The brilliant Anne Applebaum's analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian issue has me thinking of an interesting article I read nearly ten years ago that contained a thesis that rather shocked the diplomatic and foreign policy community. In the pages of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Edward Luttwak actually had the temerity to write that while bloody and horrible and really, really, bad for those involved, war had the redeeming quality of actually settling things--and that peace keeping, peace making, peace imposing operations all had the downside of actually extending the life of political issues that once were solved at the point of a gun. Luttwak pointed to the seemingly endless employment of UN Peacekeepers around the world, to the rise of city states in Palestine erroneously referred to as "refugee camps" as evidence of the fecklessness of many measures short of war in actually solving problems.
All of us have seen the bumper stickers...."War is Not the Answer". Pardon me, but if the question is "slavery, communism, totalitarianism, fascism or terrorism", war seems a very logical conclusion to me.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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4 comments:
I think it was Clausewitz that actually got my attention when he called war, "continuation of political intercourse" I thought it funny then and I think it funny now.
In my opinion all wars ultimately are fought for economic gain, often diguised or obfuscated by other attention getters such as national defense or national interest but nonetheless it is wealth securing or wealth gathering.
Odd that most despots either are killed in office or leave office bazillionaires.
As Edwin Starr wrote, "Ooooh, war
It's an enemy to all mankind The point of war blows my mind War has caused unrest Within the younger generation Induction then destruction Who wants to die Aaaaah, war-huh Good God y'all What is it good for Absolutely nothing Say it, say it, say it War, huh What is it good for Absolutely nothing Listen to me"
Welcome back, old friend.
never left, been a lurker reader for some time now
(snicker) he said "intercourse" (snicker)
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