David wrote:
Over the last few years the US and its allies have conducted over
7000 air strikes in Iraq and Syria, and during this time ISIS has grown
stronger.
Since September 30 Russia has conducted far fewer air strikes in Syria and the West is in uproar.
Are the Russian air strikes more effective?
Do the Russians have better Syrian intelligence on the ground, advising where and when to strike?
Have the Russians caught the West off guard, and is now embarrassing them?
I wrote this:
A tenet in U.S. policy has been to keep the Russians out of the Middle East. Now the Russians are violently supporting the guy that Obama drew the dreaded "red line" over. Russia is now a presence whose word must be taken into account. The U.S. less so.
A few years ago Kissinger wrote a book called "Diplomacy" on the history of how nations managed their relationships with each other. After the American isolationist period he said two approaches vied for how the Americans would behave. First was Teddy Roosevelt who adapted the European concept of national interest through sphere of influence and balance of power. His opponent was Wilson who relied on some concept of universal law--not equilibrium, national trustworthiness--not national self-assertion, as the foundation of international order. Obama looks to be following Wilson; the problem is that no one else is.
Obama reminds me of that governor who, when criticized about the recidivist rate in his state said they needed to get a better sort of criminal. Obama seems to be a Wilsonian waiting for the other powers to mature and come to their senses.
So Roosevelt held to a notion of national interest, Wilson, and Obama, I think, to a sort of altruism--certainly harder to define and difficult to enforce. Putin, on the other hand, is in Syria advancing his and Russia's cause.
More than just benignly abstract, I don't think Obama has the mind, the heart or the stomach for dealing with nasty guys. And I have no idea how his successor--or the nation--will recover.
I wrote this:
A tenet in U.S. policy has been to keep the Russians out of the Middle East. Now the Russians are violently supporting the guy that Obama drew the dreaded "red line" over. Russia is now a presence whose word must be taken into account. The U.S. less so.
A few years ago Kissinger wrote a book called "Diplomacy" on the history of how nations managed their relationships with each other. After the American isolationist period he said two approaches vied for how the Americans would behave. First was Teddy Roosevelt who adapted the European concept of national interest through sphere of influence and balance of power. His opponent was Wilson who relied on some concept of universal law--not equilibrium, national trustworthiness--not national self-assertion, as the foundation of international order. Obama looks to be following Wilson; the problem is that no one else is.
Obama reminds me of that governor who, when criticized about the recidivist rate in his state said they needed to get a better sort of criminal. Obama seems to be a Wilsonian waiting for the other powers to mature and come to their senses.
So Roosevelt held to a notion of national interest, Wilson, and Obama, I think, to a sort of altruism--certainly harder to define and difficult to enforce. Putin, on the other hand, is in Syria advancing his and Russia's cause.
More than just benignly abstract, I don't think Obama has the mind, the heart or the stomach for dealing with nasty guys. And I have no idea how his successor--or the nation--will recover.
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