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[URL unfurl="true"]https://twitter.com/stealthygeek/status/1465070480302518278[/URL]
Was talking to my BiL over the weekend and he hit me with the "D-Day vs Dunkirk" models of how societies view crisis resolution. Americans, by and large, view every problem through a D-Day lens. Throw everything we have at a crisis and solve it once and for all.
This has been our approach to warfare since the beginnings of our nation. Put it all on the line and fix the problem forever. Which did us well when the objective was "Kick out crumpet eaters," "Defeat the Nazis," or "Beat the Ruskies to the Moon."
However, it's been far less effective when the objective isn't so clear cut or straightforward. The War on Drugs was waged in this way and has been an unmitigated, counter-productive, ruinously expensive disaster, for example.
Which is where the "Dunkirk" model of crisis resolution comes into play. Dunkirk was, by any measure, an enormously successful fighting retreat. It preserved the core of the British Army and allowed it to endure, rearm, and come back stronger.
But the American psyche views any sort of withdrawal or retrenchment, no matter how strategically necessary, as a failure. This all-or-nothing, never surrender attitude limits our thinking in ways that paralyze us in the face of many of the crises we face now.
The War on Drugs is a great example. It's been obvious based on all of the objective evidence for more than twenty years that our approach was a failure. But instead of admitting defeat and changing course, we keep doubling down. Other countries have done far better.
Same in Afghanistan. We won the actual War in weeks, but then spent twenty years refusing to face the fact we fumbled the transition from active combat to occupation, dumping trillions into a failed nation-building project, only recently giving up.
Climate Change can no longer be "beaten," or "won." No amounts of resources, technology, or effort can put things back the way they were. We're going to continue experiencing growing effects of a changing climate no matter what we do. All we can do is mitigate the damage.
We need to accept a Dunkirk approach to Climate Change. A managed retreat from what we've always done, and a controlled transition into a long rebuilding period before we can begin advancing again. But that will take admitting we can't win this fight in the traditional sense. I'm fat, too.
Was talking to my BiL over the weekend and he hit me with the "D-Day vs Dunkirk" models of how societies view crisis resolution. Americans, by and large, view every problem through a D-Day lens. Throw everything we have at a crisis and solve it once and for all.
This has been our approach to warfare since the beginnings of our nation. Put it all on the line and fix the problem forever. Which did us well when the objective was "Kick out crumpet eaters," "Defeat the Nazis," or "Beat the Ruskies to the Moon."
However, it's been far less effective when the objective isn't so clear cut or straightforward. The War on Drugs was waged in this way and has been an unmitigated, counter-productive, ruinously expensive disaster, for example.
Which is where the "Dunkirk" model of crisis resolution comes into play. Dunkirk was, by any measure, an enormously successful fighting retreat. It preserved the core of the British Army and allowed it to endure, rearm, and come back stronger.
But the American psyche views any sort of withdrawal or retrenchment, no matter how strategically necessary, as a failure. This all-or-nothing, never surrender attitude limits our thinking in ways that paralyze us in the face of many of the crises we face now.
The War on Drugs is a great example. It's been obvious based on all of the objective evidence for more than twenty years that our approach was a failure. But instead of admitting defeat and changing course, we keep doubling down. Other countries have done far better.
Same in Afghanistan. We won the actual War in weeks, but then spent twenty years refusing to face the fact we fumbled the transition from active combat to occupation, dumping trillions into a failed nation-building project, only recently giving up.
Climate Change can no longer be "beaten," or "won." No amounts of resources, technology, or effort can put things back the way they were. We're going to continue experiencing growing effects of a changing climate no matter what we do. All we can do is mitigate the damage.
We need to accept a Dunkirk approach to Climate Change. A managed retreat from what we've always done, and a controlled transition into a long rebuilding period before we can begin advancing again. But that will take admitting we can't win this fight in the traditional sense. I'm fat, too.
