I remember in February 2002 when former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld came up with this logic, "As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know." At that time, I was a young Army Lieutenant Colonel and found this thought process to be somewhat nebulous, but I came to understand it. There are times we refer to the uncertainty of the battlefield as the "fog of war,” and in many ways, today's modern, 21st-century battlefield takes on that characterization.
Back when I first joined the military, the world was rather simple, bifurcated. There was the U.S. and the USSR, and it appeared that all the global actors aligned themselves with one or the other. There were many proxy conflicts that were fought between the two, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, but for the most part, we operated in the realm of the "known knowns."
A New World Order
Then it happened, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and many saw that as a time when a new "peace" would be ushered in. However, there was a gentleman, Samuel Huntington, who wrote a book, "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order.” This was one of the books I read as part of my second Master’s thesis at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officers College (CGSC).
The Clinton Administration had written a National Security Strategy titled "Towards a Universal Cosmopolitan State" as a post-Cold War strategy. It was referring to the philosophy of one Immanuel Kant, who envisioned a global political order where people were seen as equal citizens of the world, national borders transcended for shared moral and legal frameworks, and the advancement of the ideal of universal rights through international cooperation and global governance. Some would say this was the beginning of the globalist ideology.
However, the world did not become more Kantian; it became more Machiavellian, and Huntington's thesis became the way forward. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not usher in peace; it created a situation of known unknowns and even unknown unknowns.
Era of Non-Nation States
So, here we are in this 21st century, and instead of dealing with known nation-states, we must contend with not only nation-states but non-nation-state belligerents, and nation- states that support the non-nation-state belligerents. First, there came the rise of Islamic jihadism, which accelerated upon the rise of the Ayatollahs in Iran. Now, we have the rise of transnational narco-criminal terrorists, and at the intersection of it all, we have the cooperation of these elements with known nation-states.
For some, mainly progressive socialists, who embrace the Kantian globalist ideology, this is quite perplexing. They want open borders, yet that concept lends itself to the proliferation of non-state actors. In essence, their very own policy creates a gap by which our Nation, America, is being exploited and finds itself confronting unlawful enemy combatants on its very streets. We also find ourselves contending with a chemical warfare attack that has resulted in the deaths of over a quarter of a million Americans. Marxist Leftists have now put our Republic in a very precarious position of allowing adversaries into our Country, yet they want no resolution to the matter.
21st Century Strategy
This is the crux of our 21st Century National Security strategy: how does America secure its Nation from without and within from the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns? And this stretches across the spectrum of economic, energy, domestic, and cybersecurity.
A great example of this is the current issue with Venezuela, which is run by a Marxist dictator, Nicolas Maduro. There can be no debate as to the known known, the fact that Maduro is collaborating and cooperating with narco-criminal terrorists, the cartels. He is benefiting from this relationship economically. We also need not ponder over the fact that Maduro purposefully infiltrated the violent gang Tren de Aragua into the United States during the open border season of Joe Biden in order to create domestic insecurity in America. Maduro is also an ally to China, Russia, and Iran and the oil wealth of Venezuela, which he nationalized, is further used for the purposes of supporting our declared, known enemies.
Is it necessary for the United States to go to "war" against Venezuela? I think not, but it is necessary for America to grasp the facts, the knowns, and peel back the onion of support to Maduro and undermine the narco-terrorists that enable his regime and kill Americans.
Remember, unlawful combatants are not recognized by the Law of Land Warfare, and their so-called rights are very limited. It is just the same with Islamic jihadism, that we must peel back the support to these unlawful combatants from known nation-states, such as Iran, Qatar, and Turkey. This can be done by diplomatic, economic, and informational means; military should always be the option of last resort, but it must be a credible deterrent.
What is most confounding, again, is the fact that the American Marxist left created these situations and conditions, yet wants no solutions. They do not support our federal law enforcement enforcing immigration law and securing our border. They do not want our Nation to prevent the thriving of human, sex, and drug trafficking into our Nation.
They do not want a strong America, a return to the "peace through strength" strategy of Ronald Reagan. The leftists embrace Islamic jihadists in this Red-Green alliance. In other words, the left in America wants to perpetuate a 21st-century American insecurity.
The bad actors that threaten America have become quite known to us, and sadly, they include seditious and treasonous Americans. These individuals, Marxist leftists, remind me of the quote attributed to Roman statesman Marcus Tulius Cicero, "A Nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alleys, and heard in the very halls of government itself." We call these traitors Senators and Congressmen... they are the known knowns of the 21st-century national security strategy.
Steadfast and Loyal.
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