Long-term strategy is inherently nonsensical to people who literally have to constantly get elected.  The "strategy" is whatever works in the short-term to get RE-elected.

If you look at all the historical "long players", they're never people facing re-election.  Jared Diamond has an excellent piece on how Trujillo being a dictator allowed him to be such an awesome pro-environmentalist guy.

I'm also no fan of the Chinese government but you do have to admit they engage in a TREMENDOUS amount of long-term thinking and strategizing.

Britain under Queen Victoria = same thing, her long reign allowed for that kind of thinking.

In democratic nations however, there are always the "long ballers", such as Cheney and the neocons, which we know about, eager to "right the wrongs" since the Nixon/Ford administration.

But there were also long ballers like Zbigniew Brzezeinski who had pre-1979 plans on stirring up the Muslims populations in Central Asia, etc.

The "problem" in the USA is there are two competing camps of long-term strategists, who pingpong in and out of being in positions to IMPLEMENT those strategies.  

Pax

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