Run Silent. Run Deep. Run Obsolete.

I have been having a circus period.

There is a place for this strategy and we are still elected to fill it. Think about the run-up to Pearl Harbour. Start with the German Reparations. Continue with the Washington Navel Treaty and go on to the 1934 German rearmament and the collapse of the Versailles Treaty. You can throw in the Japanese campaign in China.
Substitute nukes for gunboats.
The Pax Britanica blew up in 1914. The replacement regime was stillborn with Wilson's stroke in 1919.
Let us do the task that was supposed to be the UN's reason for being.
National sovereignty is a terrible problem.