Just rewatched Black Hawk Down.

There’s a scene where someone says:

“You have the power to kill, but not to negotiate. In Somalia, killing is negotiation.”

“Do you really think killing one man will end this? That the fighting will stop?”

“Without victory, there can be no peace. There will always be killing… this is how things are, in our world.”

It’s been 30 years since those events. Somalia is still torn by conflict.

Billions spent. Refugees displaced. Countless lives lost.

The truth remains: you can’t spend money, time, or blood to fix another people’s problems.

Modern economies need to rethink what it means to police the world, to absorb refugees, and to intervene in conflicts they can never truly solve. I think this is one reason of the populist, nationalist, and isolationist approach we are seeing across the globe.