However, in keeping with my general preference to pick out non-obvious (or at least less obvious) aspects of current news, I'd like to analyze a recent quote by Obama made while in Russia.
The quote is as follows:
"The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground."
Apart from the odd phrasing in this particular instance, this sentiment is nothing new.
It's the exact opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's bit of wisdom "Walk softly, and carry a big stick.", and represents the opposite approach, of talking big yet bringing no force to back up your words.
This is, as an aside, exactly the philosophy which brought us into the Pacific theater in WWII, with numerous strongly-worded reproaches of Japan's expansionary actions, yet no force in the region to give them weight. The aggressive faction of the Japanese government concluded that ours were idle threats, and proceeded with their imperialistic ambitions.
Russia would naturally be no different, nor would China, who as we've recently seen has no problem with backing up their words with deadly force to subdue unruly outlying provinces.
They are all too happy to hear words denouncing force, when force is exactly what they are accumulating.
In our world, force rules. In other words, in a secular sense, the future belongs precisely to those who -do- gather armies and bury missiles. The US has secured and maintained its freedom only by means of these things, and when it abandons them, its freedom will quickly follow.
Now the leader of our country has denounced both; it must be no coincidence that he clearly despises our freedom as well, a fact underlined by the unprecedentedly rapid dismantling of it since his administration took power.
One is left to wonder whether the last vestiges of our freedom will give way before external forces, or internal dissolution. Time will tell.
-()4|<.
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