Perhaps I can explain it...
Ben writes: "Idealism is the most realistic American foreign policy."
Sounds good, Ben, but it's so vague as to be almost meaningless. It's a platitude and it rings more hollow than ever these days.
Ben's response:
A:
When the U.S. acts only in its narrowly perceived best interests, it is not acting in it's broad best interests.
For example, non-coercively purveying the views and values of democratic and representative government yields more democratic and representative governments.
Such governments, in turn, are far, far less like to go to war --- which might suck America in.
Got it?
Ben
posted by Ben Wattenberg at 4:13 AM
2 Comments:
When the U.S. acts only in its narrowly perceived best interests, it is not acting in it's (sic) broad best interests.
Would that lead you to agree, ala Mearsheimer and Walt, that nearly unconditional US support for Israel, which seems is pretty 'narrow' in the sense that it is largely the product of the influence of Jewish lobbyists, is not really in the wider interest of the US, since it alienates a far larger number of muslims worldwide, including ones who control a huge fraction of the world's oil?
Ben writes: "non-coercively purveying the views and values of democratic and representative government yields more democratic and representative governments."
Sounds great, but if we have to forcibly invade a country in order to do that, I believe that is the opposite of "non-coercive."
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