By what measure of strength?
Internal fortitude?
Strength of comprehension and diplomacy?
Outward push?
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There’s also Status Quo:
in statu quo res erant ante bellum,
“in the state in which things were before the war”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo
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All quite different though.
Internal fortitude might be a nation with a strong civic nationalism.and/or strong systems with resilience and tolerance for adaption, like a “tree that bends”.
Strength of comprehension and diplomacy would be a UN kind of Peace.
Outward push is, just that: the ability to push harder outwardly, without a concern of losing one’s self in the process. Example might be pushing your enemy off a cliff and then following them in the descent.
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I didn’t listen as Pence isn’t my leader. Not sure what he’s doing there tbh and don’t really care what he has to say.
But political use of strength? It depends on the politician.
For example: “We are a strong people”. What does that conjure up?
What about “We need to show strength”? What’s a show?
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I think in physics terms. If a nation were a ball. What’s its molecular integrity? What are the properties of elasticity and brittleness? Any fracture points?
How does it operate when encountering different objects within a confined space? Does it achieve harmonic oscillation with other moving objects?
and outward push is to me just an empty vector with magnitude and a questionable direction.
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It’s an assumption that greater fear = peace.
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For me, internal fortitude is a key strength. You can’t wish it. It takes work. If you divide internally, you grow smaller and weaker, even if you’re capable of a big push once in a while.
Not to be sizist, but shrinking while giving the illusion of outward strength is “small man” thinking.
I’m tall and strong. I don’t look for, provoke or expect fights. I avoid fights because I’ll win and lose my integrity in the process of winning.
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But I do look for diplomacy and I’ll fight with only enough strength to emerge as equals, while keeping the excess strength on reserve.
This would be similar to having a well trained military that you almost never have to use.
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Diplomacy is still possible in these circumstances.
Heads of state are veneers. There’s structure underneath.
Example:
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In short, what nation will be left?
I want to be distracted by a Space Force. But in Space ,there’s no one there. On the ground, there’s 315 million people.
I don’t think it’ll be a wall, or a new shift in world power axis. We’ll rejoin the UN later.
And if Space Force gets his face on it, well, it’s better than a stack of Russian asbestos.