Who ya gonna call …?”

Historically conquers know you do not directly rule conquered people, you rule their rulers. In many cases, you install rulers of your choice and set up “puppet” governments.

America is no exception. It has installed and propped up rulers to do bidding such as the Shah of Iran,  Pinochet in Chile,  Chiang Kai-shek in China [later fled to Taiwan], and Mubarak in Egypt. Even our “Allies” were not immune to American machination. Rulers such as Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Sarkozy in France and Howard in Australia received our covert domestic political assistance.

Controlling the rulers has become much more complicated. As “stateless” entities take hold, we are left dealing with fragmented and disjointed groups. The difficulty is often finding someone with enough authority and a willingness to deal. 

It is further exacerbated where colonial powers carved up territories and created artificial states. Therefore politically united factions or ethnic groups cross state borders in the traditional sense. The Kurds are an example. 

Privately we cheer the military take over of Egypt. We have someone with the power and willingness to make deals. Israel has been the first benefactor. One of the first acts by the military was to close tunnels in to Gaza. It makes you wonder what incentives America and Israel gave the military to take down the Muslin Brotherhood?

There is also the moderately aligned that asserts independence from time to time. Two are Erdoğan the Prime Minister of Turkey and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Often when they do assert themselves it results in a devastating situation for American objectives.

Traditionally small factions have not been a major problem for large powers. In most cases they could either be ignored or crushed. That is proving impossible in places like Afghanistan.  The newspaper today pointed out that military leverage has been turned on its head. Factions and small groups can craft or acquire biological weapons [viruses] that have the potential to kill millions and can easily be deployed. Add to that the Achilles Heel of extreme cyber dependencies in America.

There are a couple of lines from the movie “Ghost Busters” theme song that sums things up.

“If it's somethin' weird and it won't look good,

Who ya gonna call …?”