Waving a proverbial magic wand whilst declaring heartfelt peace ambitions seems like a bit of a non-strategy. Sadly, the folks at the White House seem oblivious to this. The last few months have demonstrated that ardent declarations regarding political wish lists seem like pie in the sky.

Modern America is fortunate enough to have long enjoyed the luxury of being able to pick and choose which fights it either does or doesn't engage with. This means that there are very few people walking the corridors of power in Washington who possess much by way of genuine, experience-based wherewithal when it comes to dealing with serious aggressors face-to-face. Largely, America’s latter-day conflicts have been conducted on a “by-proxy” basis and there are some very good reasons for this.

If the USA was seen to be openly involving itself with squabbles involving Russia or China, it might run the risk of sucking in the entire NATO Alliance and that would definitely not be a good move. Question is, how long can such “proxy” wars be passed off as such? There's going to come a day when such actions will be seen as being “by-proxy” purely on a technicality. When (for example) American munitions fall on enemy territories, having been fired by American hardware, operated by personnel who have been specifically trained by the Americans; the “by-proxy" argument becomes an increasingly hard-sell.

The lives of American military leaders and their numerous strategists have been made all.