoverable loss for everyone else on the global stage. We do not now enjoy that same luxury; a global takeover could be implemented with breathtaking speed, and our delayed response would seal the fate of the rest of the world, after which time our own fate would be gravely questionable; perhaps only a matter of time. Our survival — and that of all the fine, young men in Kansas — would be at the highest imaginable expenditure of men and material, and in no wise guaranteed.