Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Carl,

Save your spin, brother. You don't have to agree, but this is about being smart, not clever.

And this is the farthest thing from appeasement ( a word right up their with "isolationist" and the phrase "abandon your allies" for rationalizing a continuation of policies il-suited for the current era). This is about recognizing the reality of the fact that the US is not particularly vulnerable to any other state, but that we are very vulnerable to every other population. In days over a century in the rearview mirror, governments did not need to worry much about how their foreign policy affected the average person. A deal between governments was good enough. No more.

Now we must actually give pause and consider how the people perceive our actions. This applies to our allies when we drag them off to places like Afghanistan equally to our opponents when we leverage hard sanctions against the people of Iraq under Saddam or the people of Iran currently. This does not mean we do not enforce or pursue our interests at all. It simply means we need to add as a critical and weighted factor in our COA development and comparison how appropriate our actions will be perceived by the people affected directly, and indirectly as well.

We must evolve. You seem to advocate that we double down on the past. I simply try to understand the present and determine ways to succeed into the future.
Spin can be useful. It allows a projectile to fly truer, fly farther and hit harder when it arrives. Very useful.

Don't like the word appeasement because it's passe? Well it still exists regardless. Same with "abandon your allies". That is related to standing by your buddies which is one of the things that allows men to stick it out in battle, or so I've read. These things are forever and powerful motivators of humans which is why they keep coming up. We just can't seem to evolve beyond them.

There is nothing new either in having to consider how the populations of countries are affected by and feel about various foreign policies. Just look at all those allies various powers have had or thought they had. The people of the countries weren't too enthusiastic about regardless of what the gov thought. The various allies of the Germans in both WWI and WWII come to mind. I recall reading too how Chiang Kai-Shek was driven into action against Japan at a militarily unpropitious time because the Chinese were so upset. Shoot, look at the problem Spain faced with us in 1898. So there is nothing new there.

Nothing new at all really. The wise course has always been to do what you can and recognize when what you want to do ain't worth the candle. At the same time you must recognize that sometimes you have to take a stand. That's why I don't like the concept of 'occupation by policy' at all. It seems to me that it will lessen our ability to see when a stand must be made, especially given the widespread lack of moral character in our leadership class.