Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: China and the Bombing of Yugoslavia
Author: chuck@advancerecruitment.com Posted: 5/11/1999; 4:20:57 PM Topic: What Chinese people thought Msg #: 6039 (In response to 6004) Prev/Next: 6038 / 6040
When I was in college, I learned that there are two basic foreign policy philosophies around which most others are based. Morgenthau discusses the concept of "Power Politics," upon which most American administrations have based their foreign policy. Keohane and Nye (not sure about spelling here) talked about "interdependence".Without going into a long-winded discussion about each, basically, one is about using, if need be, war to attain strategic advantage over other nations because the world is inherently at conflict as a result of limited resources.
The other is about the interdependence among nations that is fueled by a common need to manage these limited resources in a humane and fair way. By creating extensive ties with other nations, interdependence thus makes it "strategically" difficult to use war as a tool.
What we need to do is start asking all our world leaders, not just American, but Serb, Chinese, Russian, all of them. Whose side are you on, anyway? How long will you insist on using the antiquated tools of power politics? How are power politics justified in MacLuhan's global village? How do you rationalize bombing people you're in disussion groups with, or trading with, or selling CDs to?
The Internet is a very creative community. We need to begin find ways to force our leaders to answer the question of which side of the equation they are on. Power politics may not be dead, but it should be.
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