War within the context of everything else prompts delayed gratification
Friday, September 12, 2008 at 3:14AM WORLD AFFAIRS: Forced Off The Fence, By Mary Hennock, NEWSWEEK, Aug 23, 2008
It's dangerous to make any assumptions on China. I remember the long-range "wargame" we played based on PNM: every chance we gave China to choose sides, they simply deferred. It yielded a great strategy that concentrated on grabbing low-hanging fruit and avoiding any costly responsibility.
There is a long list of subjects and places and venues where Russia's resistance to all positions American will effectively kill our ability to lead internationally. For Beijing, that's not necessarily a bad thing--certainly not bad enough to challenge openly.
But that's the problem with the instant gratification approach on Moscow: all it will reveal is how hard it would be to toss Russia out of the club.
Ah, but this is the danger of seeing war-within-the-context-of-everything-else: you're considered a wimp if you don't advocate the military solutions, aggressively pursued.
(Thanks: Andrew Stewart)
Reader Comments (1)
"you're considered a wimp if you don't advocate the military solutions, aggressively pursued"
"will effectively kill our ability to lead internationally."
rather more effectively than anything any other Power, Great or otherwise, does. As it stands, the US military overextension in Afghanistan and Iraq makes it very difficult to continue selling "security" as the US "product", ergo the loans will need to be paid back sooner rather than later.
Try leading from "Debtor's Prison". There's a good economic reason Britain gave up its Empire.