Isolation

As a military strategy, isolation makes sense. The most effective fighting unit isolated and surrounded will be hard pressed. A tank is moving strategic, maybe tactical isolation; concrete traffic barriers and bomb curtains are strategic isolation. It makes sense in epidemics, identify and isolate. In a similar sense, that is what we are trying to do in Iraq. The identification is a bit of a challenge but those with the murderous mind set are coming out of the woodwork and migrating to Iraq, like a giant carbuncle, the infection draws to the surface, surrounded and isolated by polymorphonucleocytes and giant cells. The toxins produced cause the fever. One can argue that strategy in Iraq or is the argument the fever? Our soldiers are humans, not polymorphs. Other isolation strategies, however, work well and are more clear-cut.

Business benefits from an isolation strategy; identify the problem and isolate it. Focus the department on the problem, and keep the rest of your business functioning normally. The economy too benefits from isolation. When a monopoly, or cartel, limits competition and creates scarcity and expense, contrary to the public interest, the Federal Trade Commission can identify, isolate and even dissolve the entity, the same with foreign trade. If a trade nation dumps product at below cost in order to harm the local competition, the Federal Trade Commission will identify and isolate with import tariffs.

Strategic isolation must not be confused with generalized isolation or political isolation, if you will. Generalized isolation is more like an Ostrich with its head in the sand, or a disseminated autoimmune disease to use the medical analogy. The political view holds that cheap inferior products, flowing in at below cost, result in a trade deficit, therefore barriers against all foreign trade will be beneficial. Social isolation that discriminates is like political isolation, but isolating destructive behaviors that threaten the public is of strategic benefit. A diversity of strategic isolation seems prudent. Diversity allows the strategy to evolve. States have their own trade policies, relevant to their own issues.

Murder, as a behavior, occurs in other primates, notably chimpanzees. Can we identify the cause of that behavior? Why is the murder rate in Iceland near nil while in our country and the Middle East it is quite high? With terrorists and with ourselves we need to identify and isolate the cause of such violent behavior, identify and isolate.