Patton sees threats the State Department refuses to acknowledge. His instincts haven’t been corrupted by diplomacy.
Make no mistake: my German Shepherd, Patton, has better threat assessment capabilities than half the analysts at Foggy Bottom. Furthermore, he demonstrated this again yesterday when he barked at a delivery van for eleven uninterrupted minutes. The geopolitical threats my dog detected were clear to me, even if our so-called intelligence community would dismiss them.
The van had foreign writing on it. Patton noticed. I noticed. Apparently, that makes us both more observant than most diplomats.
Instincts Over Intelligence Briefings
Here’s what the foreign policy establishment doesn’t understand: geopolitical threats often manifest in unexpected ways. Consequently, you need assets on the ground—or in my case, on the couch—who aren’t constrained by bureaucratic thinking. Patton doesn’t read position papers. He reads body language. He reads intent. Additionally, he reads the mailman as a persistent territorial incursion, which, frankly, he is.
As I’ve written before about watching our enemies, vigilance is a 24/7 operation. Patton understands this. He sleeps with one eye open. Literally. I’ve checked.
The Patton Doctrine
Consider his threat matrix: squirrels (potential surveillance assets—their movements are too coordinated), the neighbor’s cat (clearly operating with impunity across our borders), and anyone wearing a hat (suspicious by definition). His geopolitical threats assessment may seem broad, but that’s because he understands something our leaders don’t: in an uncertain world, you can’t afford to be selective about what you perceive as dangerous.
I named him Patton for a reason. The general understood that aggressive posture deters aggression. Therefore, when my dog barks at nothing for twenty minutes at 3 AM, he’s not being annoying. He’s projecting strength into the void. He’s making potential adversaries think twice.
What Patton Knows That Washington Doesn’t
The State Department relies on intelligence reports, diplomatic cables, and satellite imagery. Meanwhile, Patton relies on pure instinct—uncorrupted by politics, undiluted by committee thinking. When he growls at the television during foreign policy coverage, I don’t tell him to stop. I take notes.
Some might say I’m projecting strategic significance onto normal dog behavior. Those people are soft. They’ve never looked into Patton’s eyes and seen the thousand-yard stare of a warrior who has seen the neighbor’s sprinkler system and knows—truly knows—that it could activate at any moment.
Stay vigilant. Patton does. I do. Someone has to.
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