Risks

When you’re assessing risks there are two factors you need to weigh: the magnitude of the loss that can be incurred and the likelihood that the loss will take place. I think there’s another factor worth considering: trend, i.e. whether the threat is growing or receding.

Now let’s consider our foreign policy risks in that light. The biggest loss we face would come as a result of a nuclear exchange with Russia. Fortunately, the likelihood of that is pretty low although the trend right now is going the wrong way. Our bilateral relationship is deteriorating rather than improving, something I attribute mostly to us.

China, on the other hand, while in possession of the ability to do us serious damage does not have the ability to end us not to mention the rest of the world with us as Russia does. For a variety of reasons including the culture of the Chinese elite, internal Chinese politics, and missteps by us, I think we have conveyed to the Chinese elite a false message of our own helplessness. They are, not unexpectedly, stretching their muscles and in recent years Chinese general have repeatedly made statements extremely threatening to the United States. To my eye this trend, too, is in the wrong direction and deteriorating faster than our bilateral relationship with Russia.

By comparison ISIS/ISIL presents very little threat. It is callous to think of death and destruction this way but the reality is that they can inflict pinpricks on us. And their ability to inflict the pinpricks is itself limited. Additionally, right off the top of my head I can think of a dozen ways we could mitigate whatever threat they present. Let me just name a few. We could make it harder to become a U. S. citizen and easier for a naturalized citizen to lose his or her citizenship. We could ban dual citizenship. We could make travel to and from the Middle East must more restrictive. We could restrict travel within the United States by foreign visitors. We could reduce the number of American citizens exposed to risk in the Middle East. The list is almost endless.

We have decided or, at least, our elites have decided that the threats presented by violent Islamist militants are too low to take any of those steps. I do not see the sense in arguing on the one hand that the threats presented by ISIS/ISIL are too low for our to change our behavior while arguing on the other hand that the risks are so high that we should be lobbing bombs that will inevitably kill innocents along with the guilty.

10 comments… add one
  • ... Link

    You’re noticing again, and that is CrimeThink. You’d best get your head screwed on right before the authorities take notice.

    Next you’ll be telling me that open borders and government agents feeling up little old ladies in airports isn’t making us more secure.

  • steve Link

    We already heavily monitor and limit travel to the ME. Eliminating dual citizenship and naturalized citizenship will accomplish little and may even make it more difficult to identify bad guys. You could forbid US citizens going to the ME, but I don’t really see why they couldn’t then kidnap in other countries. They could certainly send baddies from the UK/Europe or Asia.

    At this point I think that only a withdrawal from affairs in the ME, including Israel, will accomplish your goal.

    Steve

  • I don’t really see why they couldn’t then kidnap in other countries.

    Why aren’t they now? Because the costs are too high. In this instance mitigating risk isn’t only about prevention but about raising costs.

    I didn’t mention the more truculent things that we could do but their number is huge.

  • steve thomas Link

    Were there to be another 9/11 would that fall into the ‘pinprick’ category? In my view, preventing such is, or should be, a major motivation behind defeating ISIS.

  • Here’s the reality, steve. We can’t prevent another 9/11 unless we’re willing to do something about the critical success factors in the attack. If the critical success factors were a couple of dozen guys with grievances and a couple of hundred thou in funding, how in the heck short of extermination are we going to prevent that?

  • steve Link

    “Why aren’t they now? ”

    We have thousands of Americans wandering around the ME now. No need. The world is so interconnected now that it is pretty hard to shut things down with half measures.

    Steve

  • Jimbino Link

    If Amerikans ever did assess risk as you suggest (likelihood * severity), nobody would ever subscribe to insurance of any kind, unless he got a gold-plated gummint ticket to success (i.e., Obamacare for breeders) or were perpetrating fraud.

    Insurance is born of religion, fear, exploitation and fraud.

  • jan Link

    The risk factors associated with Russia and China, individually, may seem low and not worthwhile to seriously contemplate. However, what if these two countries were able to drop their historical differences, forging a partnership with mutual goals being the eventual upending of American supremacy? Such a possibility is explored by Doug Schoen and Milik Kaylan in their book The Russia-China Axis.

    Much of their analysis centers on the current scenario of America voluntarily stepping back from the world stage as a fearsome power broker, settling instead on being a part of a global ensemble rather than taking a super power lead as an important, relevant soloist. Accompanying this “leading from behind” philosophy are the acts of decreasing our military expenditures, consequently our footprint, as other major players are gradually increasing their’s.

    Certainly other countries have a long ways to go in order to equal our power. Nonetheless, complacency, resting on one’s laurels, don’t always render long term benefits nor outcomes, as there is always an “unexpected” event usually lurking around some unintended consequence.

  • ... Link

    I’m feeling more secure already now that I know “the Khorosan Group” is the fucking Human Fund of terrorist groups.

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