State

I mentioned earlier that I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword.  I truly believe that.  Look at the Arab Spring of 2011, where multiple countries’ governments were brought down essentially by social media-organized protests.  That is just one example of the pen being mightier than the sword throughout history.  

There is a paradox in society, where people who have been to war usually wind up advocating strongly to do everything possible to avoid war, and the people who are the biggest hawks usually never served a day in uniform of any kind.  

War is the single biggest failure of humankind.  Ever.  

Every dollar spent on diplomacy to solve international disputes and foster cooperation on the globe is easily worth the money.  Things like Radio Free Europe and USAID have played an amazingly unsung role in helping to accomplish diplomatically and nonviolently such things as the fall of Communist Eastern Europe.  

Has the State Department gotten sclerotic over the years?  Possibly to some degree.  It is always going to be a challenge when you set up bureaucracy to deal with specific problems and then over time those problems lessen and new ones emerge and you have infrastructure set up for the dissipating problems but not the emerging ones.  

The State Department has within it the ability to solve every major and minor international problem on the world stage today without bloodshed and we need to make sure it is fully funded and then some.