by shoshin » Fri Oct 16, 2015 9:02 am
John, as soon as I saw the news about troops remaining in Afghanistan, I knew that I would be reading another screed from you about our waffling, weak-kneed, incompetent President. But I’m confused. Isn’t this just what GD says will happen? Doesn’t Obama represent the zeitgeist, the spirit of the American people, tired of endless war? And I thought that leaders were not really important, that GD tells us that it’s the people, the underlying popular movements that make change happen, not politicians.
And I take issue with the Truman Doctrine and your definition of success. (First, I would add that Eisenhower did NOT embrace the view of America as the world’s policeman and knew the danger of the military/industrial complex). How can you know the counterfactual? – If there were no Truman Doctrine, there would have been disaster?
I would argue that constantly intervening (and frankly, mostly for our own national interests, not for creating a more peaceful world), makes for a more and more fragile environment, one that must, sooner or later, collapse. Better to let things collapse now and then, on a small scale, than prolong the process, producing a huge disaster (think of the financial system). This is the sort of thinking proposed by Taleb (antifragile vs. fragile).
John, as soon as I saw the news about troops remaining in Afghanistan, I knew that I would be reading another screed from you about our waffling, weak-kneed, incompetent President. But I’m confused. Isn’t this just what GD says will happen? Doesn’t Obama represent the zeitgeist, the spirit of the American people, tired of endless war? And I thought that leaders were not really important, that GD tells us that it’s the people, the underlying popular movements that make change happen, not politicians.
And I take issue with the Truman Doctrine and your definition of success. (First, I would add that Eisenhower did NOT embrace the view of America as the world’s policeman and knew the danger of the military/industrial complex). How can you know the counterfactual? – If there were no Truman Doctrine, there would have been disaster?
I would argue that constantly intervening (and frankly, mostly for our own national interests, not for creating a more peaceful world), makes for a more and more fragile environment, one that must, sooner or later, collapse. Better to let things collapse now and then, on a small scale, than prolong the process, producing a huge disaster (think of the financial system). This is the sort of thinking proposed by Taleb (antifragile vs. fragile).