Brinksmanship as a Governing Strategy

The term brinksmanship was first introduced into the American lexicon in the 50’s as part of the Cold War vernacular. Brinksmanship is simply the strategy of pursuing a desired outcome by pushing a highly dangerous situation to the limit (brink) rather than concede.

My experience with brinksmanship was forged in the crucible of labor negotiations as the corporate head of labor negotiations, representing the company in labor contract negotiations with the unions. The symbiotic relationship between management and the union, seeking mutual self interest, was hard baked into the economy of the industry, where profitability, jobs, and growth were an immutable part of the economic equation of bargaining. Under ideal circumstances each side sought an enlightened approach to differences that would hopefully result in win/win solutions. Our approach was guided by Fisher and Ury’s principles of win/win negotiations as captured in their classic book Getting to Yes.

Brinksmanship is a seldom used strategy in labor negotiations any longer, by either management or labor, primarily because of the long lasting, if not permanent, consequences of executing a successful brinksmanship strategy. The scars from a strike or work stoppage create wounds that are slow healing, sometimes requiring a generation for recovery.

On the international political stage, brinksmanship has a history punctuated by two particularly monumental examples:
1.) President JFK’s stand down of the Soviet Union in 1962, over the Cuban Missile Crisis when he demanded the removal of all ballistic missile capability from Cuba while ordering a naval blockade of Cuba. Soviet Chairman Khrushchev accused Kennedy of pushing mankind "to the abyss of a world missile-nuclear war." Khrushchev backed down and ordered cancellation of missile deployment in return for an American promise not to invade Cuba.
2.) President Ronald Reagan’s "peace through strength" defense philosophy was the hallmark of his administration and was directly responsible for the economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union from super power status. During his presidency Reagan increased defense spending by 35%, 7% of the GDP. Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), included the creation of an anti-missile defense system dubbed Star Wars that caused the Soviet Union to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP in 1989, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels and ultimately caused Soviet Chairman Gorbachev to throw in the towel – no mas.

As the nation now stands at the crossroads of socialism and capitalism, I am reminded of Winston Churchill’s words on Socialism, a philosophy that I consider as anachronistic as organized labor, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” Churchill went on to contrast capitalism with socialism, in the negative in typical Churchillian fashion – “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

From Churchill to Obama is a distance of galactic proportion, but that’s where we are today, riding the Obama crisis creating brinksmanship machine, hell bent on driving the United States into a socialistic state.

Brinksmanship is the coin of the realm of the Obama administration and its shibboleth is expressed simply by the President’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel – “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste”.

Well it seems that everything is a crisis today and Obama is directing the brinksmanship. The crises are established once the President opts for the state solution (borrowing or printing money) over a free market solution (Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand). Both are painful, but only one offers an ultimate solution. This administration is choosing the wrong solution for every problem all guaranteed to collapse in a heap of broken dreams and disillusionment, while eviscerating the very soul of America.

Don’t expect to hear accuracy in projections from Obama – unemployment numbers, new jobs or saved jobs, national debt, revenue, medically uninsured, illegal aliens, Muslims, et al. Prevarication is the cornerstone (the end justifies the means) of any good community organizer raised under the teachings of Chicago radical Saul Alinsky. Alinsky’s two books Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals greatly influenced Barack Obama the community organizer. I suspect that Obama can more easily quote from these two books than he can from either The Holy Bible or The Koran.

Saul Alinsky states in his first book that “War is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play.” Perhaps nowhere is the sheer evil of the content and intent more clearly stated than the dedication of his Rules for Radicals – “From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who knows where mythology leaves off and history begins- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer."

The Obama Imperial presidency with its 21 czars, more than a Russian dynasty, from the bail out czar to the latest cyber-security czar operate without legislative oversight and report only to Obama.

Make no mistake about it, Obama and his party have created a finely tuned democracy destroying machine moving at a break neck pace ready to move to the brink.