GEOPOLITICS

There may be a responsible way to fight the Islamic State, but the U.S. will have to leave its boots in the closet and the drones in the hangar.

It seems like only yesterday that American battleships were declared obsolete (though some still exist) because they were sitting ducks, required too much personnel, and their shells were unguided.

In the U.S. war on Iraq, hundreds of thousands died the sort of deaths that, if broadcast in an ISIS video, would have inflamed international opinion. The Middle East is suffering the blowback from rotten U.S. policies, disastrous wars, and cultural turmoil.

When the Cold War ended, many believed there would be a peace dividend, nuclear disarmament, and dismantling of the war machine with industrial conversion to peaceful technology.

The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden did more than knock off U.S. Public Enemy Number One. It formalized a new kind of warfare, where sovereignty is irrelevant, armies tangential, and decisions are secret.

With little notice from most press outlets, NATO recently developed contingency plans to defend its Central and Eastern European member states against potential Russian aggression.