For those who are not familiar with the term Kobayashi Maru I will offer a brief explanation. The term comes from the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and refers to an examination given to students at Starfleet Academy. On the surface it seems to be a character test of sorts. The student is supposedly on a routine patrol when he receives a distress call from a civilian vessel.
Unfortunately, the ship is in a restricted area and for the ship to go to the rescue would be a violation of regulations and possibly lead to war. So the student has to choose between sacrificing the ship in distress or violating the rules and putting his ship at risk.
However, as it turns out, the test is not what it seems to be. No matter what the student does, they will fail. If they enter the restricted zone, the ship will be destroyed and the distress call proved to be a fake. On the other hand, if they do not enter the zone, then the distress call is real and hundreds of people die. The point is to show the student that a no-win situation is always a possibility.
From its fictional origins, the term has expanded to become something of a term of art for students in a wide variety of real-world situations. It not only is used in the military and at other training academies but is also used in business seminars, self-help programs and the like.
I mention this because I think that in many ways the United States now faces something of a Kobayashi Maru moment when it comes to dealing with the myriads of our current problems. This is not to say that we face a complete no-win situation which will result in our destruction, but rather that, no matter what we do, there will be a bad result.
Looking to the economy for example, I am very concerned about the massive level of debt we have incurred over the last decade and even more so about the debt we stand to pile up in the coming decade. I am also uncertain about the degree to which we are shifting huge portions of our economy into government control. I think that these things could have very negative consequences for our future and for the future of our children and grandchildren.
At the same time, not acting would also have very negative consequences because we would see our already-weak economy deteriorate even further. In the long-term this might be a better solution in terms of working through the mess and eliminating the future debt but in the short term the suffering would be much greater.
In short, whatever we do, I think there will be problems.
The same could be said for the problem of resolving the health-care crisis. On the one hand the old system was certainly not working but the current reforms don’t seem to be working very well either.
Obviously you could follow this to any of a dozen foreign policy issues where there seems to be no good solution.