According to a recent interview with General Martin Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the answer is “no.” (“Notes from the Chairman,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2016.)

“I think that the discussions have been superficial and emotional,” Dempsey said. “What we need are conversations that have real depth to them. Talking about what’s going to happen in the first 60 or 90 days of a presidency just doesn’t get it done for me.”

Issues discussed in the interview included Dempsey’s assessment of risks from large state actors, like Russia and China, as well as from non-state actors like ISIS and lone wolf terrorists. Looking at such an unprecedented collection of risks, Dempsey derided our seeming inability “to take a longer view—say 20 years. . . . we tend to look at things one year at a time.”

Too often we treat complex issues, not just military ones, in simplistic, sound byte fashion. Text less, read more, think more. (How’s that for a sound byte slogan?)