From fork-admin@xent.com Thu Sep 26 11:04:44 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.example.com Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C03016F03 for ; Thu, 26 Sep 2002 11:04:43 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 26 Sep 2002 11:04:43 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g8PMZ8C16870 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2002 23:35:08 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC05E29410C; Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:31:08 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@example.com Received: from localhost.localdomain (pm3-11.sba1.netlojix.net [207.71.218.155]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D9DAC294108 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:30:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from dave@localhost) by maltesecat (8.8.7/8.8.7a) id PAA24122; Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:40:12 -0700 Message-Id: <200209252240.PAA24122@maltesecat> To: fork@example.com Subject: Kissinger From: Dave Long Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@example.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 15:40:12 -0700 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=AWL,KNOWN_MAILING_LIST,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT version=2.50-cvs X-Spam-Level: [can't think of how I'd be running afoul of the spam filters with this post, so here's the second try...] Kissinger's book _Does America Need a Foreign Policy?_ provides a few handy abstractions: > The ultimate dilemma of the statesman is to strike a balance between > values ["idealism"] and interests ["realism"] and, occasionally, > between peace and justice. Also, he views historical American approaches to foreign policy as a bundle of three fibers: Hamiltonian - We should only get involved in foreign adventures to preserve balances of power. Wilsonian - We should only get involved in foreign adventures to further democracy, etc. Jacksonian - We should never get involved in foreign adventures. Unless we're attacked. Then we go Rambo. He has tactfully left out the hard realists*; as for the rest I gather wilsonians play the idealists, and hamiltonians act where values and interests intersect, and jacksonians act only when values and interests overlap. Kissinger himself seems to be a Hamiltonian; much of the book is about how he thinks we ought to be shaping the balance of power in various foreign regions. Maybe I've been too affected by Kant, but I can't see that such a strategy works unless one can count on a Bismarck runnning it: how lopsided does the US look if everyone tries to run a balance of power politics? - -Dave * > The road to empire leads to domestic decay because, in time, the claims > of omnipotence erode domestic restraints. No empire has avoided the > road to Caesarism unless, like the British Empire, it devolved its > power before this process could develop. In long-lasting empires, > every problem turns into a domestic issue [which should be handled > very differently from international ones] because the outside world > no longer provides a counterweight. And as challenges grow more > diffuse and increasingly remote from the historic domestic base, > internal struggles become ever more bitter and in time violent. > A deliberate quest for hegemony is the surest way to destroy the > values that made the United States great. Kings and tyrants generically have followed the same power politics: garner popular support by keeping potential oligarchs down. In other traditions, a king is a legitimate tyrant, and a tyrant an illegitimate king. In the US, I'd hope that we, like Samuel, wouldn't naturally make such fine distinctions.