History has largely disregarded the unintended consequences of US Pres. Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China, and how the USSR retaliated, cutting short the President’s strategic agenda for dealing with both Beijing and Moscow.
And what does that mean for the next era of strategic alliances? A new NATO? A new period of diminished cooperation between the US and Mexico, the US and European NATO, and so on?
Perhaps the “experiment” in universal, forced literacy, has been a failure, an historical blip. Literacy is in retreat because of technology and because inquiring minds challenge leadership patterns. Yet intellectual capacity— signified by literacy— determines strategic success. What is to be done?
