For good reasons, Pacific rim issues will grow in importance, along with the Middle East and Europe. We also have to face limits to national missions and national resources. Not all battles are ours, and clear thinking on this will spare the armed services and the public much grief. Doing less than we might is a sensible policy. Contrast such restraint with doing less or doing nothing at all, because we lack resolve, are unprepared, or as Henry Kissinger observed, irrelevant.
Dictators take themselves too seriously, because they think themselves important, worthy of respect.
They are ludicrous, deserving our laughter, contempt, scorn and ridicule. Before Adolf Hitler was destroyed, Hollywood had already done him in with the old Charlie Chaplin movie classic, The Great Dictator. A free people can laugh at great evil, unleashing the joy of living that helps a people to recognize and to resist tyranny. We need another comic champion of the military, for the 21st century, who will replace Bob Hope. Remember Pearl Harbor.