Brent Scowcroft Center Senior Adviser Harlan Ullman writes for Defense News on why the United States must take a global view when addressing today’s most pressing issues:
When confronting a big problem, President and General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower believed the best solution could be found by making the problem bigger. What he meant was that in moving from, in military terms, a tactical to a strategic solution the latter would resolve the former.
This is what President Barack Obama must do as he confronts a world of volatility and uncertainty, perhaps unlike any other period in memory. In fact, today could be an inflection point as great or greater than the end of the Cold War or Sept. 11.
The president’s strategic approach is cautious and restrained yet uses often-excessive rhetoric such as announcing a “strategic pivot to Asia,” drawing “red lines” in Syria or “destroying the Islamic State” (IS) without any real follow through. Thus, in light of the many concurrent crises confronting the world, how might the Eisenhower solution apply?