Many will contend that there is far too much chaos on Earth these days. Well, I’d say the Earth is fine, it’s all the humans on the surface of this Pale Blue Dot that cannot for the life of them get along. Is our current instability sustainable, favorable or even profitable? Oh sure, some might make potentially large sums of money temporarily but even those individuals or corporations would make far more by expanding the pie, rather than trying to control the pie from growing – after all, international cooperation and trade is NOT a zero sum game.

There was an interesting article in the WSJ – Wall Street Journal on July 13, 2014 titled; “Obama Contends with Arc of Instability Unseen Since ’70s – Convergence of Security Crises Poses Serious Challenge to Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy,” by Jay Solomon and Carole E. Lee which stated:

“In the past month alone, the U.S. has faced twin civil wars in Iraq and Syria, renewed fighting between Israel and the Palestinians, an electoral crisis in Afghanistan and ethnic strife on the edge of Russia, in Ukraine. Off center stage, but high on the minds of U.S. officials, are growing fears that negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program could collapse this month, and that China is intensifying its territorial claims in East Asia.”

Right so, it is probably for the same reason people hate the police, you know check points, traffic tickets, etc. but when something bad happens who are the first people you call? Kind of like that and being the only super power we’ve been looked at as the world’s police force, stopping injustice, ethnic cleansing, civil wars, terrorists, and foreign aggression. But as Henry Kissinger famously stated;

“Sure the US can be completely safe, at the expense of the rest of the world being unsafe”

and that’s the rub. I recently read another article and I concur with the critics on the South China sea, but I also recall the last Philippine regime kicking us out, Japan telling us to leave a few years ago, and many other Asian nations taking advantage of us in trade deals, we let that happen too. China is growing, like a teenager full of piss and vinegar, feeling its oats, and I believe many have misread them, including the RAND Corp, see the research paper “China’s International Behavior” I think that was 2011.

We did have a long-term treaty with Ukraine that if they gave up their nuclear deterrent weapons, we’d protect them from aggression from Russia, NATO and the US promised, but we really haven’t. Yes, Russia is getting arms, spies into the pro-Russian group their heading up the anti-government attacks, but it’s not like we aren’t doing similar elsewhere. It seems like the game of RISK doesn’t it? With multiple players vying for the enemy of my enemy is my friend today. Everyone busy switching sides, and now we are too, but there comes trust factor when it is obvious we are playing both sides against the middle, with unstated end goals, and an ever evolving Machiavellian strategy.

Sure, it’s not all the President’s (Obama’s) fault, and being a president is difficult of course. Much of what a president, politician, does has to do with domestic politics, economics, re-election, and the mindset of the American people, business interests, and much of that too has to do with how the media is playing it. Presidents have advisors, military, corporations, political supporters, all vying for time screaming in their ears. It’s not an easy job and you can’t please everyone, unlike someone running for office promising everyone everything in the future.

All too often our political figures fail us. Could I have done better myself? Probably, but it’s hard to be good at everything and make all the right decisions when operating in a chaotic environment, probability of being right even 75% of the time is unlikely, 100% of the time, impossible. Please consider all this and think on it.