Letter to the Editor / Dr. PAVLOV and LONG TERM SOLUTIONS

By Roger C. Kostmayer

Our country has a number of big complicated problems that require both short and long term sophisticated solutions.  Some of these crises are foreign, some domestic and some both.  Since these problems and crises, at some stage, involve human behavior, their solutions should recognize Dr. Pavlov’s studies on incentives and disincentives.

The Trump LAWLESS and INCOMPETENT AUTOCRACY  problem – If you were the new US President it might be tempting to say :“Forgive & forget”, let’s move forward together and not get fixated on the rear view mirror.  Whatever they are, the immediate problems will be solved in less than a month by a new administration”.   Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t solve the more dangerous long term threat caused by lack of accountability combined with inaction’s invitation to future ambitious oligarch’s to exploit Trump’s precedents.  Unless there’s considerable pain and a very high price to pay, you are training the dog to chew the rug, and you can be assured bad behavior involving power and money will increase.

RUSSIA’S CYBER ATTACKS – probably over the last 6 months.  With a mysterious green light from our president to Russia’s President Putin, Russia launched a massive, and successful, attack on US national security.  Failure to respond with devastating pain to Russia assures an imminent existential crises – with a gun to America’s head.  We must block and solve the immediate problem and simultaneously deter Russia and other adversaries from even considering such future action against America – because, and only because, the price they would pay would be catastrophic.

This is not a time in our history for American naïveté.  Similar carefully formulated long term solutions that include accountability, should be formulated for other crises, such as:  A Pandemic Commission, Police Killings and racial Justice, Global Warming, Rebuilding multilateral international relations & organizations.

Big problems require big, bold and effective solutions, not timidity.

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