Think tanks. That’s what they call them. They have important sounding names. They do important work. You don’t know what a think tank is? Think of a septic tank, only one that works backwards. These are institutions of magnificently knowledgeable people who, among many other very wise abilities, can see into the future and prognosticate – such as an opponent’s next move if one moves the queen to the knight’s third row and so forth. Such prescience concentrated within a relatively small bandwidth should at the very least warp time and space; of course, government leaders know this and bend their collective wills accordingly and apply whatever dictates that result from these esteemed academicians’ well-considered formulations and strategies. Especially when it involves US foreign policy. This level of wisdom cannot be contained by any known means and kept within the bounds of their group psyche, so it must by virtue of its virtuousness, be disseminated as the wisest of any available wisdom and it is therefore sought and unquestioningly applied in all profound decision making. And all their products come with the caveat that any strategic failure is to be blamed on the decision maker (conveniently neglecting to mention that the decision was based on their advice).

It was from these very founts of effusive omniscience that there were determined to be horrific threats of dominoes falling in southeast Asia and the existential challenges to freedom and the American way of life those damnable falling dominoes would surely bring upon us. All-prescient determinations were made with the certainty of these deemed threats in mind, and as always in avoidance of (and with the obligatory contravention to) common sense and/or any evidence of human compassion, they directed the government to apply military might in such a way as to avert the falling domino catastrophe, while befriending the locals’ hearts and minds by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of them, and with generous donations of napalm and agent orange onto their villages and the surrounding countryside. What could possibly go wrong? Beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin, this was one of the signature achievements of our academic caliphates, and by April of 1975, it had demonstrated to the world the effectiveness of the American think tank. (The tragedy that was the Vietnam war was/is no laughing matter, please do not read this as an attempt to make light of that – what is important is to realize what an unnecessary and complete failure it became).

There are countless examples of the value of think tanks to foreign policy. Due to their unparalleled genius, advice from outside-the-box thinkers like Brzezinski and Kissinger heavily influenced courses of action such as the partial destruction of southeast Asia, the complete destruction of select European countries, and the entire Middle East. Why, these efforts might have never been undertaken, much less accomplished with such thoroughness and rigor if not for the prescient instigation by such wise and learned groups of men and women. These types invariably advise the application of conflict and death in scenarios for which their impeccable wisdom is sought and most of the time these tidbits of proverbial insight have the unexpected (and surely unintended) result of a boon of massive profits for various contractors and arms suppliers.

We’ve reached a point in history where leaders hardly make a move without going to one or more of such gaggles of wisdom for consultation with their resident oracles, always gathered at the gates to guide their steps. After all, when a leader takes advantage such veritable fountains of profound academic and strategic thought always at his disposal, how could he possibly make a wrong decision? We might not have arrived at the opportunity to show the world how rapidly American forces could vacate the Kabul airport, if it had not been for the omniscient think tanks who doubtless inculcated the notion that we should be there in the first place. The decision to recognize that Guano character as president of Venezuela has got to rank among the most embarrassing (to us American citizens most of all) foreign policy decisions in our relatively short history. Seriously. Wonder which think tank got bonuses for that one?

Here in the US, there are many places and issues that don’t involve mass murder which beg for attention. For instance, the western United States sits beside the largest known body of water in the solar system – the Pacific Ocean, yet there is very little potable water to sustain approximately 40 million people of the Southwestern US. I don’t know what the cost might be of desalinization plants to rectify the water shortage, but I do know that (at the behest think tank(s)), the US government is once more sending tens of billions of dollars to finance a war that has nothing to do with our country. Wonder how much desalinization Americans could get for 20 or 30 billion dollars? Someone should put that question before the resident geniuses. Or maybe they’ve already considered it and decreed that our contribution to people dying by the hundreds of thousands in a faraway land (once more) is vastly more critical to American interests than drinking water. And don’t even get me started talking about the homeless and drug problems.

At this writing, and in what is sure to be remembered as one of the most stellar of all state department achievements possibly in history, our country staggers as it begins to suffer the effects of ill-advised sanctions, undoubtedly instituted at the behest of think tanks; the state department then convinced European allies to also implement the same on a perceived adversary. Leaders of European nations promptly started clawing and scratching over each other to be recognized as the most subservient to their beloved Uncle (and his infallible panels of magi). The effects of this monstrosity of foreign policy action are yet to be completely felt but suffice it to say they are not looking good. Energy structures worldwide are what a spinning reel looks like after a bad cast. Europe, our supposed allies, are bleeding on the economic ropes. We in the US aren’t far behind. I’m sure the think tanks responsible for this fiasco will be handsomely rewarded – and if they could know about such a well-financed cognitive mediocrity lurking in, and actually directing, the highest decision centers of the planet, Dunning and Kruger would probably give up and go rock hunting.

Just in case the aforementioned sanctions do not win the think tank golden award for monumental foreign policy blunders, these same people have gone forward with a back-up plan to put a price cap on oil from aforementioned perceived adversary, an initiative which makes the incredible assumption that said adversary would be willing to sell its oil to such states as attempt put this ingenuity into practice while there are states in the East queued in line to buy the oil at market prices.

If there was a way to communicate with goldfish, maybe we could ask for policy guidance from them. I’d bet good money that the fish tanks could be at least as (maybe more) capable advisors than the “think” tanks. And a heck of a lot cheaper.