Daily Archives: 18 October 2017

Shortsighted

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President Donald Trump is, IMNSHO, misunderstanding the role of diplomacy in a shooting conflict. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said,

He’s (Trump) not seeking to go to war.  He has made it clear to me to continue my diplomatic efforts…until the first bomb drops.

Of course, war should be a last resort, not a never resort, and Trump understands that.  But to say that diplomacy ends when the shooting starts, is mistaken.  Diplomacy doesn’t only shape the coming battlefield during a prior period of peace and during the runup to the fight.  It also shapes the battlefield during the fight: both directly with its (however minimal) impact on the enemy belligerents, but also on the periphery and the far field surrounding the battlefield through its impact on our allies, our enemy’s allies, and on neutrals.

It’s that diplomacy that affects the fight itself and, at least as importantly, sets the stage for post-fight actions.

Tillerson, again:

Rest assured that the Chinese are not confused in any way what the American policy towards North Korea (is) or what our actions and efforts are directed at[.]

Ongoing diplomacy maintains that clarity, as well as clarity of consequences, during and after the fight, both with our enemy’s allies (the People’s Republic of China in this case) and with our own allies (the Republic of Korea and Japan, for instance), as well as with neutrals like the EU, Vietnam, et al. (and make no mistake: the EU has shown itself neutral in the present matter of northern Korea with its own timidity of action).

Integration

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It seems a New Jersey high school, Cliffside Park High of the town of Cliffside Park, has a teacher who insists English—or as she put it, American—be spoken in her classroom.

…men and women are fighting. They are not fighting for your right to speak Spanish. They are fighting for your right to speak American[.]

Of course, she’s being called a racist for insisting that folks assimilate into American culture rather than our culture be bent into the home country’s—every home country’s—culture.

Never mind that the reason folks come to the United States is for the advantages our culture offers compared to the country they’re leaving.  Altering ours to match the home country culture not only would defeat the purpose of the trip, it would destroy our nation for us citizens already present.

None of which means we require lock-step adaptation.  One of the strengths of our American culture is that we absorb—we culturally appropriate—the best practices of those old country cultures.  But there’s a critical directionality to that absorption.  Marvin Moreno, an alumnus, displayed the magnitude of the failure of our public school system with his objection to the teacher’s objection:

You go to school to learn, you don’t go to feel attacked by someone you believe is an educator[.]

Confusing being taught uncomfortable things with being attacked is itself strongly instructive.