Where Have All the Strategic Thinkers Gone?

democracyarsenal.org ^ | March 11, 2010 | Michael Cohen

[Carry_Okie]

The writer has betrayed an agenda, and it isn't good.

It was very striking, for example, that the article recounted the experience of a young State Department FSO who was pushing the idea of engaging with "non-governmental power centers in Pakistan" while Clinton expressed skepticism. The story has a happy ending as the FSO was promoted, but the fact that the Sec State didn't agree about the importance of this issue is surprising. At a time when non-state actors are rising in importance

The essence of UN lobal governance is using NGO agents of an international financial elite to manage a planet of dependents. It may look benevolent, but it is anti-freedom.

[geologist]

“If we grant amnesty to all of the illegal aliens, I can get re-elected.”

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Shows us Obama’s priorities.

He has power and is wielding it as fast as he can. No matter, the people do not want, desire, agree, or accept his ideas.

Tyranny. Clear and simple.

God help us in our day, in Jesus name, amen.

[Brad from Tennessee]

The method for toppling Saddam was formulated in Clinton's last term when the policy shifted from containment to regieme change. Kenneth Pollock's “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq” published in 2002 laid out the argument for invasion. It's still a good argument though Pollock has at times wavered in his original view. Had Turkey allowed the 4th ID to invade Iraq from the north conditions may have stabilized earlier. Truman was run out of office largely over Korea. Today South Korea's is world's 8th largest exporter, the world's 5th largest automaker, and the world's largest shipbuilder.

I'm not disagreeing with you. Realism is very attractive and potentially far more economical diplomatically and fiscally than much of the post-Cold War policy. But they still got to get it right. No president inherits a clean slate and no president can ignore popular sentiment. Often there is little choice but to continue on-going solutions to real and perceived crises. Reagan and Herbert Walker Bush turned a blind eye to the transshipment of narcotics through Panama because to interdict it would just move more of the flow through Nicaragua and Cuba, benefiting them financially. In the end Panama got so corrupt public opinion encouraged Bush to intervene. South Vietnam may not have been worth saving but it was the battleground chosen to metastasize communist resources in the Western Pacific while Thailand, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc. strengthened themselves. In the end, the Soviets inherited just another economic basket case after expending resources that were exorbitantly expensive to replace under their dysfunctional economy. But no politician can fit any of that on a bumper sticker.