You have hit upon something that most in the West are now only beginning to realize and understand. Mobilization is multifaceted and if we had to prioritize the pieces of your trinity, it must be ideas. Ideas that building up defensive capabilities to meet these threats is necessary. Selling the idea that it requires more than just military build up but also a rethinking of the industrial base. Selling the idea that we need to meet these threats now! Not wait for things to get worse and then have a bigger fight on our hands.
But this is a big big sell. At least in the US, and to a large extent Canada where I have worked with the energy industry, the populations see this as wasteful, or not our problem, or openly siding with the enemy (US only in the last case). The population has become too comfortable and would rather indulge their narcissistic grievances and disappointments to get “pay back” rather than meet the real threats.
But like with mobilizing for WW II in the US, it was the economic jump start following the depression. Politicians will need to make the case that it will benefit the economy and lead to rising wages and employment opportunities.
Yet, experience and history tell me that the best motivator of the US is the idea we have been attacked to mobilize the nation…The Alamo, Remember the Maine, Pearl Harbor, 9/11. Even WW I had the Zimmerman Note to spur many to support going to war, though in 1917 it was not unanimous.
You have hit upon something that most in the West are now only beginning to realize and understand. Mobilization is multifaceted and if we had to prioritize the pieces of your trinity, it must be ideas. Ideas that building up defensive capabilities to meet these threats is necessary. Selling the idea that it requires more than just military build up but also a rethinking of the industrial base. Selling the idea that we need to meet these threats now! Not wait for things to get worse and then have a bigger fight on our hands.
But this is a big big sell. At least in the US, and to a large extent Canada where I have worked with the energy industry, the populations see this as wasteful, or not our problem, or openly siding with the enemy (US only in the last case). The population has become too comfortable and would rather indulge their narcissistic grievances and disappointments to get “pay back” rather than meet the real threats.
But like with mobilizing for WW II in the US, it was the economic jump start following the depression. Politicians will need to make the case that it will benefit the economy and lead to rising wages and employment opportunities.
Yet, experience and history tell me that the best motivator of the US is the idea we have been attacked to mobilize the nation…The Alamo, Remember the Maine, Pearl Harbor, 9/11. Even WW I had the Zimmerman Note to spur many to support going to war, though in 1917 it was not unanimous.