The challenge for Washington is no longer whether it possesses sufficient capabilities, but whether the political system can align those capabilities behind a coherent long-term priority.
So, to succeed in the trough of graft, a politician must have a profusion of scandals, so many of them all at once such that they would eventually overwhelm the system’s capacity to cope.
Secretary Rubio’s ‘diplomatic masterstroke’ in Delhi unintentionally transformed political damage control into an involuntary roast of his own boss.
If the President of the United States behaves primarily as the chief negotiator for corporate America, then alliances themselves become contingent commodities.
Even as Washington may call and claim victory, notional or real, the global pain of the brash and so-called bold and illegal strikes will be real for years to come.