(no subject)

[dlgood]

Comments re:Anti-American sentiment and US diplomacy by Stephen Holmes of NYU Law. Emphasis mine.

We should not assume, without looking into it, that anti-Americanism will necessarily affect our national interests. Indeed, hatred of the U.S. should concern our national-security community only if it galvanizes individuals and groups with the capacity to harm us, either positively, by inflicting grave injuries, or negatively, by withholding the cooperation on which we depend to solve our most urgent problems. The latter method of inflicting damage merits special emphasis. WMD proliferation and offshore plotting by terrorist cells may or may not require active sponsorship by rogue states. But they can both benefit decisively from slovenly oversight by disorganized, distracted and incompetent states. Public officials around the world can inflict the most serious imaginable damage on the U.S. by simply being negligent. And negligence, it so happens, comes effortlessly to most human beings.

Man. Is that last sentence, not the most beautiful line. Negligence comes effortlessly. Yeah. It sure does.

Comments

Re: Remembering why I'm happy to be in Canada

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

It's very circular.

And it shows how shortsighted the administration can be. The "bloodless approach" can be too clever by half, if you don't take the negligence aspect into account. And while maintaining good working relationships with people who might be inclined to disagree with you on specific issues you care about - it's far cheaper in the long run to work towards better relationships than it is to go alone and engender hatred.

It's self-defeating to try to have a calculating approach to relations, and not take opportunity cost into account. The Administration is pretty well up on Machiavelli's famous quote: "it is better to be feared than loved" an not so well up on the following "it is worst of all to be hated". Pennywise. Pound foolish. And that's even if you subscribe to the antiseptic approach.