At the heart of governments success or failure are their basic function : Security and prosperity, law and order, justice and fairness. Government support arise from the credibility of their ability to achieve these goals and is determined by trust and confidence in their abilities to do so. Obtaining and maintaining this support is a necessary requirement to success. Failure is visible and objective, ultimately being overthrown by civil war or foreign invasion.

Our age will be defined by great power competition with China. The art of war against zerg rest on two fundamental concepts : First, unbreakable defensive core around critical individuals, infrastructures, resources and geostrategic locations. Second, strategic precision strikes using superior manpower, firepower, and technology based on intel, speed and agility. Victory is achieved through war of attrition and sustaining high level efforts over a very long period of time. This mean that every engagement should aim to end in an overwhelmingly positive trade ratio, not only in lives but also in resources. Trading at a loss are self inflected wounds and is the fastest way to defeat, as it happened in Afghanistan.

Defence doctrines must focus on the core as an absolute priority, moving outward to the periphery, our allies and partners. The security of our cyberspace is fundamental to our survival. The 16 critical infrastructures plus space and academia, the individuals responsible for them, the resources necessary for our sustainability and the strategic locations are where we need to invest our efforts. Strategic deterrence and A2AD need to be applied domestically and locally on an individual level. The sale of the canal of Panama to China and the fentanyl crisis are prime example of geostrategic failure.

Offence doctrines target priority flow inward from the periphery to the core, from the weakest to the strongest and from the smallest unit concentration to the biggest. Reinforcing the ties that bind our civilization by every means possible require unwavering support to our people, allies and partners, their security and prosperity and their goals, values and objectives. Surgical precision operations with limited resources over clearly identified objectives in the most cost effective way defined by hierarchical strategic priorities. The biggest mistake possible against a swarm is over extension on open ground for questionable or poor values objectives, this must be avoided at all cost.

This is the time to reclaim our land and clear the horde of barbarians at our gates. Establish a Monroe 2.0 doctrine based on an integrated, holistic whole of civilization approach. Connecting every people and cultures and weaving them seamlessly into the western civilization using every tool of international policy that will lay down the blueprint of our 21st century grand strategy. Securing routes and supply lines of Trans-America, Asia-Pacific and Asia-MENA-Africa. Exposing ruthlessly poor practices, illegal activities and corruption. Identifying potential allies and partners and areas of opportunity to leverage our competitive advantage.

Finally, we must promote relentlessly our past and current achievements and our goals and values. To win over the heart and minds of the world by holding ourselves to the highest standards of integrity, accountability and excellence. Delivering outstanding results, exceeding expectations in a systemic and inclusive way, leaving no one behind and becoming the change we want to world to embrace.

In particular, creative endeavors, including artistic creation, can be formative in that sense: think of how it shapes a person for the better to learn to play an instrument or sing in a choir, say. So can entrepreneurship, or any other organized effort at building anew that requires a discipline of learning from those that came before: Matthew Crawford in “The World Beyond Your Head” is very good at giving examples from the world of craftsmanship. And I think it’s important to emphasize those kinds of possibilities because they can make anti-narcissistic effort more exciting, and thus more likely to be more broadly undertaken. The moral turning doesn’t have to be so painful.

Many thanks for the kind words. The answer about “Freedom” is no: much of the text is pretty outdated. Maybe some day I’ll bring it up to date and put it out..

This claim is unnecessarily pessimistic. It is possible to achieve the same logical ends without the nihilism(?) – the only necessary claim is ‘no exceptions’, not ‘beyond redemption’. [ex: If one believes that all are equally capable of goodness or even predisposed to it, we can arrive at the same ends of ‘It is as unrealistic to expect a king or an aristocracy to rise above private desire as it is to imagine they can defy gravity and fly….any better than the peasant’. The king may fly, but then, so does the pauper.

The tyrant claims that ‘all are equal, but some are more equal (better) than others’ and then “a few rare specimens can resist desire and act on conscious choice”. These self-empaneled arbiters then rule by their own ‘divine right’.

The Protean stance claims ‘all are equal’ and does not require the lessening of some or legitimacy of subjugation, or acceptance of intrinsic fault or self-worthlessness of the main of humanity. This is core to my rejection of the other side, given that we cannot observe the outcome and choose the ‘best’ here.

When presented with two philosophies, one of which requires I consider myself dammed (or divinely righteous), and the other merely asks that I think I’m mostly the same as the rest of the world, my choice is simple.