The first bad actor in the latest play on the world stage was Russia.
Their yearlong and counting Act One has been expensive to watch (120 billion or so and counting as well). You don’t even get to see it anymore, you just hear about it.
Enter Hamas(spelled I.r.a.n.). Their brutal sneak attack on Israel reset the low bar. Act Two now, and rightfully so, has Israelis participating by air and by land.
Is China far behind? Aren’t they looking for an entry point? There are others(North Korea notable among them), but mostly they have smaller roles.
The world theater seems conducive to more heinous misbehavior. Is there a perceived weakness abroad about us at home? Maybe.
But, while we watch from across one pond and maybe soon two ponds, should we be looking elsewhere?
Elsewhere as in-home and specifically to the south.
It was noisy and deadly with radicalized jihad-type folks after 9/11/01 till around 2015 in the United States. Then it became quite quiet.
But with millions pouring in unabated from dozens of foreign lands through Mexico into the US, should we feel safe here at home?
Fear-mongering you say? Maybe drop the mongering part as it’s just fear from learned experience. Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it someone once or twice has said.
Dozens of books chronicled our multiple government agencies’ inability to work together to connect the warning dots that enabled 9/11.
What’s changed? What’s changed is nothing and plenty.
Does it feel like we are more cohesive today than we were back then? Do we know what we don’t know?
The Department of Defense is ready. Or not.
“The planet’s changing climate has a significant effect on Defense Department missions, plans, and installations. DOD is elevating climate change as a national security priority, integrating climate considerations into policies, strategies, and partner engagements.” That’s straight from their website.
The Department of Homeland Security is ready, too.
“Addressing the climate emergency is a priority for DHS as sea-level rise, extreme weather events, workforce health, and other direct and indirect impacts of climate change will affect the Nation’s preparedness and national security over the long term.” Yep, that’s straight from their website.
Maybe we can bomb the next “weather bomb cyclone” before it strikes the mainland. But can we unearth cells that may have taken root right in our own backyard? Did they walk right in and sit right down?
When you pull back the curtains how can you like what you see on the big screen?
The US is watching.
And, now the world is acting.