It has become increasingly apparent to me, both in our foreign policy and in our domestic policy, we love to have stop gap measures. Now, for a dictionary term so that people don't assume this is some biased/slanted/ aka right-wing prospective. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/stopgap Cambridge defines it as " something intended for temporary use until something better or more suitable can be found" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stopgap Merriam defines it as: something that serves as a temporary expedient So more or less, the way I'm using it concurs with its modern day use and cannot be said to be bias'd in a way. I point this out, because lately I've been attacked for having a political bias in my discussions and conclusions. So what stopgap measures am I referring to specifically? In foreign policy, I've come to see NATO as a massive example of a stop gap idea. NATO was created, largely to try and keep conflict in Europe from happening, the defensive alignment was meant to grant protection to these European States and that hopefully would deter aggression. It has only partially accomplished this. There is no aggression between NATO States, and by and large from non-NATO States against NATO States. But because of the very nature of NATO, it cannot include all of Europe and that's the biggest cause of the conflict. Simply put, whether defensive or offensive, we are finding out that the existence of a military power in of itself cannot be a replacement for a diplomatic breakthrough. And crucially for the United States, NATO has proven not only to not be a replacement for the US Presence in Europe, it has locked us inside of Europe. Stop gap measures work for a time, until the need for a long term solution. I don't know what the terms of that would look like, but I call for a new Congress of Vienna. NATO has failed both Europe and the US, and even if it acts as a bulwark to the Russians, that was never the goal(not even as a bulwark against the USSR), the goal was to prevent us from going into Europe. Mission failed. Domestically, what's a stop gap measure? Plenty of them. The minimum wage could be said to be a stop gap measure. In the topic dealing with "misleading information", agencies like that are also stop gap measures. Our tendency to rely on stop gap measures(economically, continuing resolutions could be seen as a stop gap measure) is the reason why problems aren't solved.
