Elbridge Colby’s lecture at the Christianity & National Security Conference, 2022.

Elbridge Colby discusses the People’s Republic of China, American grand strategy, and great power competition. The following is a transcript of the lecture.

Thank you, Mark. Wonderful to be here again. It’s a pleasure and an important conference, and I’m privileged to join it, especially with such an interesting and distinguished roster of speakers. I’m sorry I missed the last presentation because it looked very interesting and actually pretty apropos because what I’m going to talk about…

I laid out for those interested in an article in First Things, I think in the last issue, the October issue. It’s called “The Morality of a Strategy of Denial.” What I want to do, other than being a little self-referential, is to provide a moral account for the kind of strategy that I advocate for the United States, but also the kind of point of view rooted in realism. In this context, although I talk about it as the classical moral tradition, I think it’s very compatible with the Christian natural law way of thinking, which is itself rooted in the classical moral tradition. This is important for two reasons. First, in and of itself, a foreign policy or any policy should have some compelling moral foundation for people of good conscience to adhere to it or support it.

But also instrumentally, it’s important that any strategy or policy have what people feel is a moral element. Otherwise, they’re unlikely to support it. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been a little surprised that what I thought would be a piece for a narrower community has actually registered more broadly. I was in a Zoom call with an Australian politician who said, “Oh, I read your…” I thought he might say, “I read your book,” but he said, “No, I read your article in First Things and I think this is really important.” This was a politician. So this is an issue not solely for Christians or people of faith and moral views to think about, but also of importance to the broader body politic here and abroad.

My view is that the appropriate way to approach foreign policy is maybe similar to Charles, but I might put a slightly different spin, which is that the purpose of a foreign policy in a republic, in particular, should be to pursue the enlightened self-interest of the citizenry. I define that as our security, our freedoms, and our prosperity and economic security, essentially. Our foreign policy should be key to that—the purpose of a republic is the Commonwealth, the common good of the people who compose that republic. I’ll get to how I think I have a similar or different view than the last speaker about how that relates to the international community. My view is that the biggest threat to those interests is China and particularly China’s ability to dominate Asia. To frustrate that, we need what I call a strategy of denial, which has a strong geopolitical element as the basic foundation but also a critical military component.

In order to make that work, we need to be prepared to fight a war, including a very potentially damaging war with China over, potentially, Taiwan as well as other allies in Asia, in particular, to pursue that goal. In my book, I really laid out the rational strategic case for that. I’m happy to go into the details of that strategy a little more if people are interested.

But it’s basically the logic of, “If you want to avoid war, you’ve got to prepare for it,” which people like George Washington and the Romans said. I feel like that’s pretty good authority. Sometimes a thing is a cliché because it’s true, and it doesn’t mean you should ignore it. So that’s very much in that logic. It’s in the desire to prevent a war, but as I close the book, with the goal of a decent peace not only for Americans but for others, including the Chinese.

So what’s the morality of this? It’s interesting because I think realists—realism has become a thing in the academy that has a particular sort of personality and sociology, I would say, but to me, I don’t really identify so much with that. Sometimes here and there, but realism is more of a disposition or an approach to politics, certainly international politics but domestic politics as well. But the moral debate has been dominated essentially for years by liberal hawks, neoconservatives, pacifists, or global do-gooders.

I don’t think that’s true. Bottom line up front, I think that this strategy I’m advocating for is actually more moral than the alternatives. I’m not saying that other foreign policies are not moral, necessarily, but I think mine is. The one I’m advocating is moral, and what it calls for is, in a sense, morally obligatory. Why is that? I lay out the basic moral obligation of a state.

I think I would have a slightly different view than what was previously said, in that a state has a basic duty to pursue the good goals of its citizenry. That is its nature. I model this on the concept of stewardship, which is certainly a rational one but also, I’ve been struck— for those of you who are Catholic, over the summer, there were a lot of readings from Luke where Jesus talks about the model of stewardship quite a lot. Basically, like a trustee or a parent, the basic duty of a state is to ensure that it meets its core goals to those of whom it is constituted and to whom it is primarily responsible, that it meets some goals above and beyond.

In doing so, that is a good goal. In the classical moral tradition, it’s kind of like an Aristotelian or domestic approach. If there is a good goal, if you pursue it rationally and proportionally, then those actions are good. So it’s a more teleological approach. There are things that are in and of themselves evil, and we can talk about what those might be. Although, I would say, in the realm of war and international politics, that is a relatively elastic standard. But if something is rationally and proportionally correlated to that goal, then it is of itself good because the end is good. That doesn’t mean the ends justify the means in all contexts or that it’s consequentialist, but it does account for consequences, and that’s particularly so when you’re not dealing with yourself, when you’re dealing with those who have entrusted you with their benefit.

That’s why the model of stewardship is so relevant. An example I use is, God forbid, if I die or whatever, and my children have a trustee or a steward, I would expect that person first and foremost to use whatever resources are available to make sure that my children are benefited in an appropriate way, in a good way, and not to give it all to charity immediately, right? Or, forgetting the other example I usually use, but that basically gives you the idea. If somebody bequeathed an inheritance to a university or a Church, the trustees are not supposed to, even if something else is in some sense good, to give it to starving people or whatever if it vitiates the basic purpose of that bequest, then it is not actually acting rightly.

The state is very similar. The state needs to make sure it takes care of those basic goods first and foremost in a rational and proportionate way. That requires acting with an anticipation of consequence. The critical thing about this view of morality is that you have to think of the consequences. It’s not purely a matter of intent. Intent itself is not sufficient. Now, you shouldn’t be acting out of evil intent to do a good act, but you should be thinking, what are the other consequences of what I’m doing for my primary responsibilities? Nobody knows the future, so you can’t purely hold people to account based on just the results.

What this classical moral tradition would have you focus on is reasonably anticipatable consequences. Acts of God or force majeure are different, but if you bet your children’s education fund on a lottery ticket, that’s not acting in accordance with reasonably anticipatable consequences. Similarly, if we say, well, we’re going to invade Central Asia and pacify it, and that’s our route to world peace, and then everybody will like us, that’s probably not acting in connection with reasonably anticipatable consequences. We can think about this a lot because a lot of mistakes we’ve made over the past generations have been ones that may have, I believe, often been made with very good intent.

But a reasonable anticipation of the consequences would have shown that it would vitiate the basic responsibilities these leaders were entrusted with. That’s the moral model where that leads you to. Actually, I think in this context, it’s not only thinking that it’s tolerable to build up our strength vis-a-vis China but actually thinking it’s morally obligatory because in this context, neglecting the primary danger to American core interests, which I would say is China, is morally wrong.

We could talk about the threat of wokeism and stuff, which are also pernicious and so forth in a different way, but at least in the fundamental geopolitical sense, the greatest danger is China. If somebody says, well, I want world peace or I don’t want to perpetuate a security spiral, or I feel that I need to do more in sub-Saharan Africa or whatever, that is not itself a good act if it vitiates our ability to meet that primary responsibility. That includes saying, well, I’d rather not spend more on the military, and I’m not saying that we should hand over money to Raytheon or Lockheed as a moral act in and of itself.

There are many different ways you could do this, but the basic idea is that strength is actually, in some contexts, not only permissible but obligatory, especially if you want to avoid a war, which I do. If you want to avoid a war, and you think the best way to do so—and I think there’s a lot of reason to think so—is to have a kind of measured and restrained strength so that if you end up not contributing to that strengthening, you are not acting morally. We should all be careful with Hitler and Churchill analogies, but I think there’s a reason that we think Churchill was not only wise but more moral than the disarmament crows of the 1930s, which was more outspoken, more high dungeon, and many, I think, religious people were very sympathetic to it.

But in the end, I think it’s fair to say, certainly the consensus view would be, that it contributed to the outbreak of the war, whereas if we had had measured strength in that context, then we would have been better off. That’s the basic bottom line. I guess what I would say is the context, in terms of the last presentation, just because I heard the tail end, is that it really has to do with what are your primary responsibilities and a realistic assessment of what you can and cannot do. This is where you can’t make a moral judgment absent a realistic assessment of how international politics works and the geopolitical situation and so forth.

What I would say in response to that is that we have an obligation not to do evil to others, and we have an obligation, when we have the ability to do so, to help other people. That is true, but that should not detract, in the same way that a parent shouldn’t neglect his or her own children for things that might, in the abstract, be good but are not their primary responsibilities. So the state should make sure, especially a republic, that it takes care of its primary responsibilities, which is the promotion of a decent peace and our core interests that I laid out. I don’t see the international rules-based order or something as a moral entity. The international order is a thing that exists, that adapts based on power relations and interests and so forth. But I don’t think we have a compelling primary interest, as the current administration does, in its preservation or promotion.

This is interesting because I think, in all fairness, I would say traditional Catholic political thinking was probably more in that vein, so the last speaker is certainly tapping into a very long-standing tradition. Although I know Mark is at least a Protestant, so maybe I’m just playing to the crowd, but I think my approach is somewhat more realistic than at least that element of Catholic traditional thinking. The current pontiff has not been positive about just war theory and the classical moral tradition in the context of war and peace. So, I may be saying something a little off the message, but that’s what I think is right and rational, and what’s in our interests, but also we should do so.

Maybe with that, Mark, I don’t know if that… maybe field some questions or comments. Thank you. Press the button on the microphone until it’s green, and then when you’re done, turn it off so there’s no feedback from the answer.

Q&A

Question: Yes. Oh, very good. Hi, I’m Olivia Keane, and I’m a sophomore at Colorado Christian University. It’s kind of a vague question, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about over the last two days of just feeling very helpless as a 19-year-old girl in a dorm room. So it’s kind of a broad question, but what is the most proactive thing I can do in global conflict in general from a dorm room for the next three years because I feel like I want to help more than I can, but I don’t necessarily know how.

Answer: Well, that’s a good question. I certainly respect your instinct. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. There’s probably not a tremendous amount that you can do. So I wouldn’t feel like you’re letting us all down by not jumping into the breach. But, look, if you think about things the way I do, it’s important to think in terms of the world as such. Obviously, helping people who are in distress or hungry or sick, that’s always a Christian thing to do, particularly in the realm of conflict, where people have been hurt, widowed, or orphaned. That is something that always is good.

If you’re thinking about things the way I’m thinking, then the most important way to help in the long term is to be educated and experienced and have a realistic view of the world. You need people who are not realistic and who are idealistic to do a lot of things, particularly to help people where it may seem hopeless. Mother Teresa was not a realist, right? That’s my impression, but I would say the world probably needs both. I mean, I’m not in a position to moralize, but it needs saints, and it also needs people to make sure that the saints are protected. So, it seems like either one of those would be a good way of contributing to the world and conflict, and hopefully, not having conflict, which is my goal. I think you’re never going to get rid of it entirely, and you’re certainly never going to get rid of the potential. But if we play things right, we can have less conflict than we might otherwise.

Question: Thank you, sir. Hello. Mike, this one. Hello. My question is, in the Western Pacific, how much of the security burden do you see falling on the Japanese Navy, the Australian Navy, versus the American Navy? As we’ve seen with the AUKUS deal not too long ago, plus Japan’s kind of rearming. I’m increasingly heartened that, whereas before it may have seemed like America has to go at it alone, I’m very pleased at the way our allies have been stepping up. But how much of that do you see as really tangible?

Answer: It’s a great question. I would say that the Australians are doing a lot, but they’re a small country. They’re about a tenth the size, eleventh the size of us. Japan is moving slowly in the right direction, but too slowly. The fundamental fact, unfortunately, is that China is so big, wealthy, and strong that America has to be, I call it the cornerstone to use a Biblical term, the cornerstone of this coalition. We need a lot more from Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and others. But America is really going to have to play the heavy lift because of the simple scale that the PRC can generate.

But if America’s there, you do see the Japanese and Australians becoming increasingly solid partners. This is geopolitical reality: the Japanese and Australians and others, but they in particular, are very worried about China dominating their region and them. So they are really quite on board. The question is just, are they—are we doing enough? So, the administration released its defense strategy yesterday, which I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but it basically seems pretty solid. The question is not so much the strategy and the rhetoric now. The question is the execution. Thank you.

Question: Hi, my name is Greg Moore. I teach politics, international relations at Colorado Christian University. I just read your book on the plane over here, and I actually didn’t know it was so much about China. Actually, I’m a China guy. I’ve been studying and living in China for thirty years, and I really salute you because I completely agree with your conclusion. My question for you is kind of a practical one. I recently wrote an article that the editors gave a really annoying title. It was called “Biden is Right, We Must Defend Taiwan.” My point was not that Biden was right. I’m a Republican, so I never hold authors responsible for titles. That’s awesome and credit for that. But he is right, I think.

We need to—the point was that strategic ambiguity has been very useful, but we actually need to start deterring if we’re serious about standing up for Taiwan, that we need to communicate that to China, lest they, you know, like the April Glaspie thing, where the U.S. Ambassador told Saddam Hussein that we did not have a security interest in defending Kuwait back in 1990, and then the Dean Acheson Press Club speech in 1950 where we told the Communist world that we would not defend Korea or Taiwan, and then that led to, in both cases, the other side thinking we have a green light to go ahead and do this, and I think we needed to be very clear. I’m surprised and pleasantly surprised that Joe Biden has been saying that. So I assume that you support that.

My question is, I was just talking to somebody at the Heritage Foundation yesterday about this whole thing, and he just doesn’t think it’s in our interest to get involved in this Taiwan thing, and he said, “Persuade me.” So I don’t know if I did or not, but my question is for you, if you’re right, and I think I’m right, that Taiwan is worth standing up for, how do we persuade everybody here? I would guess most people here would say, “Why is that? Why is that our fight?” And I think that’s a real challenge because in a democracy, if we’re going to do that, and I think strategically it’s the right thing to do, how do we, and maybe this is what you’re working on right now, persuade the community here in Washington and the larger republic that this is worth it for American national interests?

Answer: Well, thank you. I appreciate the kind words, and I’m delighted to hear it, although your expertise in China, it’s personally gratifying but also worrying because you know China better than I do, and the fact that I’m right is not reassuring. On that point, I mean, I would say just on the strategic ambiguity question, my view is a little nuanced, and I don’t usually like to be too nuanced because I think nuance is overrated often, but I think we are actually right now almost possibly too far on the talk and not on the walk.

Actually, the worst situation is when you go too far and you commit your credibility to something that you can’t defend because then it increases the incentives for the other side to do something, and it hurts you. So what we’re doing now is speaking loudly and carrying a small stick. I actually think that China—it’s pretty clear to me that China thinks that we would come to Taiwan’s defense, so we don’t need to formally abandon the policy of strategic ambiguity, which is overrated, but it would be provocative and wouldn’t generate a benefit. The real thing we need to do now is hit the gym and get ourselves in shape.

My biggest gripe with the administration is that they talk, but they aren’t walking the walk, and that I don’t get. Their national defense strategy yesterday is all focused on China, and they want to end up there, and then Secretary of Defense Austin just talked about Ukraine the whole time, basically.

It’s a small example, but it’s telling. There are some good things happening, but not at the scale or urgency that is needed in my view. So that’s basically the number one thing I work on right now: trying to persuade the American people why it’s worth defending Taiwan. I should say that the defense of Taiwan, as I think you know from reading the book, is very important, but it’s not an existential interest for the United States. The way to make it correlate with the scale of the interest at stake and the costs of the conflict is to ensure that we have a military that can fight the war so well that it essentially drives down the costs.

The way I think about it is if Taiwan is worth 70, we need to keep the cost below 70, but what we’re doing is pushing it up where it gets to the point where even I wouldn’t necessarily support defending Taiwan because it’ll be so damaging. The historical analogies I like to use, and maybe there’s a better one, is in the Battle of France. As the Anglo-French forces were collapsing, the French were saying to Churchill, “Give us more aircraft to fight on,” and Churchill wanted to send those aircraft to the fight, but Air Marshal Dowding said, “If you do that, we won’t be able to defend the British Isles.” So Churchill didn’t, not because he wanted to lose France but because the alternative was worse.

If our military is totally hobbled by a failing defense of Taiwan, we can’t do it. But that’s still going to be terrible. I had a piece in Time Magazine or online earlier this month that was partially derived from some remarks I gave at the national conservatism conference. In Washington, among the blob of elites, I think it’s less of a hard sell. The financial community is not bought off, but foreign policy types are pretty sympathetic, at least rhetorically. I don’t think they are prepared to go through with what’s necessary to actually realize what would be needed. So it’s more of the talk without the walk.

That said, I have spoken with members of Congress, including Republican members of Congress, who are not convinced that there would be total support in Congress. I definitely think that among the American people, and particularly conservatives, there’s real skepticism about it, and frankly, I totally get it. I think the Middle East wars were a huge mistake, other than the narrow mission against Al-Qaeda and the punishment of the Taliban. I was against the intervention in Libya, against intervention in Syria.

So, I’m not in favor of military intervention as a general principle, but this is different. This is the decisive theater and the decisive opponent, and if they get Taiwan, really almost any way they do it, it’s going to be a major blow to us. The problem is that it’s so far away, it’s so small, and nobody really knows much about it. Very few people do. It’s kind of like there’s a sense that it’s something we can push off to the side. But the key to making it worthwhile is to laser focus on it, and again, get that capacity to drive down the point.

I think the bottom line is this: If China dominates Asia, we’re all going to be working and living in a Chinese-dominated world and economy. All the major economies, like Wall Street and others, won’t stand up to China—they’ll conform. Social media companies will either be Chinese, owned by the Chinese, or their data will be shared with China. If they don’t like you, now they get ticked off about Tibet, the Uyghurs, and Taiwan. But in the future, when they’re much more powerful, they’re going to come after us. Look at what we can do to people we don’t like, like the Iranians, the Russians, or the North Koreans. If China dominates the Asian economy, they’d be much stronger than we are. It depends on how you measure it, but I think they would have a real incentive to put us in our place because we’re the only ones who can challenge them.

So this notion that you sometimes hear on the national conservative right, which is like, “We’ll come home, have autarchy, and reassure industry in a way,” is not going to work. Even if you did that, we’d be like 15 to 20% of the global economy because they’re going to shrink us. They’re going to exclude us from the trading area, so our companies are going to be isolated. Not even the Latin Americans are going to stick with us because China is already their biggest trading partner.

We have to prevent China from dominating Asia, and Taiwan is really important to that. If Taiwan falls, it’s just going to get harder. That’s my take. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress in terms of raising the issue and people becoming more supportive. But the problem is, if we only get 85% of the way there and China still wins, it’s still a failure for us.

Question: I’m Kaylee from George Washington University in Elliot. I’m from South Korea. I want to ask you about the phenomenon where many Asian countries are trying to deploy a self-defense system. I see many Asian students thinking about their own self-defense system as better than relying on the American defense system. Allies in Asian countries feel the actual threat from North Korea and China. But we think that the United States is not as active in protecting its allies, and sometimes it’s related to economics. For example, when Joe Biden visited South Korea, he pressured Samsung to invest in American factories and then made an act called the CHIPS Act, which means semiconductors must be manufactured in America. This makes allies think the United States is trying to be an exclusive country, and I think it’s impacting the security part. So I wanted to ask you, what will be the future role of America?

Answer: Asia is the critical theater, and the allies are going to have to do more because China is so much of a threat. Look, South Korea is in a tough geographical position. South Korea is, I think, the eleventh largest economy in the world, but it’s surrounded by China, Russia, Japan, and North Korea, and then it has the Americans involved. My basic view is that South Korea can’t really be neutral because it would turn South Korea into a battlefield, metaphorical or physical. If you’re New Zealand, you can prattle on and ignore China, free ride, and whatever because it’s so marginal, just physically marginal. But South Korea is right there in the center and too important to be ignored.

I think South Korea and the United States are kind of fated to be allies because it’s a strategic necessity. Also, South Korea is very important to the defense of Japan, which is the most important ally of the United States in the world, just as a function of the size of its economy. South Korea actually does quite a lot and has a very capable military, spending a lot on defense. The reality is the United States has its hands full focusing on China, so I think U.S. forces in Korea are increasingly going to have to focus more on China, and South Korea will have to primarily handle the North Korean threat, which has diminished over time but remains serious. Given the possibility of collaboration between Beijing and Pyongyang, it’s very serious. It’s a tough situation, but the alternative—if South Korea tries to hedge or be neutral, it either becomes a battlefield over time, or it falls under China’s shadow, which I’m pretty sure being in the American sphere is better if for no reason than that we’re very far away. That’s my advice for South Korea. Thank you.

Question: Ryan Burton, Regent University. So you explicitly stated that China is the major threat, and then you’ve also kind of alluded to their involvement with the United States. My question is, how do you defend and prepare for Chinese intervention within divisions in the United States and trying to stir up those divisions because, on the road to war, they’re going to be doing stuff inside the U.S.? How are we going to prepare and drive them out of doing that?

Answer: I personally tend to worry less about that stuff because I think a conflict is mostly going to be about the battle. Political resolve is obviously important for how a battle goes, but I’m a fan of free speech. If the Chinese somehow figure out how to stir up division, I think a lot of this disinformation stuff is basically suppressing speech. I don’t agree with Elon Musk on everything, but I’m glad he’s taking over Twitter because it’s like, “Hey, you can say what you want, and if somebody wants to say, like, I’m talking about China all the time, but if somebody says Xi Jinping’s the greatest guy, I don’t think he should be kicked off Twitter.” I’ll make an argument for why he’s not, or if somebody says, “Hey, Taiwan, we should abandon it,” okay, well, let’s have an open debate. The best disinfectant for lies is sunlight. I don’t know if we’re all on the conservative side here, but I feel like this is definitely used against us more.

The National Security review was going to potentially block Musk from getting Twitter, which was just too precious because it’s such a tendentious use of this. Again, I don’t agree with Musk on everything, but his program for Twitter seems to be what we want. I tend to discount a lot of the disinformation and that kind of stuff. Our system is about having an open debate, and if somebody wants to come up with a peace proposal that people don’t like, well, let’s hear it. That’s my view. Thank you.

Question: Hayden Parham. Let me just say that I tend to agree with you. I read your book. It’s very good. The main critique I hear is that China will fall into the middle-income trap, they have an aging population, and it doesn’t matter how much they try to invest in AI. Eventually, the inherent shortcomings of a command economy will prevent them from ever reaching the heights to which they aspire. Let’s just focus on our own domestic policies because we have a tried and true system, and we can just wait forty years, and we’ll be back on top. What’s your response to that critique?

Answer: I’m not an economist, and economists themselves don’t seem great at predicting the future economically. But my initial instinct is that China still has a lot of people who live in semi-poverty. By the way, people like Eric Schmidt and Bob Work say they’re at the forefront of artificial intelligence development and supercomputing. So my gut is that they still have some significant room for growth, even if they have major debt crises.

If you look at the history of the American economy, we had huge financial crises over the course of our history before the Great Depression, and there have been market collapses several times in the last couple of decades. If it is true, well, there’s still an economy roughly comparable in size to our own. So they’re still huge. They’re still ten times the size of the Russian economy. Also, demographic decline is happening throughout the advanced world. It’s catastrophically bad in Taiwan. Korea and Japan have very low birth rates as well. So it’s a relative matter.

The final point, and this is something that other people talk about more, is if that’s true, that might incentivize China to act sooner. Hal Brands and Michael Beckley emphasize this argument a lot. I personally think the reasons for near-term Chinese action have more to do with the military balance and possibly Xi Jinping’s own personal calculus, but I don’t rule out the possibility. If Xi Jinping agrees with Beckley and Brands, then if your goal is to create a geoeconomic area, you could break out of this decline by acting aggressively.

The main way that my thesis could be invalidated is if it turned out that the Chinese really had feet of clay, like the Russians or maybe the Soviets. We don’t really know. But the thing is, even if they’re—we put a 50% discount on the quality of their military, they have so many things. They have so many missiles and planes. First of all, I don’t think we should do that, but even if you apply a significant discount, they still have so many advantages they could potentially win. I’m also not sure that we are everything we’re cracked up to be on the military side. If you talk to serious military professionals, they’re quite frank about this because they know. I don’t think this “they’re gonna collapse” sort of thing is true.

The tougher argument to deal with actually comes from the other side, which is, “We’re screwed, and we should cut a deal.” Like, Neil Ferguson was arguing for détente. I actually think détente is our long-term goal once we get a position of strength, but first, he’s saying, “We’re in so much trouble. We should just sue for détente now.” Other people like Lyle Goldstein, who used to be at the Naval War College, argue that militarily, they have so many advantages that Taiwan’s defense might be hopeless. I don’t think that’s true, but I find that argument harder to deal with. Thank you.

Question: Samuel Vanaput from K11. It seems that the comparative advantage of the U.S. towards China is declining militarily, right? How should that inform U.S. strategy?

Answer: Thank you. When I was in the Pentagon, the strategy was to focus up—Michael Bolton’s phrase was to “hit the gym” and focus on the primary challenge. That was the whole idea. It was pretty simple, which we just haven’t been doing enough. Now we’re in a situation where they’re already at a point where they might think they could win, so they might have an incentive to move. If we bend that curve back—because if you look historically, why aggressive wars tend to happen, it’s often because the aggressor judges that his relative advantage will never be greater.

As I understand it, the German High Command was opposed to the initiation of war by Germany in 1939, but Hitler rightly, in this context, unfortunately, judged that the Germans were at a high point relatively. The British rearmament had begun, and I guess French rearmament, so that was why they decided to go. We have to manage that at this point, which is one of the reasons I’m in favor of actually kind of taking down the profile or the temperature to kind of, like, we’re hitting the gym, we’re in spring training, and then we’ll be back on the field. But please don’t do anything while we’re in there. Great. Thank you.