a walk, then some tea
some thoughts on the contemporary zeitgeist
It’s hard to imagine a more anxious period than the one we are experiencing. The election is certainly a huge contributor but we also don’t react well to natural disasters, either. Humans may live on the edge in their teens and early twenties but most Americans like some “known knowns”, as Donald Rumsfeld famously opined twenty years ago, in their lives. We even prefer some clarity in bad news to figure out mitigation strategies. We don’t always have time, resources, or organization to develop or achieve those strategies but they are what we seek.
Right now, the world and especially we Yanks appear to face countless unknowns. We have a massive hurricane bearing down on the Florida peninsula in conjunction with unexpected doubts, born of both deliberate disinformation and distrust in concert proliferating ignorance of geography/weather/impacts, about its actual danger. Hurricane Milton, I am sadly confident, will be horrific for coastal communities because of the 10-15 foot storm surge. The wind damage will only be marginally easier in other parts of the state. We have seen storms like this before: Katrina in New Orleans comes to mind. Those who are choosing the fairy dust of blissful ignorance will suffer if they chose to stay against their bipartisan, elected government officials—at all levels—to evacuate.
We see the Middle East inexorably spiraling into a broader war where both major parties, Israel and Iran, have access to sophisticated stockpiles of weapons. Israel can rely on U.S. support, despite President Biden’s profane descriptions of his counterpart in Jerusalem, while Iran has ties with dictatorships around the world happy to see Washington drawn into another regional quagmire. No one knows what the real endgame is other than to continue retribution for 7 October while perpetuating hatred welling up in both countries.
Simultaneously, the two and half year struggle grinds on to save a sovereign Ukrainian from Vlad the Impaler’s revanchist hands. My metaphor, however, is that of Ukraine, clutching a rope dangling above a circle of menacing and hungry alligators. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian strength is eroding slowly as it tries to prevent what seems an inevitable, tragic meal for the alligators already smacking their lips as if on a television cartoon. A debate within our country rages over whether more aid would turn the tide for Ukraine or whether it’s misspent resources better applied to Asia.
The dynamics of Asia continue to roil so many within our country. The FPOTUS accuses China of industrial policies to threaten our industries while vascillating on Xi Jinping himself as a good leader or a diabolical threat to us. At the same time, he has repeatedly argued our Asian partners, formal and informal, pay us too little to justify our massive regional defense commitments, seeing it as a quid pro quo instead of a series of mutual defense treaties. Many national security specialists argue everyone is underplaying the unique threat the CCP plays, regardless of any other adversaries elsewhere. These hawks want to increase the $850 billion dollar defense budget significantly while organizing for a putative conflict with China within three years. The current VPOTUS fears instead an Iran with nuclear weapons and intentions to destabilize the Middle East and globe as our primary foreign enemy, demoting Beijing from that rank.
Taiwan hovers as central to our anxiety because some critics charge the island does not contribute nearly enough to its own defense while others believe the island’s three and half decade democracy requires us to defend it regardless of the cost against a takeover by autocratic, Leninists in Beijing. Asians elsewhere pray it does not come down to conflict while recognizing the United States and China are now adversaries in virtually all fields. Almost an afterthought reminds us of China’s volatile ally in Pyongyang with nuclear weapons fitted to ever-longer delivery systems but that concern is most often shoved down the list of concerns as new dangers and associated angst arises.
And those are only the international actions which may keep citizens awake at night. Threats to democracy and rule of law at home, challenges on who regulates women’s bodies, how to prepare a child or grandchild for the next school shooting, concerns about immigrants, panic about unaddressed extreme weather events, differing approaches to the economy, fears of LGBTQ+s, and the ever rising federal debt are but a smattering of the conflicting thoughts flying across one’s brain every single day. The list never shrinks but the complications, cross cutting effects, and dizzying contradictions in perceived weakness and strength across this country roil even the most passive Buddhist in retreat in the gentle hills of southern Oregon or the wilds of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is rare, if not impossible, to assemble these pieces into a coherent scheme to grant ourselves some peace.
No wonder we are all on pins and needles, driving like entitled maniacs as if we might now see tomorrow. What on earth can any one do?
In August 2001, I was in my War College office the second day of the academic year when a colleague called to ask if she could bring a student to see me. Of course, I responded. It was a woman who had served overseas for fifteen straight years for this nation, rising to where she was on a strategic trajectory in her agency (the criterion by which one attends the National War College). The student bordered on hysteria as she demanded to drop out of the program, a move her agency mentor and I both knew was fatal for her career. No matter how many times I told her she was ready for this ten month course, the more upset she became that I wasn’t honoring her wish to see the Chief of Staff to withdraw from the course.
I finally told her I would take her to see the Chief of Staff under one condition. She stopped to hear me out, to my surprise. I told her I would take her only after she went home for the rest of the day to go for a walk and to have a cup of tea. She started shaking her head again. I forcefully told her to stop as she wasn’t hearing me. I repeated she needed to go home, put on walking shoes and shorts, and walk outside for about an hour. I instructed her further then to come home, put on the kettle, have a cup of tea with her soon-to-be college bound son. If, after granting me that wish, she still wanted to go to withdraw, I would personally walk her down to the Chief of Staff’s office at 0800 the next morning. My colleague had not said a word through this exchange, now lasting close to an hour. The student gathered herself, went down to collect her things, then went home.
She was a distinguished graduate in June 2002 at the completion of the course. She assumed a major role in our student-generated anti-terrorism strategy that went to the White House after the 9/11 attacks. She finished an illustrious career as a strategic decision-maker within her agency years later.
Why do I tell you this? Actions create consequences, of course. A cup of tea with a loved one, the clarity of seeing one’s place on this planet during a summer afternoon, or the act of getting away from people nervously talking about things they did not think they were prepared to take on (as she was being exposed to over the first two days of the course) are seemingly insignificant acts that can provide us with the balance, the perspective, or the break freeing each of us to carry on in a situation. Or, doing those acts can clarify that we don’t in fact want to pursue the current path because we have other priorities requiring our attention as shown by taking time to think about what is under our power.
None of us, none of us, have the power to change most things, in truth. We have the power to change only ourselves and our reactions to problems yet we live in an era where the messaging is that we can do anything and we can bend the world to our will by force of our personalities (good or horrible). No more than Joe Biden bent or Donald Trump coaxed Kim Jong-Un to abandon his nuclear arsenal, we cannot change the minds of most beings (try having cats or being dean of a faculty). We cannot always control events but we most definitely to alter our own responses. (You may differ which I welcome as a suggestion or rebuttal).
Does that mean we are helpless? Absolutely not. We have the incredible strength to learn to prioritize what most matters to us rather than everything seemingly equally overwhelming. The key is examining our assumptions about the threats play in our lives. Vlad has nuclear weapons as does Xi Jinping and Kim (as do we, of course). Does that mean they currently have an incentive to use them against us? No, not necessarily because most of the 8 billion people on this globe are not crazy people. They do not operate as if wiping out countries is a desirable act. Yes, there are crazy people but we over use that word too often in exasperation.
I have spoken of my concerns about Vlad being pushed into a corner but that is an action-reaction move rather than something developing as a threat out of thin air. It’s possible he could be that irrational but his actions thus far do not support that level of irrationality—nor have we driven him into a corner with no possible alternative.
Some argue China is determined to dominate the world, thus we need stop that behavior. What power do we have do alter China’s behavior? The overwhelming majority of us as citizens do not feel we have the knowledge to answer questions about instruments of power or the specific intentions of other countries so we turn to “professionals” but we each have the power to explore what information is available on any topic, to include China.
Professionals may know more history or language or culture but they sometimes become so deeply enamored with their specific specialties that they can’t put China (or whatever the professional studies) into a broader context. You probably won’t become a China expert but you can certainly learn sufficiently to analyze where China fits into our world. Truth is none of us knows all of the answers on China as we are all analyzing the material as we can. Analysis is the process rather than the sole answers. Experts get things wrong, too, of course.
Read a range of materials rather than relying on a single source of information. Of course there is a danger, a huge one, of relying on the ridiculous claims and rampaging falsehoods on the internet but there are also verified professional journalists with codes of ethics and professional standards who report on questions like China, Iran or the phases of the moon. if you are genuinely concerned about a foreign policy topic, seek out a variety of sources of information by reading books published by reputable presses (ask librarians for reputable presses, read a variety of substackers, or ask people likely to know rather than only people who you happen to know), perusing more than a single newspaper with national (preferably international) circulation (the digital era makes this quite possible and affordable), and tuning in to the many not-for-profit think tanks or world affairs organizations offering online discussions of every topic you can conjure up these days.
Sure, even this approach can send you down what I might think is a rat hole full of nonsense but it’s harder. But, by taking the opportunity (and yes, it takes time) to read a range of materials, you start to discover the deep, dark, dirty secret that there are a range of answers on most questions rather than single yes or no, good or bad positions. Shocking, I know, but true. Oh, and there are ample short pieces available so one doesn’t need read that 1200 page dissertation my husband read about last night in the London Review of Books.
Then ask yourself where you have the power to address this problem? In doing so, you may decide you have bigger priorities elsewhere in your life which is perfectly fine but you will also see that these threats probably won’t kill you or your family in the next three hours. Miscalculations occur, of course, which is actions and consequences again but those are not likely actions over which you actually have any direct control as you do locking the door when you retire at night. That is ok but you can identify those distinctions which is essential in this hypersensitized current environment.
Most likely you will realize your power is at the ballot box where you can vote for legislative and executive branch officials who make policies and allocate resources to address China or extreme weather or regulating children’s access to Teletubbies. You may become keenly focused upon some aspect of the world upon which you actually cultivate long-term interest. Just being open to a range of ideas from that panoply of information sources will greatly enhance your grasp of what is going more effectively than a single source. Everything and everyone has a bias, whether deliberate or unexplored. We all have a filter as we live our lives. Bias is simply another way to think of that filtering process. The problem is when we stop taking in information because that filter leads us to foregone conclusions without thinking about the implications of our actions.
This is all a way of advocating what I told that student almost a quarter century ago about coping in this volatile, seemingly unhinged world. We are about the have an election (and already have a world) where none of us will be entirely happy about the outcome. We all need to cope with that without destroying ourselves and that world.
You may well find my suggestions today irrelevant or unsatisfying. I would, too, but have been obsessed with international affairs for most of my life. I don’t know how to do lots of things normal people know how to accomplish like sew, paint, do calculus for fun, or shoot pool, tend a proper garden, or other pursuits to occupy the mind. Instead, I write on substack to increase measured, civil conversation on these topics. I, like you, find that learning about issues helps clarify things that bother us, making them less daunting even if we aren’t able to solve them personally. You might find the same.
Ultimately, you may decide to become part of the political world that addresses these challenges head on by running for office. That is a noble task but a humbling one as representing anyone beyond yourself for any period of time requires compromise, that hated world in the modern world. Even some of the most egregious voices against some policy at home or abroad must in fact compromise to accomplish anything because that is the essence of human interaction. We have simply decided, over the past generation, that it equates to failure when nothing could be further from the truth in my mind. But, if you really look, even Ted Cruz speaks with Elizabeth Warren when each wants something the other can help provide.
Finally, you can always volunteer in some capacity whether to get out the vote for school board or at the local library to assure people like you have access to more materials to know more about the world. Perhaps you can record for the Blind & Dyslexic, by far the most satisfying experience I had for several years. You can create an action and a consequence relating to what concerns you.
The point is that you have much power to push back against the tide of disinformation, misinformation, fear-mongering, hatred, and shock stories that overwhelm us today as did that overwhelmed student in 2001 embarking on learning about strategy. We all, every one of us, need some perspective, some time, some processing to keep our equilibrium in these rough seas. It can always get worse than it appears today (cheery thought, I know) but we can also make it better for ourselves, in even small ways.
Give that metaphorical walk a try. I just finished a cup of Kensington breakfast tea, by the way.
I welcome your thoughts, rebuttals, suggestions, and any other ideas for this or any column. We are not victims unless we make ourselves such, even if we can’t control those we see as adversaries. In the end, we can control our own reactions, particularly with practice and patience. I appreciate each of you taking time to read this and I especially thank the subscribers.
The set up for the sailboat show must be finishing as it opens tomorrow. We are having the most gorgeous weather, although I am so appreciative how lucky we are compared with those facing the hurricane. May it pass more easily than we fear but with knowledge we as a nation have the commitment and resources to persevere.
Be well and be safe. FIN