Nations Must Know When to Cringe and Crawl--But for the West It's Becoming Routine

The Lid ^ | 3/18/2010 | Barry Rubin

[Shellybenoit]

Sometimes selective appeasement is necessary in foreign policy. But when and just how far should a democratic country go in such behavior? Here's a brilliant defense of giving in at times-which doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it, but I do respect it-and a recent example of how it's overdone and mistakenly carried out nowadays.

The Times of London article is by George Walden, a former British diplomat and Conservative member of parliament with a lot of international experience. Let's consider what he says and how we should interpret it.

The title tells a great deal: "We can't afford the moral high ground: "In tough economic times, Britain cannot be too picky about whom it does business with." In other words, the West is much weaker than it used to be and is often the beggar in these relationships with Third World dictatorships.

At times this is true, but at other times craven behavior is unnecessary and dangerous. Indeed, as I've often pointed out, the sense of Western weakness (the West cannot do anything) and cowardice (it won't do anything) is Viagra for aggressive regimes-from Venezuela through Russia and the Middle East to North Korea--and revolutionary groups.

[ElectronVolt]

This reminds me of a speech I heard Tom Clancy give about Japan. He said that Japan's murderous rampage in the 1930's was barbaric for its time, but a century or more earlier, it would have been acceptable. They were just too late.

In other words, the modern countries have grown out of our violent phase. Most of the world isn't modern, though, and I think we've lost the ability to comprehend murderous, rampaging, land-grabbing dictatorships. Look at Iran. The Western nations can't possibly believe Iran is any real threat, and we view it through eyes of pacifists. When the US tries to stand up to these regimes, Europe is horrified at our violent attitude. We leave our doors open to Muslims who say they want to conquer us, but as modern people, we can't comprehend it.