Solutions

Have a problem? What might be a good solution?  How about fixing a problem we did not anticipate? Does that change the solution? What about decisions and actions made that had unintended consequences? What do we do about them? Ignore them, move on without further consideration? Or maybe we learn from the situation and hope to avoid such problems in the future?

We live with so many problems. Here at home and across the seas. Our friends in other nations have problems and they ask for assistance to address them. Most of the time we in America respond with help. Sometimes that help is in the form of money, or active programs where we have people doing services, delivering medical help, providing goods to alleviate suffering. Sometimes we provide military aid where we boost their defenses, provide military goods and equipment, training, too. Our military aid often extends to getting involved in the fight putting our troops and support personnel at risk of death and injury.

Afterward, when we face the consequences of our actions, our help for others, we must analyze what went right and what went wrong. How much did these actions cost? In what terms the price? Lives, disabilities, money, or what?

A problem avoided is a gain of incalculable value. We do not pay much attention to this, however, because we are unaware of the problem avoided. Likewise, we do not know what succeeded in this case and gather learning lessons from it.

We learn much from mistakes, rarely from successes. But then, we learn if only we admit mistakes were made.

This is what we face today in considering the mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Viet Name?). Both nations are connected in our policy world. They offer lessons only if we analyze honestly what, why, where, and who of all the issues involved. The hue and cry from the press and public today after a sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan proves my point. The hue and cry are not analysis. They are public relation actions formed by many parties to avoid blame for the mess.

My suggestion is to make decisions with clear definitions of desired outcomes. What do we want to be the result of our action? Is it long-term or short-term? If short term, can we evade prolonged involvement? If long term, what must we do to keep the objective firmly in mind while we take the actions that will best make the desired outcomes come about?

In Afghanistan, we were there for Osama Bin Laden. Later we were there for a supply base for our incursion of Iraq. In the first case, we should have removed ourselves when we learned Bin Laden was not in Afghanistan. In the second case, we should not have been in Iraq at all. Connecting the two policy decisions clouded both objectives fatally. Easy to see today; not easy to imagine 20 years ago when the first decisions were made.

Picturing the desired outcomes is a helpful process. We should have asked: “How will we remove ourselves from Afghanistan when it is time to do so? What conditions should be present to make that decision?”

Today is not the time to ask that question. That is now a lost opportunity.

Like poor results from schools, it is not the schools’ fault, rather it is the inevitable result of poverty bone crushingly present in the lives of the students doing poorly. Fix poverty and we may improve educational results. Of course, many other issues are involved here, but it is a good example to start with.

Solutions take disciplined thinking. Wild remarks in the press and by the press take no imagination at all. In fact, it can be successfully argued such handling produces a distraction from solutions. That result only causes more poor outcomes.

The time to invent solutions is long before the problems occur.

August 24, 2021