Thus my initial "I agree". I didn't go into details as you had already covered that angle well. I don't think Elayne's such the political wonderwoman some believe she is, just because she's not stupid and played some cards well in the Succession (for others, she just got lucky). There's a lot more to leadership than seizing power. Elayne's good at seizing power, whether she's good in the exercise of power as a ruler remains to be seen. It's similar with Egwene. She proved good at driving the AS through a crisis using all sort of extraordinary means sometimes very dubiously moral from a leader, sometimes bordering tyrany or resorting to dictatorship. Lies and deceptions, bullying, manipulations, wedge politics... all part of the arsenal. Whether she's good at ruling the Tower without resorting to those means anymore remains to be seen.

Elayne's vision for AS is little better than Egwene's. They both have a fairly narrow vision for the moment. It's not even very dissimilar either. It's just that they went through different experiences and focus on different issues. Elayne is in a position to see much better than Egwene the advantages for a ruler or nation to gain the services of channelers. Dealing with the SF have made Elayne more opportunistic. So far, it's all focussed on her personal profit or more often on what she sees as Andor's. If you told Elayne AS should serve as civil servants in much the same way she offered the Kin to serve, she'd be horrified. If you told her that as Queen she can have those services but all the other nations will have the same, she wouldn't be as pleased. That's fine positions for a Queen, but that's not much of a better vision of the WT's role. Elayne is as staunchly supportive of WT power over the nations as any AS. It's just that she started to experience what that means from the perspective of a ruler. For the moment she's concerned with how she'll manage to wriggle Andor out of that and ensure her status as AS will serve to increase her independance from the WT rather than place Andor under more WT authority, with no intent whatsoever to see a general decline of WT power over the other nations.

Nynaeve is the one with a far better vision of what it means to be Aes Sedai than either Elayne or Egwene. Left to her own devices, she'd rather roam the world to heal for sure. Nynaeve was forced to play a political role, but she's always hated that aspect of being a Wisdom.

I also agree for the most part on "Tower issues", I'm not a great admirer of the WT as you know, even though we disagree on several points of detail about Egwene's role and place in that system. In the long run it will be a good thing that Elayne's actions precipitate massive changes among channelers and reduces and changes the nature of the power of TV.

My angle was more that I frankly don't think Elayne had weighted properly the consequences of her recent actions. She's made a series of tactical moves that resulted in increasing the power of Andor in the short term, but she doesn't have much of a global strategy to maintain and stabilize that power, or to avoid making Andor enemies. Elayne is still functionning in the logic of the Succession, grabbing advantages and power whenever she sees it. She's making precipitous decisions, with less and less care for those she mean to rule, and for what she might be bringing on their heads.

She definitely doesn't seek a clash with Egwene/TV or to turn the other nations against Andor in fear of its ambitions and in fear it may already be unstoppable, but that's right where she's heading - and she can't win that fight, and wouldn't condone the means required to win it anyway. The LB will distract everyone from all those issues soon enough and change the political board massively along the way, but otherwise...

Elayne has increased the power of Andor too much too fast. She likely won't have time to secure and stabilize that power before the other nations react by turning to Tar Valon to keep their Aes Sedai Queen in check, and the WT will find a way to oblige without losing face because Elayne's plans threaten their own and their own interests. They all see Elayne has a mean to increase WT power and prestige, they won't suffer for long that she rather undermines it, or put in jeopardy their image of neutrality. They wouldn't resist much if the nations suddenly appeared to recognize its supranational power so it can put Andor in its place. Or this would have been the most likely outcome if not for the LB being such a wildcard, and putting much pressure to push aside any issue that prevents unity. Elayne's not very likely to get more than the severe reminder about the Amylin's authority than you fear she'll get. The WT can't afford to do more than that at the moment and probably for a foreseeable future post TG. I don't think the issues Elayne will have brought to light will be swept under the carpet, though. Probably not for lack of will to, but because the WT won't find the broom in time or in the rush will tangle its feet in the carpet. There's more than Elayne. There's also the Asha'man, and the fact the Windfinders and WO will never agree to stop providing services to their own people.

Another possibility is that Elayne's power plays would have been perceived as a Tar Valon scheme to seize even greater and more direct power over nations - having seized direct power in Andor through Elayne and not waiting very long before it swallowed Cairhien too - with an eye already on Saldaea, pushing the southern nations already prejudiced against channelers to fall behind the only power that could stop the WT from swallowing more nations, namely the Seanchan, and War. For a while it might have increased WT power before the clash with the Seanchan, at least if the various groups of channelers saw their common interest and united, which if the Oaths were also removed, probably would have provided victory in the long run against Tuon. It's perhaps more likely they'd split to each protect their own patch and fell one after the other to the Seanchan as happens in Aviendha's futuristic vision.

What's more likely to happen now, because of the LB factor thrown in, and the Seanchan factor thrown in, is that Elayne's actions will bring to light right from the start several issues that would have surfaced only over the long run after TG otherwise. It's likely to open the WT's eyes about services the AS could provide - advantages Elayne herself start to see, it's likely to open their eyes about the advantages of the SF are gaining over everybody else (the WO have it too, but they've never really played that card except to maintain their influence over Aiel society, with the goal to preserve it and guide it) and the fact the SF won't shy much longer from selling their OP services, it's likely to reinforce even further Egwene's motivations to unite the channelers under a single authority before other nations than Andor start offering deals to existing groups when they don't strike deals with a few channellers to start training their own national group, because the SF already have this, because Andor tried to have something like it, and now everybody wants the same. If it had channelers, Tear wouldn't hesitate one second to use them against Illian, no more than the Seafolk didn't hesitate to retaliate with the OP against the Seanchan. Without something like the WT keeping channelers in check, we're definitely looking at war post TG.

The LB itself and its aftermath when the world struggles to survive and rebuild, is likely to rekindle the prestige of channelers and start the ball rolling for them to keep providing services on a permanent basis. Sending the AS back in the world, scattered through the nations, would make them part of those nations and gradually erode TV's political power, which exists in a large part because the AS renounce families and their national allegiance to serve TV's hegemonic ambitions. Once the AS live among the nations, raise families in the nations (and become responsible for children and kin who aren't necessarily channelers), they won't be so keen anymore to support political interference by the WT, especially since that power would now no longer be supported by Aes Sedai as a whole spending a more or less pampered and often fairly useless life in Tar Valon protected from most duress of daily life elsewhere, but by a much smaller group devoting itself to administration and political games, more and more removed from the real life and experiences of the average AS. In political matters, it will be the interests of their own communities they'd place first, just like the WO and Windfinders already do, even if they come to embrace ideals such as a global ethical code for channelers, and the need for an organization that has judicial powers over channeling matters, that ensures all channelers can develop their talents and can't abuse them, that regulates how local OP discoveries are dealt with and who can profit from them and to what extent (all the technicalities like patents etc. No need for OP matters to take the communist path, the AOL had a liberal economy dixit RJ - the AS Guild appears to have merely limited a lot how much the channeling ability could become a commodity like any other on the free market and set all sort of rules about what channelers won't do).

More pratically, Elayne's recent power plays are likely to make the other nations turn to the White Tower to keep her in check, compounded by their fears of Rand's plans that already made them turn to Tar Valon. Just enough of "putting Elayne in her place" would please and reassure the other nations. That's not such a bad thing as far as TG is concerned, as long as the WT decides to play ball with Rand (if not, it's the opposite). Rand needs the nations to hold together through TG and put some of their individual interests beneath those of humanity as a whole - which promise not to be easy - and he's admitted he doesn't have the time or inclination to be that central political figure himself, because this time he intends to focus on his mission against Shai'tan. For good or ill that only leaves the WT as the alternative, a council or rulers without a central figure of authority like the Amyrlin would rapidly spin out of control. Even with the Amyrlin or even Rand, it won't be very easy. When Rand asked Egwene to help, he didn't mean or only meant he needed the Aes Sedai for saidar or as cannon fodder. He's got some female channelers who will follow him if he asks. He's asking Egwene to take over the political leadership if she will play ball and agree to follow his lead in "Dragon matters".