If I were Dr. Evil and my objective were to wreck the modern world, I wouldn’t waste my money hollowing out a volcano.
No sharks with lasers. No moon base. No elaborate countdown clock conveniently giving James Bond seventeen minutes to escape.
I’d buy three maps.
Europe. The Middle East. The western Pacific.
Then I’d sit back in my unnecessarily enormous chair, put my pinky to my mouth, and wait for everybody else to do the work.
Because the truly diabolical plan wouldn’t require one gigantic war.
It would require three.
The first fire would be the Middle East.
Israel and Iran already possess enough hostility, missiles, proxies, history, religion, geography, and unfinished business to keep Dr. Evil’s Department of Strategic Mayhem comfortably employed. Add a wider regional confrontation, perhaps involving Turkey and other regional powers, and suddenly Washington has a very serious problem.
Israel needs support. American bases need protection. Shipping needs protection. Air defenses start burning through interceptors. Intelligence assets get redirected. Tankers, aircraft, ships, logistics, and precision munitions begin migrating toward the Middle East.
Excellent.
But I wouldn’t stop there.
I’d turn toward Europe.
Russia and NATO already spend enormous amounts of time staring at each other across borders while insisting neither side wants World War III. From Dr. Evil’s perspective, that’s practically an engraved invitation.
Get that confrontation sufficiently out of control and suddenly America has another theater demanding attention. That pesky Article 5.
Europe wants reinforcement. NATO wants air defense. Everybody wants intelligence. Everybody wants ammunition. Everybody wants American logistics.
And here’s where my evil plan starts becoming beautiful.
Because America doesn’t own three separate militaries.
There isn’t a United States European Military sitting next to a United States Middle Eastern Military sitting next to a completely separate United States Pacific Military.
There is one force.
One industrial base.
One inventory of increasingly expensive missiles.
One strategic airlift fleet.
One tanker fleet.
One submarine force.
One intelligence architecture.
And one Congress arguing about how much everything costs.
Now we arrive at Act Three.
China.
If I’m sitting in Beijing watching America’s attention divided between a Middle Eastern inferno and a NATO-Russia confrontation, I’m probably not thinking, “Gee, this seems like an excellent time to leave Taiwan alone.”
I’m looking at Taiwan.
Very carefully.
Because suddenly America faces the strategic equivalent of trying to put out three house fires with one garden hose.
This is where Dr. Evil wouldn’t even need everybody to be secretly coordinating in an underground lair.
That’s the scary part.
Russia doesn’t need a conference call with Iran while Xi Jinping waits on hold.
Opportunism works just fine.
One crisis creates an opportunity for another power. That crisis creates another opportunity. Pretty soon Washington isn’t deciding how to win the war.
It’s deciding which war gets the Patriot missiles.
Which war gets the tankers.
Which war gets the submarines.
Which war gets the long-range precision weapons.
Which war gets America’s immediate attention.
And which ally gets told, “Your shipment is delayed.”
That last one is where the comedy stops being funny.
For decades America talked about being capable of fighting two major regional conflicts. That concept came from an era when the likely opponents weren’t simultaneously Russia and China, backed by modern missile arsenals, cyber capabilities, enormous militaries, nuclear weapons, and sophisticated industrial bases.
My Dr. Evil strategy would therefore be ridiculously simple:
Don’t challenge America’s greatest strength.
Attack its bandwidth.
Don’t give America one enemy it can concentrate against.
Give it three emergencies.
Don’t attempt to defeat the United States everywhere.
Make the United States decide where it cannot afford to lose.
And don’t forget the economics.
Wars consume things at breathtaking speed.
Missiles that took years to manufacture can disappear in days. Aircraft require maintenance. Ships need repairs. Ammunition factories cannot magically triple production because somebody yelled “national emergency.” Skilled workers don’t materialize from underneath the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, Americans would discover that “arsenal of democracy” isn’t a magical incantation.
It’s factories.
Machine tools.
Raw materials.
Engineers.
Truck drivers.
Railroads.
Ports.
Ships.
Workers.
Time.
And enormous piles of ammunition.
Dr. Evil understands something Washington occasionally forgets: logistics isn’t the boring stuff behind warfare.
Logistics is warfare.
Of course, my evil scheme has one enormous vulnerability.
Allies.
If Europe can shoulder most of Europe’s defense, America gets breathing room.
If Israel and America’s regional partners can carry more of the Middle Eastern fight, America gets breathing room.
If Japan, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and other Pacific partners become capable of presenting China with an enormous regional problem, America gets breathing room.
And if America’s industrial base can produce missiles and ammunition faster than three theaters can consume them, Dr. Evil’s magnificent plan starts falling apart.
Which is exactly why the lesson isn’t that America needs to panic.
It’s that America needs to prepare for the possibility that the next global crisis won’t politely wait for the previous crisis to finish.
History doesn’t operate a deli counter.
Russia doesn’t have to take a number while Iran finishes.
China doesn’t have to wait until NATO’s war is over.
Our adversaries don’t even have to particularly like one another.
They simply have to recognize opportunity.
So if I were Dr. Evil, I wouldn’t build the Death Star.
I’d build three crises.
I’d start one in the Middle East.
One in Europe.
Then I’d wait until America’s military, political leadership, ammunition stockpiles, logistics network, and national attention were stretched across half the planet.
Then I’d look toward Taiwan.
Pinky to mouth.
“Three wars.”
Suddenly, one million dollars doesn’t sound like nearly enough. Wouldn’t even buy one Patriot missile at Military Industrial Complex Prices.
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