Wednesday, January 29, 2003
[posted by jaed at 7:34 PM]The new Cold War
The idea has been rattling around vaguely in my head that we're headed into a new cold war, one with a German/French-dominated EU. This bit in NR "The Corner" brought some focus to me:
The French "appeasement" of Iraq is now a means to an end, a leverage point from which to challenge American power. [...] I�m not sure that allowing a given brute or tyrant to flourish, so long as it serves your interests [...] should really qualify as appeasement.
It occurs to me that this was somewhat our strategy during the Cold War. The US cuddled up to many disgusting dictators, either because they were anti-Soviet, or because the alternative rulers would have taken their countries into the Soviet orbit, or simply because the State Department wanted to avoid the dreaded "instability" (in a MAD world, not an unreasonable boas to have). We allowed "brutes and tyrants to flourish" because (as the foreign policy of the time saw it, at least), we had to do that in order to win against our enemy, not being strong enough (see MAD) to fight directly.
The comparison isn't precise, of course. But I find it a sobering thought anyway.
