John’s comment that the US should have had a “lighter touch” during the unipolar moment is exactly correct. In real time, during the 1990s and 200s, anyone who had any sense realized that the way to go would have been to follow what George Kennan and John advocated for which was for the US to lead by example and largely mind our own business.
Instead we allowed mentally and intellectually inadequately equipped individuals like George W. Bush to run the show and make a mess out of every situation they got their hands on. We thought we could remake the world in our image at the end of a gun barrel and as John says that’s when “nationalism trumps liberalism every time”.
So we didn’t learn our lesson from Vietnam and we foolishly allowed a bunch of cowardly goofs to get us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq based on a pack of lies. Anyone with any brains realized that this was not the way to go.
What’s incredible is that we keep making the same mistakes and we’re now on the brink of world war 3 in Eastern Europe and the middle east.
All of this could have been avoided if we had just listened to John all along.
Unfortunately, as a result of the combination of extremely poor leadership and the general phenomenon of what’s called the race to the bottom, the tragedy of the commons, or moloch in game theory, things are not looking too good for the entire human race as a species.
And it begs the question as to why we aren’t asking the more fundamental questions as to why this is happening. It’s like a slow motion train wreck that’s picking up speed at an alarming rate.
Might anyone want to know what I think the underlying problems are and what the best, most rational and reasonable set of solutions might be?
So in a way what I’ve come up with is similar to John’s theory of offensive realism in that it’s relatively simple but, at the same time, in order to fully understand what John has come up with it’s helpful to study his entire body of work. Similarly, in order to fully understand what I’ve come up with it’s best to be presented in a “course” so that it can be fully understood.
What my course advocates for is going full monte on what’s generally referred to as “soft power” so that “the tragedy of great power politics” doesn’t occur.
I’ve figured out how best to try to achieve this goal.
And that’s why you should be interested in what I have to say.
So the critique, or criticism, I would make of you guys is the fact that while everything you have to say is exactly correct you keep restating the obvious.
What I would say is that unless you examine the actual root cause of the problems you keep talking about you’ll keep playing intellectual whack-a-mole and continue to chase your tails to no avail.
So that’s why you should contact me and allow me to tell you what I think.
John’s comment that the US should have had a “lighter touch” during the unipolar moment is exactly correct. In real time, during the 1990s and 200s, anyone who had any sense realized that the way to go would have been to follow what George Kennan and John advocated for which was for the US to lead by example and largely mind our own business.
Instead we allowed mentally and intellectually inadequately equipped individuals like George W. Bush to run the show and make a mess out of every situation they got their hands on. We thought we could remake the world in our image at the end of a gun barrel and as John says that’s when “nationalism trumps liberalism every time”.
So we didn’t learn our lesson from Vietnam and we foolishly allowed a bunch of cowardly goofs to get us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq based on a pack of lies. Anyone with any brains realized that this was not the way to go.
What’s incredible is that we keep making the same mistakes and we’re now on the brink of world war 3 in Eastern Europe and the middle east.
All of this could have been avoided if we had just listened to John all along.
Unfortunately, as a result of the combination of extremely poor leadership and the general phenomenon of what’s called the race to the bottom, the tragedy of the commons, or moloch in game theory, things are not looking too good for the entire human race as a species.
And it begs the question as to why we aren’t asking the more fundamental questions as to why this is happening. It’s like a slow motion train wreck that’s picking up speed at an alarming rate.
Might anyone want to know what I think the underlying problems are and what the best, most rational and reasonable set of solutions might be?
argued at and wand used its soft power to
Thanks guys. I love the concluding remarks, to me it signifies that you(all) have the lead on these type of matters in this day and age.
So Glenn,
Please contact me and hear me out.
Thanks!
So in a way what I’ve come up with is similar to John’s theory of offensive realism in that it’s relatively simple but, at the same time, in order to fully understand what John has come up with it’s helpful to study his entire body of work. Similarly, in order to fully understand what I’ve come up with it’s best to be presented in a “course” so that it can be fully understood.
What my course advocates for is going full monte on what’s generally referred to as “soft power” so that “the tragedy of great power politics” doesn’t occur.
I’ve figured out how best to try to achieve this goal.
And that’s why you should be interested in what I have to say.
So the critique, or criticism, I would make of you guys is the fact that while everything you have to say is exactly correct you keep restating the obvious.
What I would say is that unless you examine the actual root cause of the problems you keep talking about you’ll keep playing intellectual whack-a-mole and continue to chase your tails to no avail.
So that’s why you should contact me and allow me to tell you what I think.
It would be well worth your time….
…I’ve got it figured out….