Be a little more circumspect with Myanmar, India, China ...

OP-ED: Aid at the Point of a Gun, By ROBERT D. KAPLAN, May 14, 2008

I like this idea right up to the predictable point where he proposes the league of Western democracies using invasion as a threat to prod those valueless local powers (India, China) into blackmailing the junta.

I don't think that sort of pressure works. Gotta create win-wins where local powers get lion's share of acclaim.

To me, that would be real Fifth Generation Warfare: get the effect you want with junta, draw out India and China in ways where they feel like winners, get aid delivered, etc.

Recreating Cold War brinkmanship here is unhelpful. We won't get the outcomes we want and we'll be rightfully accused of politicizing a tragedy--just like the junta.

The true 5G warrior wants the effect, with credit buried.

Comments

[Brian H]

Robert Kagan has suggested such wishful triumphalism is a tad premature, in The End of The End of History -- tnr.com/story_print.html?id=ee167382-bd16-4b13-beb7-08effe1a6844 .

Autocratic China, Russia, and Burma have a different vision, and top-down nationalism may not be quite as susceptible to globalized self-interest as hoped.

[Michael]

I don't know that pushing Myanmar's neighbors wouldn't be a win-win situation. They, after all, are the ones who pay the price (outside of Myanmar's people, of course) for the Junta's abuses. And taking the lead on dealing with the Junta does give them a better chance of protecting their investments than intervention from outside the region does--puts said intervention in the hands of people who know the turf better, too.

Brian: They have a different vision, but can they make it work?