Overwhelming

More than anything, Russia's attack on Ukraine drives home the complexity of the world, and therefore how fortunate we are that we have a large and diversified economy with different institutions doing different things. Right now I'm thinking about the military and diplomatic establishment, such as it is across the various governmental entities, think tanks, suppliers... However much I read, however much any of us tries, we'll never take it all in. And it's important that there be continuity to it across time.

All of which argues for the importance of the non-partisan "administrative state," as it has been called by the Right. The expertise developed by all those people shouldn't just be jettisoned because it doesn't make sense to some congressperson or collection thereof who spends a good chunk or most of her time out winning elections.

Certainly, within the military, there are a lot of people I'd be initially disposed to disagree with, because they see the world differently and have literally seen a different world than I have. That's OK. We really need more channels to get their way of thinking through to us, and vice versa.

I must say that my eyes were significantly opened yesterday by this article  from NYT about how various Asian nations view the situation in Ukraine. On the one hand, I think about how much goodwill have we squandered through the years through rigid ideologically-driven adventurism abroad. On the other, I remember how limited our span of influence and control is at the end of the day. We'll never get everything we want. Nor, in some sense, should we.