Parents Going Nuclear

"I brought you into this world.  I can take you out."

This utterance by frustrated, angry parents, was made popular via situation comedies and social media.  It's kind of funny, but also something you can't take seriously.  Nobody in their right mind would "take out" their child (at least we pray not).

Parenting can be a rough business. It is easy to make a threat that you can't back up.  "If you do that, I will ground you until you're 25!"  Or even something like, "Try me.  You will experience fire and fury, the likes of which the world has never seen!"

The problem with using rhetoric like this is that kids learn to tune it out.  They know you can't go there, so you might as well be bleating sheep noises, or sound like Charlie Brown's parents (Wah! Wah! Wah!).  Some stubborn children may even be inflamed and challenged by the impossible-to-enforce threats, and decide to challenge or one-up you. "I'll show you how late I can stay up!"

The parental threats can't be carried out.  If they are, it would result in the complete destruction of the family.  The whole nuclear family would go...nuclear!  There is no recovery from the violence and harm that would be caused.  Not to mention one or more may have violated the community standards and laws we live by, and that some jail time might be involved.

This is not a diatribe about spanking.  Every parent has to make their own decisions about the careful and cautiously applied use of corporal punishment.  But nobody wants to do real physical harm to their child.  No wants to do permanent and scarring damage that leaves a family broken, unable to be put back together.

Families are complicated things.  They require a balance of techniques, including diplomacy, negotiations, rewards and incentives, and yes, discipline and for some, the judicious use of corporal punishment.

And so it is with the family of nations.  Extremist rhetoric and empty threats only cause more harm than good.  Two national leaders, yelling and screaming and taunting and threatening each other, does no good, and may only lead to an error everyone will regret.  They are playing games with not only the lives in their own nations, but those neighboring them as well.

A nation that blindly threatens, a nation that celebrates the expulsion of it's diplomats as a "cost-saving measure", a nation that does not have the patience for more structured solutions involving the participation of other national actors, is risking blowing up the entire family of nations.

Foreign policy and national security is always a maze.  Every action (or inaction) leads to consequences, both intended and unintended. But the world has to be engaged in - isolation leads to as much or more danger as involvement does.  Like with the our own families, it takes a mix.  It takes diplomacy and negotiation.  It takes carrots and sticks.  It takes the cooperation of other nations.  And yes, sometimes it takes the judicious use of military force.  Emphasis there on the word "judicious".

When a family goes nuclear, and carries its threats too far, it is a sad and horrible thing to see.  When it happens to the family of nations, it is a terrible and world-altering thing to witness, one that could scar and jeopardize us all.