Love that RWBY Volume 7 said you can take your ruthless "pragmatism" and shove it up your ass. A humanity that chooses expediency over morality, that has decided the innocent are expendable, that has reduced human lives to statistics, that has thrown away everything that seperates us from the literal soulless monsters clawing at our walls out of fear is not a humanity worth fighting for. Our strength isn't in what we're willing to sacrifice, it's in what we're not.
Jaune: I can't believe I'm gonna have sex on the desk of the Atlesian General.
Penny: It's somewhat Exhilarating, yes? So long as we ensure to disinfect the area, we should not be caught! I will access the Cameras so we are not seen, and the door will remain locked until we leave!
~Later~
Ironwood: *Looking around suspiciously*
Ironwood: ... Someone Fucked in here. No alcohol, so it wasn't Qrow ... No Perfume, so it wasn't Winter ... The Ace-ops were out on a mission, so none of them could've done it ... Robyn wouldn't have bothered to clean up.
Ruby: Hold on, why do you need to look through all of our scroll Data?
Ironwood: For the security of Atlas of course. If you have nothing to hide, then you should have to nothing to fear us finding on your scrolls.
Jaune: So you wouldn't mind releasing the internal documents that lead Atlas to it's decision to "assist" the Mountain Glenn Evacuation efforts?
Ironwood: ...
Jaune: You know, the documents that the Atlesian government always uses to keep track of their foreign affairs?
Ironwood: ...
Jaune: It's not like it was a direct order from the General back then, and it isn't like the General would be negligent in their duties as the general, would they?
Ironwood: ...
Jaune: Though I am barely twenty, and That whole disaster happened before I was born, so I would even know who was in charge.
Ironwood: ...
Jaune: By the way how long have you been the General Again?
Why does James get a round table when his arc is supposedly doesn’t trust anyone and is supposedly someone who unfairly wields his power.
A round table symbolically represents an equality of power as they have no head of the table, everyone at the table are equals. Unfortunately the rule of cool overshadow everything even if it contradicts what the show is trying to say.
All this to say, this is further proof also of just a lack of planning at all and that James's turn was very last minute and thrown in for no real good reason.
Ironwood, looking at Salem's invasion: I've been told... To think about the ocean, when I'm stressed, and i look at THAT, and I'm REAL stressed. *Turns around*
Camilla: Sir, you're the General!
Ironwood: Imma go to my room, imma think about the ocean... Bye guys, I'm peacin' out. You guys can handle this. *Leaves*
Camilla: Sir, you are the RULER of this kingdom, you have to ACT!!!
Late response, but I think what's also striking is how much the series also makes it pretty blatantly clear that Ironwood's actions are also a total failure from a geopolitical perspective as well.
The people who loudly consider Ironwood the "pragmatic" one almost always consistently ignore that, at least given the situation they appeared to be in, that Ironwood's actions would from a geopolitical perspective be considered outright ABANDONING Remnant to save only Atlesians, which is anything BUT practical or pragmatic, and would read as immensely cowardly.
Geopolitics at its core is not particularly nice and could easily lead to situations where people will have to die for any number of awful reasons, but the general leaning is more towards trying to minimize the damage and ensure that as many people are unaffected by these kinds of situations. Ironwood choosing to abandon Remnant in that regard is the exact opposite of that, because he's basically damning the many, more or less calling to their faces that he views everyone except Atlas as disposable, and expecting them to be kosher with it because of his belief in the supremacy and importance of Atlas.
RWBY's actions are both morally right by comparison, and overall would be more valuable in the geopolitical space since it's rallying all of the worlds to stand together against evil, rather than discarding the "wrong kinds" to save the "right kinds".
So Ironwood fails both on a moral and pragmatic scale.
It just goes to show that when men like Ironwood say only they are strong enough to make the hard decisions, in actuality what they mean are the cruel decisions. Standing their ground and protecting Mantle was the hard choice.
I wish I could say it's unrealistic for world leaders to be literally facing down the end of the goddamn world and still only thinking exclusively in terms of borders and national self interest but alas.