16 June 2014 –

The Strategic Picture – Part Two

The second major strategic threat to U.S. sovereignty is our leaders’ disregard of constitutional principles of governance in their handling of illegal immigration.  Webster’s New World Dictionary best defines sovereignty as “independent of all others.”  Our Founders refined the lessons of history and created a nation where the People, for the first time, were sovereign.  The People would decide, through an elected Congress passing laws and an indirectly elected President dutifully enforcing them, how best to govern themselves.  The American People would then be independent of any other influence.  Today, our sovereignty is being dismantled along our southern border. 

For decades, millions of illegal immigrants have been crossing into the United States, breaking U.S. law, and overwhelming the capabilities of our border forces, local governments, and society to deal with them.  Illegal immigrants’ reasons for wanting to come to the United States may be compelling to all; but, their reasons are irrelevant to our sovereignty.  This crisis is not about them; it is about us, Americans, deciding our ultimate fate. 

Illegal immigration threatens U.S. sovereignty in at least two ways. 

One.  Governments from Central America to Mexico not only have encouraged such mass movement, but also have colluded with criminal elements to facilitate it.  For their own corrupt reasons, they are exploiting our government’s dissolute immigration policies.  In very real ways, they now determine who is an American citizen and who is not.  If that is not a foreign attack on and seizure of U.S. sovereignty, then nothing is.   

Two.  In the past thirty years, illegal immigration has increased and decreased, but rarely because of responsible government action.  Neither Congress nor the administration has done its constitutional duty to pass and then implement effective immigration laws.   Both branches of government have abused one of the fundamental elements of vibrant U.S. sovereignty, the rule of law.  America and Americans are not defined not by race or culture, but by rule of law.  If we don’t have that, we are nobody special.     

Most recently, while Congress has dithered, the President has disregarded his constitutional duty to faithfully implement the immigration laws that Congress has already passed.  He has refused to protect our southern border from an assault by foreigners.  He flaunts his illegal actions by saying that current immigration laws are bad.  He says that he, as the executive branch, has the right to create new laws, by pen and by telephone.  The President is seizing power that the Founders deliberately and wisely gave to Congress as the representatives of the People.  He is molding himself and his office as this nation’s sovereign.    

Simply put, borders and the laws that create them matter.  Fences define personal property, and borders define nations.  Our government exists to protect our personal rights and property and to protect us as a nation.  We, the People, determine, through the laws that our elected representatives pass, who we are as a nation.  If the President doesn’t like the existing immigration laws, he should heed the sage example of a predecessor, Ulysses S. Grant.  He faced the enormous task of reestablishing the sovereignty of a divided and contentious nation after the Civil War.  In his 1869 inaugural address, President Grant confirmed his constitutional role by affirming what the Founders had intended: “…all laws will be faithfully executed…whether they meet with my approval or not.” 

President Grant also suggested how the executive branch could influence Congress to change onerous laws: “Laws are to govern all alike…those opposed as well as those who favor them.  I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.” 

Today, the President must return to his constitutionally prescribed limits.  Within those limits, he could convince Congress to fund the appropriate agencies sufficiently to seal U.S. borders completely and, thereby, recover sovereignty from foreign sources.  He could even ask Congress to provide assistance to destitute migrants but only if they sit on the other side of the border.  The President also could convince Congress to sufficiently fund the appropriate agencies so that he could then lead them to faithfully and vigorously enforce laws that further strengthen our sovereignty.  By doing this, he could show leadership consistent with constitutional governance.  What he is doing now is dividing our sovereignty among foreign despots and aggrandizing his increasingly regal office.  We, his subjects, are the losers.     

14 June 2014 - 

The Strategic Picture - Part One

Before commenting on the last fortnight of international developments, a short review of the largest threats to our sovereignty is in order. 

The following, in priority order, are the three major strategic threats to U.S. sovereignty.  It is well within our capabilities as a nation to resolve these threats, but we refuse to do so.  1) The huge national debt, created by profligate government spending, erodes our sovereign ability to act without bowing to the lenders’ self-serving influence.  2) Illegal immigration erodes our sovereign ability to defend our borders and to determine who is and is not an American.  3) The reliance of the United States on foreign sources of energy, particularly on those from Muslim states that use their receipts to fund the latest campaign in a 1300-year war between Islamic and Western Christian Civilization, erodes our ability to decisively stop all who threaten U.S. interests.        

I want to focus on the most dangerous threat.  According to FactCheck.org, these are the overall U.S.’s 2014 economy, debt, and budget numbers.  They should scare you. 

Total US economy: $17. 5 Trillion.  Total Federal debt: $17.7 trillion.  We owe more than we make, and our debt is increasing in FY 2014 by another $744 billion to $18.5 trillion.  How far would your personal “full faith and credit” influence a loan officer if you owed more credit card debt than your yearly income?  By the way, a trillion is a one followed by twelve zeros: 1,000,000,000,000.  This ain’t Monopoly money! 

Federal Tax Receipts:  $3 trillion.  Income Taxes – 46%.  Payroll Taxes (Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid) – 34%.  Corporate Taxes – 11%.  Excise, Customs, and Miscellaneous Taxes – 9%.  We are collecting more revenue than ever before, but are spending even more.  Revenue is not the issue; spending is.    

Federal Spending: $3.77 trillion.  Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid – 42%.  Defense – 20%.  Interest on the National Debt – 6%.  Everything else – 32%.  Hmm, even this French Literature major sees the big gap between income and outgo, particularly in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  They account for 34% of total receipts but 42% of total spending.  In actual dollars, our payroll taxes take in just over one trillion dollars, but the programs they support spend $1.58 trillion.  That deficit of $580 billion accounts for over 75% of FY 2014’s total federal budget deficit of $744 billion.  We must reform the entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, or they will bankrupt us, no matter how we parse the rest of our revenues. 

Our Creditors.  We owe $17.741 trillion to the following:  Social Security Trust Fund – 16%; foreign countries – 34%; Federal Reserve and other federal government agencies – 25%; mutual funds, other funds, state and local governments – 23%. 

Not only have we seriously underfunded Social Security spending, but we also have looted over 2.8 trillion dollars from its trust fund to pay other bills.  That is like borrowing against your retirement fund to pay utilities, car payments, credit card interest, and lawn care, because you don’t earn enough money to live the way you feel you are entitled to.      

We owe $6 trillion to foreign countries, including well over $1 trillion to both Japan and China.  If such borrowing continues, who will control strategic negotiations in an international crisis, the debtor or the banker? 

We owe nearly $4.5 trillion, 29% of our total debt, to the Federal Reserve and other government agencies.  Not only have we gutted our Social Security program and gone with hat-in-hand to the world to pay our bills, but we also have printed tons of extra greenbacks to pay for our wastrel lifestyle.  Isn’t printing extra money to pay bills a primary cause of inflation?  Could there be such a thing as a $1 trillion bill?  Yup.  I bought one in Zimbabwe in 2010 for $2 U.S., and I think I paid the tourist price. 

Accumulating such debt is a classic definition of the loss of national sovereignty.  Debt may be necessary in a crisis, but paying off credit cards before interest charges kick in is what responsible, prudent, wise grown-ups do.  It is what true leaders do.  Spending more than one earns year after year after year after year is what oppressive, third-world dictators and self-serving socialists do.  To satisfy the masses, such leaders define giveaways as “entitlements”, something citizens—or illegal immigrants—deserve rather than earn.  Such leaders destroy short-term gain rather than build for long-term security.  Today, our incredible debt and profligate spending are the number one strategic threat to the sovereignty of the United States. 

Soon to follow are the effects of strategic threat #2, illegal immigration, on U.S. sovereignty.  Comments directed to mac.coleman.colonel@gmail.com.

5 June 2014 –

Incredible Incompetence

Our focus in this recent prisoner exchange debacle should be on the President’s track record of foreign policy failure.  I’ll try to explain it using the military planning model of vision, strategy, operational planning, tactical execution, and replanning.  

President Obama’s foreign policy vision is blurry at best, fundamentally flawed at worst.  Most Americans rightfully believe that our nation is exceptional and should lead the world.  But, during crises, President Obama fails to speak in a way that enlists the support of most Americans; leading from behind and being one among equals does not create a winning team in the U.S. or among international friends.  His naïve, shallow vision weakens the United States by opposing a world order that he inherited from his more able predecessors.

A strategy consists of goals and objectives that should fulfill a president’s vision.  To build their foreign policy strategies, previous presidents in both political parties selected far more competent staffs and foreign policy advisors than has President Obama.  Most past presidents have demanded that their staffs carefully draft and mercilessly vet their foreign policy strategies for the clear and common sense goals that encourage at least a modicum of bipartisan support from Congress.  President Obama has yet to do so.  Therefore, he has no goals or objectives to refer to when confronted with a decision.   He also fails to demand factual accuracy from his senior advisors’ public statements defending his decisions.  But, I suppose that accuracy is irrelevant when one’s target is beyond one’s vision.   

My experience says that most of the world sees the U.S. as exceptional.  Yet, Team Obama’s “make-it-up-as-we-go-along” strategists display ordinary weakness and ignorance to our friends and enemies.  The President either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that leading the world with clear vision and strategic commitment enables our friends to close ranks with us, causes our enemies to fear us, and maintains peace.  But, our confused and reticent president has caused our friends to hedge their bets to protect their own interests.  He also enabled Russia to take the Crimea, China to bully our Pacific allies, and the Taliban to control the tempo of the war in Afghanistan—Obama’s War.  The Taliban has now orchestrated an embarrassing prisoner exchange when there was no compelling reason for the U.S. to participate. 

   

An operational plan based on a blurry vision and a nonexistent strategy is impossible to maintain.  Professional planners in the Departments of State and Defense, therefore, have little to work with when to try to clarify missions, build operational-level plans, and justify congressional funding.  Diplomatic negotiations become meaningless.  Justification for military manpower, training, and equipment levels becomes impossible.  It is proven, however, that a military organization and culture, adrift without a clear mission, becomes an enticing petri dish for progressive social engineering, further eroding our ability to pursue U.S. foreign policy objectives when responding to a crisis.  

   

A clear vision, a sensible strategy, and well-rehearsed operational plans set the conditions in which flexible, tactical commanders successfully plan the actual fight.  Tragically, Team Obama’s failure to provide these building blocks has created battlefield irrelevance.  Tactical victories by our military forces and by our local diplomats, without a clear strategy, only forestall defeat.  In a real sense, our more-focused enemies now control the tempo of their campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa.  They may indeed enable their victory as well.        

“The plan is nothing; planning is everything.”  When the shooting starts, wartime planners rely on a clear vision and a well-thought-out strategy to adjust actions in the battlespace.  Today, our diplomats and soldiers struggle because Team Obama has yet to produce them.  In every international crisis, President Obama challenges adversaries then backs off.  He misreads or ignores critical events worldwide.  He whimsically adjusts, if forced to, and then fails to clarify.  He organizes nothing.  He continues to ignore this portion of the planning process with which conflicts are won or lost.   

    

Finally, Team Obama’s incredible misread of everyone’s response to its recent prisoner exchange is a mistake of strategic proportions.  The exchange violated well-proven policy, probably exacerbated conditions in Afghanistan, and upset both opponents and supporters in Congress.  No crisis compelled President Obama to act on the edges of his authority and release dangerous prisoners from Guantanamo Prison.  What is compelling, however, is that for the last four years, the Taliban have dictated the timing and tempo of the war and of the negotiations for prisoner exchange. They had a plan.  Our commander-in-chief did not.  In the words of the great sage and prophet, Bugs Bunny, “What a Maroon!”  

22 May 2014 –

The Veterans Administration:  Entrenched Incompetence

My experience with the VA spans fifty years.  My father was wounded in WWII and never fully recovered.  The VA finally warehoused him at the hospital in Fort Harrison, near Helena, Montana.  He died in March 1963, at age forty.  At my young age, only once was I able to visit the day room of my father’s ward.  I watched disabled patients hobble around the room or sit motionless looking out the window.  I asked an orderly who these men were.  He said that they were WWII and Korean War veterans waiting to die.  No one, it seemed, was helping them, or my father, to live.  I vow to never die in a VA hospital. 

In 1978, I took my young family to Helena, Montana, to visit my mother.  I got sick and since I was in the Air Force, I went to Fort Harrison to see a doctor.  I was admitted instead of helped.  I spent the night looking out the window from the same floor where my father had died fifteen years before.  That night, an old veteran died in the bed next to mine.  In the morning, I went to take a shower as staff moved his body.  Apparently, I missed the doctor’s rounds as well and had to run him down in the stairwell.  I told the doctor I felt much better and that I was going to leave the hospital immediately whether they gave me my clothes back or not.  He shrugged and said I could leave.  My wife picked me up at the front door an hour later.  I vowed to never stay another night in a VA hospital.

In December 2008, my wife and I were in Denver visiting our son and his family.  My wife developed a serious infection, and we learned that the Fitzsimons VA Hospital handled all weekend emergency cases for active-duty personnel and their dependents.  At nearly midnight, over eight hours after entering the not-so-busy emergency room, my wife was finally seen.  With no apologies from any of the staff, my wife finally got her prescription.  I will never again go to a VA hospital emergency room under my own power.   

In September 2009, I retired from the Air Force and applied to the VA for a service-related disability.  I was told that final adjudication would take six months.  After nine months, a form letter told me it would take another six months.  Eight months later, another letter told me that I must resubmit all my paperwork.  Finally, 13 months later, 2 ½ years after my first submission, my disability was approved.  It is a slight one, so I receive little extra money in my retirement check.  The concrete result is that I now weep for my long-suffering compatriots who await just compensation for the serious disabilities that prevent them from providing for their families.  How many of them have died and will die waiting for the VA to help them?  I vow I will not die waiting for the VA to do its job.  

None of the VA’s problems are new.  They are a systemic risk in any government-provided service, even where the leaders may be good and decent people.  Indeed, only high performance standards and constant oversight keep the evils of government bureaucracy from calcifying the process. 

 

It is always a question of leadership.  We now need leaders who will jam their fingers into the chests of entrenched bureaucrats and demand performance or resignations.  We need leaders with the moral courage to risk their careers to care for those who risked their lives to fight our nation’s battles.  We need those who look at their jobs as callings—as rescue missions for their compatriots.  We need leaders the mention of whose names makes self-serving bureaucrats tremble.  Leaders, not managers. 

Neither the present VA hierarchy nor the administration that appointed them has shown such courageous leadership.  Also, such moral courage certainly won’t be found in the administrators of the upcoming civilian version of the VA—the murderous monster rising out of the radioactive bog called Obamacare.  Paraphrasing President Nixon as he described the coterie of generals who ran the Vietnam war:  There wasn’t a General Patton among them.  Now, as then, we need a Patton.  In the White House and in the VA.  Until then, I repeat my vow:  I refuse to die in a VA hospital.  Send comments to Mac Coleman at mac.coleman.colonel@gmail.com.  

27 March 2014 –

Is Anyone In Charge Around Here?

From 1992 to 1996, I was stationed at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, in Mons, Belgium.  It was the military headquarters for NATO in Europe.  I was the Military Assistant and Speechwriter to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General George A. Joulwan.  It was an exciting time to be in uniform in Europe.  In the three previous years, the Berlin Wall had fallen, the Soviet Union had dissolved, the Warsaw Pact had collapsed, diverse ethnic groups in the Former Yugoslavia were fomenting horrific genocide, and against Iraq in DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, the finest military the world had ever seen had laid waste to the enemy.  Indeed, the world’s power structures were changing.  The United States needed a grand strategy to ensure that what would emerge would be in our best political, diplomatic, economic, and military interests. 

NATO’s leadership responded with the “New NATO” strategy.  Despite the collapse of the “Evil Empire”, the “New NATO” would reduce neither in membership nor in span of influence.  In fact, newe programs would eventually offer NATO’s proven formula of collective security and the prosperity it engendered to the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe.  As well, to stop the ethnic-based massacres in the Balkans, NATO would carefully execute its first-ever out-of-area military operations.  The “New NATO” concept was a dynamic response to huge strategic challenges.  Strong U.S. leadership was needed to lead this, the U.S.’s most important alliance, into the future.

I wrote over 600 speeches, toasts, book chapters, position and background papers, and talking point outlines to stress that the “New NATO” would build on the strengths of the old NATO as it responded to the new challenges of Europe’s collective security.  Those strengths were simple to express and apply today as they did twenty years ago: committed U.S. leadership in the military and diplomatic arms of the alliance; continued presence of strong U.S. military forces in Europe; and, firm assurance by all NATO members to commit diplomatic and military resources if any NATO member were threatened by outside forces.  The eastern border of NATO would no longer run through a divided Germany and may someday be on the eastern border of the Baltic state of Estonia, but the mission of the alliance would  not change.  A strong NATO would ensure the peace and prosperity of its members through the coordinated and strong military capability of its members.  No economic, political, or diplomatic, mechanism such as the G-7, the European Union, or the UN could provide such peace.  NATO succeeded.  The New NATO also succeeded.    

Is today’s NATO working?  No.  It is failing because the United States has not fulfilled its continued role of strong and committed military leader.  Given Europe’s location on the map, what peoples inhabit and dominate that small continent, and where the strategic resources of the world are found, Europe will always need its U.S. cousins to be vitally involved in its strategic decision-making and in its day-to-day defense.  The American translation: it is in the United States’ compelling strategic interests to keep Europe peaceful and prosperous.  There always will be truth in the statement that NATO’s mission is to keep the United States in, Russia out, and Germany down. 

Dangerously, our current administration in particular cut back our deployed conventional forces and cancelled the deployment of a strategic missile defense capability in NATO.  They justify this by saying that we are now living in a post-cold-war world.  That statement shows that neither President Obama nor his advisors understand much about historic ethnic, cultural, and economic forces and their currency in today’s world.  The forces that caused most European conflicts from the 19^th into the 21^st century are stolidly grinding away at the European peace and security in places such as the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Turkey.  Europe’s instability threatens U.S. strategic interests, and, if left unanswered, our sovereignty. 

Are we too late to recover from our neglect of this most important responsibility?  No.  But, the President must declare now that our strategic interests in Europe are threatened, that we must immediately bolster our military commitment to the NATO alliance, and that our friends and allies in Europe extend to the Baltic, the Black Sea, and deep into the plains of Eastern Europe.  He must say it so that our allies will believe it and stand with us.  Russian leader Vladimir Putin understands only such strength.  Leading from behind is not an option for today’s Commander-in-Chief.  NATO’s challenges have always demanded more than that.  

20 March 2014 - 

Who’s in charge around here, anyway?  Part II

“Sovereignty: supreme and independent power or authority in government, as possessed or claimed by a state or community. “  -- Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

For at least a generation, the U.S. has not adequately controlled its borders.  The resulting unfettered movement of foreigners in and out of the United States has become a pressing threat to our sovereignty.  

In the absence of decisive lawmakers making sensible U.S. law and policy, foreign authorities, powers, and peoples are wielding increasing influence over what should be the exclusive domain of the citizens of the United States.   The power to ensure that the rule of law reflects our, the citizens’, wishes – i.e., our very sovereignty -- has seriously diminished because of our refusal to see this as something other than an economic or political issue. 

       

I have observed throughout the world that if someone enters a country illegally, his expectations to thrive there will depend on continued illegal activity.  His subsequent actions will include nonpayment of taxes, driving without a license, using false identity papers, bribing officials, moving around the country illegally, etc. Such acts eventually infect surrounding citizens as well, and the nation’s sovereignty and its rule of law begin to erode.

How do we impress upon our citizenry the importance of sovereignty and responsibility?  Our leaders could start by implementing a sensible policy of vigorously enforcing existing immigration laws and then of selectively changing those laws that wear away our sovereignty.  

Obviously, few politicians seem to be in a pressing hurry to implement such straightforward immigration reform.  Therefore, I suggest a slightly different approach. 

Perhaps, English language classes, including English as a Second Language (ESL), in our high schools, junior colleges, and community education programs would be a good venue to precisely present the facts of illegal immigration.  For example, teaching the twelve English verb tenses would be very useful in presenting this information. 

        

Simple Present. Many of my compadres and I enter the U.S. illegally.

Simple Past. Because I needed work and my home country was in such horrible straits, I entered the U.S. illegally.

Simple Future. If I am ever deported again, I will enter the U.S. again illegally. 

Present Progressive. Because the U.S. government insists that its southern border stay so open, I am reentering the U.S. illegally today.

Past Progressive. The border is porous and U.S. border patrol forces are bound by restrictive rules of engagement; therefore, I threw rocks at the border guards last week so they would leave me alone when I was entering the U.S. illegally. 

Future Progressive. Because your country can neither get its laws in order nor enforce them, my friends and family have been crossing U.S. borders illegally for many years. 

Present Perfect. This is a sanctuary city, so it doesn’t matter that I have entered the U.S. illegally.

Past Perfect, Is my son an American or an “anchor baby” because my wife and I had entered the U.S. illegally before he was born? 

Future Perfect.  Before the U.S. government finally commits itself to enforcing legitimate forms of sovereignty, millions more people will have entered the U.S. illegally. 

Present Perfect Progressive. Although it might be painful for those who consider the rule of law and sovereignty essential to the nation’s security, I will have been living illegally in the U.S. for most of my life before immigration reforms are finally enacted and enforced. 

Past Perfect Progressive.  Other people had been entering the U.S. illegally long before I did.  Today, if my fellow 11.7 million illegal immigrants lived together, we would make the seventh largest state in the union.  That would be a lot of electoral votes, especially if amnesty were the heart of immigration reform. 

Future Perfect Progressive.  By 2020, some estimate that sufficient numbers of illegal immigrants will have been entering the United States to push our total to over twenty million. 

Review. By 2020, most illegal immigrants will have come from Latin America.  This influx of illegal immigrants is a regional phenomenon that has little to do with language, culture, or ethnicity, but has everything to do with proximity. 

Millions of people from other countries want to live in the United States.  They would come here any way they could, legally or illegally.  Probably the only reason there aren’t tens of millions of illegal Africans streaming here is because the Atlantic Ocean is a lot wider than the Rio Grande River. 

Comment at mac.coleman.colonel@gmail.com.

10 March 2014 –

Who’s in charge around here, anyway? 

“Sovereignty: supreme and independent power or authority in government as possessed or claimed by a state or community. “  -- Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

The current crisis in the Ukraine highlights Russia’s efforts to dominate Eastern Europe.  Russia is exploiting our administration’s fundamental neglect of its primary duty to safeguard the U.S.’s interests in the world.  Our administration has no viable strategy to use its instruments of national power—economic, military, and diplomatic—to maintain the U.S.’s sovereignty and our influence and security in the world.  Power abhors such a vacuum of intent and action, and the lesser power mongers of the world are exhibiting their plans to exploit that space.

Deploying troops to the Crimea is Russia’s latest step in taking advantage of local instability in order to dominate the vassal states of the former Soviet Union.  Since the early 1990s, Russia has supported separatist movements in surrounding countries in an attempt to place subservient governments in power to be dominated in the future.  In 2008, Russian troops entered rebellious regions in Georgia to fight alongside separatists against government troops.  The Bush administration did little to help Georgia or to dissuade Russia’s aggression.  Russia paid no penalty for its expansion of regional dominance, and Georgia’s aspirations to enter NATO died.  My military and diplomatic contacts from the region expressed dismay, but then pragmatically accepted that Georgia would remain beyond the U.S.’s attainable interests in Europe.  Our influence withered on the outer edges of Europe, and Russia’s dominance grew.  Our sovereignty weakened.

President Obama then announced in 2009 the scrapping of a proposed Bush-era antiballistic missile shield system in Poland and the Czech Republic.  My Eastern European contacts were unanimous in their assessments:  the U.S. gave Russia carte blanche to again dominate Eastern Europe economically, militarily, and diplomatically.  My friends were specifically concerned that the expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, while welcome, would not have the deterrent power it had during the Cold War because the U.S. did not show sufficient military commitment.  One officer had hoped that the ethnic Poles and Czechs in President Obama’s home city, Chicago, would have protested more loudly against his abandonment of their relatives.  My friend had hoped that the U.S. would be exceptional in the world.  Alas, he said, our President is ordinary. 

Our unilateral dismantlement of military and diplomatic power has made it harder to wield U. S. influence, particularly in Eastern Europe.  The edge of our sovereignty has withered even further west, snubbing many of our allies and friends. 

So, Russia has reentered the power vacuum.  Russia assessed it was worth the risk to militarily occupy what international treaty had declared to be Ukrainian territory.  The Crimea, with its Russian naval and air bases, is critical to Russia’s dominance of the Black Sea and to Russia’s influence on Turkey for naval access to the Mediterranean.  Russia will soon control the peninsula under a Russian flag.  Russia’s sovereignty, concentrated in strongman Vladimir Putin, is ascending.  The U.S.’s sovereignty, weakly expressed by the executive and legislative branches of government, is descending.

What instruments of national power can we bolster to stop this strategically erosive trend?  

First, we should expand domestic energy production, particularly natural gas.  We can soon become a legitimate competitor with Russia in the European market, increasing our influence and decreasing Russia’s.  To do this, President Obama must lift his moratorium on exercising drilling leases on federal lands.   He should approve the Keystone pipeline immediately.  The subsequent, strategic shift in the energy market would benefit the U.S. more than any other country.  Our bolstered economic instrument of national power would greatly strengthen U.S. sovereignty at home and U.S. influence abroad.

We also should invigorate our military ties with our allies and increase our military capability in the regions surrounding Russia.  Our existing treaty mechanisms are rusty, but they’re not corroded beyond repair.  We should give Eastern Europeans a reason to contribute to and feel protected by NATO.  We should give countries a reason to aspire to join with the U.S. and her allies in the common defense of borders and economies.  With a dwindling military, we can’t do this. 

A strong economy and effective military best protect our vital interests in the world when they operate under a clear and grand strategy to maintain US. sovereignty.  We can then wield our diplomatic instrument of national power with strength.  Our diplomats can then be polite and soft-spoken because our opponents will hear a clear message:  we have set the edges of our interests and we will protect them well.  Until then, it’s President Putin’s game, and he will continue to play it well.