In the midst of the current global order's剧烈 'pulses', international politics and geopolitical landscapes are undergoing profound reshuffling. Positioned at the center of this power dynamics wave, group leaders often face a dual conflict between ideals and reality when making 'decisions'. In traditional management thinking, organizations tend to prioritize realism and short-term interests, leaning towards specific outcomes; however, for larger nations and collectives, they place greater emphasis on building ideology to maintain long-term legitimacy and cohesion.
Considering the trajectory of historical and social development, we must establish a core principle: that both ideology and realism hold equally important value strategically. If we liken this博弈 to a chess game, ideology is 'taking advantage', aiming to construct a robust global framework, endowing the collective with an overarching vision; while realism is 'taking ground', requiring meticulous calculation of every practical benefit and metric, ensuring short-term survival space.
Without the 'advantage-taking' of ideology, groups will lose their spiritual core, regressing into mere temporary organizations united only by immediate interests that disintegrate once incentives disappear; conversely, if there is only ideology without the balancing 'ground-taking' of realism, it will inevitably lead to rapid destruction due to detachment from social practice.
However, for many democratic nations over a period in the past, they have long abused high-level ideological slogans in administrative actions, leading to extreme confusion among citizens regarding national identity and core values. After entering 2026, governments not only failed to rectify this but collectively turned blindly towards extreme realism. This extreme shift caused countries to often discard the ideology that the public had always firmly believed in when facing specific crises, seeking immediate realistic benefits, thereby triggering a cascade of policy chaos and self-contradictory strategic principles.
I. Extreme Ground-Taking of Realism: Practical Benefits for Large-Scale and Regional Politics
"In the context of major international geopolitical changes", leaders' policies often reveal strong realism coloring. Taking the US government's external decision-making as an example, its 'main policy framework' initially emphasized free democracy broadly, vowing to fully attack non-dominant camps and forcefully lock their economies; however, when facing the global energy rise crisis triggered by the sudden Iran war, the US government made a temporary exemption decision due to fear that domestic inflation would out of control and endanger its own political power. This move to allow Russian oil sales for inflation suppression not only completely violated the serious commitments previously made to international allies and supporters but was also seen as a dynamic 'adaptation' under realism where short-term practical benefits were thoroughly compromised.
The same political 'adaptation' logic is also evident in the fluctuation of bilateral situations. Observing Taiwan's policy shifts, it similarly reveals strong and nearly functionalist pragmatic thinking. The Taiwan government has consistently maintained and highly promoted an independent political tone for decades throughout its governance process, regarding it as the highest sacred ideology. However, with strategic micro-adjustments by the US on bilateral attitudes and shifts in global regional power balance, the Taiwan leadership layer began to actively deny or downplay the Taiwan independence tone that they had upheld as a cornerstone for decades under specific narratives and diplomatic contexts. This flexibility is not rational elevation of belief but purely short-term opportunism by leaders after evaluating geopolitical 'pulses', solely to appease strong powers to gain immediate practical survival space and secure political power benefits.
These negative cases deeply reveal that when large-scale and regional governments are purely oriented towards interests and completely abandon core values, policy implementation becomes fragmented and devoid of credibility.
II. Comprehensive Advantage-Taking of Ideology: Driving Cohesion in Large-Scale Cooperation
"In other words", if a nation or collective tilts entirely to realism, blindly chasing immediate short-term benefits while abandoning the building of ideology, its long-term development will face significant political breakdown crises. This is akin to the core insight pointed out by Uvar-Heraly in his classic work 'Human History': that humans are able to surpass other natural species and achieve cross-national and cross-class cooperation on a scale of tens or even hundreds of thousands on Earth precisely because humans can collectively believe in certain 'fictional stories' or super-reality value systems; this is the most original and core essence of ideology.
Ideology provides groups with a common core that transcends short-term material interests and sensory divergences, serving as the glue that allows organizations to survive together when facing adversity. Nations and collectives must emphasize building ideology precisely because it is the only foundation for crossing generations, overcoming collective action dilemmas, and countering individual selfish instincts.
Without this layer of solid spiritual consensus, group members will only pretend to cooperate with each other when profitable and safe; once faced with strong external military pressure or unequal internal interest distribution, the basis for maintaining cooperation will immediately disintegrate, and the entire collective will subsequently diverge. Just as in enterprise management if there is no core vision, employees will only fight for daily salaries, and the enterprise cannot survive any true industry transformation crisis.
III. Counter-Argument: The Disaster of Ideology Abuse and Realism Detachment
However, 'thinking from a high level', we must also be vigilant about the other strategic disaster brought by ideology being infinitely expanded by political opportunists and transformed into blind doctrines. When national policies are completely detached from objective reality, the 'advantage-taking' of ideology becomes a false illusion that not only fails to truly safeguard the collective's actual 'welfare' but may even become a cover-up for the power holder's incompetence.
A notable negative case is: in certain political rhetoric, to pursue or maintain a certain prestigious international title, defensive autonomy slogan, or 'meaning', severe resource misplacement appears in financial planning. For example, spending enormous amounts of money to purchase weapons and equipment that cannot be delivered for five years or used at all before the fiscal burden and long-term defense strategy are unclear and operational standards are not met. This decision is fundamentally an 'abuse' and over-expansion of ideology.
This detachment from reality's 'decision-making' not only fails to genuinely enhance the nation's actual defense capability in the short term but may seriously reduce competitiveness and 'adaptation' flexibility in other core areas such as education, economy, and civil welfare due to the skewing and waste of huge financial resources.
Conclusion: The Dynamic Balance Philosophy of Ground-Taking and Advantage-Taking
In summary, ideology and realism are not mutually exclusive binary opposites but rather indispensable 'advantage' and 'ground' in the historical chess game. Previous ideological abuse caused confusion among citizens; while the extreme realism shift after 2026 brought about contradictory policies and disorder. The negative practices of US and Taiwan governments serve as a warning bell, telling us that abandoning belief's practical adaptation will ultimately only result in loss of credibility and core values.
"Think from a high level, practice at a low level". A truly excellent manager and intellectual decision-maker with 'strategic depth' must learn to perform national-level ideology 'advantage-taking' to consolidate the public's long-term spiritual consensus; while also needing to兼顾 enterprise-level realism 'ground-taking', maintaining high levels of sensitivity and credibility in specific execution.
Only by maintaining this dynamic balance between the two amidst the unpredictable tides can we ensure that neither the original intent is lost nor the actual long-term stability and sustainable prosperity of nations and organizations are compromised. Next, I will explain from the perspectives of ideology and realism why the future of Taiwan and mainland must move towards merger.