American foreign policy at point zero
AntiWar.Com
by Gabriel Kolko
08/10/07
Political conflicts are not solved by military interventions, and that they are often incapable of being resolved by political or peaceful means does not alter the fact that force is dysfunctional. This is truer today than ever with the spread of weapons technology. The U.S. is not exempt from the facts that have guided international affairs for centuries. The U.S. has already lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the very same reasons it lost all of its earlier conflicts. It has the manpower and firepower advantage, as always, but these are ultimately irrelevant in the medium- and long-run. They were irrelevant in many contexts in which the U.S. was not involved, and they explain the outcome of many armed struggles over the past century regardless of who was in them, for they are usually decided by the socio-economic and political strength of the various sides — China after 1947 and Vietnam after 1972 are two examples but scarcely the only ones...
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kolko.php?articleid=11426
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gabriel+Kolko
by Gabriel Kolko
08/10/07
Political conflicts are not solved by military interventions, and that they are often incapable of being resolved by political or peaceful means does not alter the fact that force is dysfunctional. This is truer today than ever with the spread of weapons technology. The U.S. is not exempt from the facts that have guided international affairs for centuries. The U.S. has already lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the very same reasons it lost all of its earlier conflicts. It has the manpower and firepower advantage, as always, but these are ultimately irrelevant in the medium- and long-run. They were irrelevant in many contexts in which the U.S. was not involved, and they explain the outcome of many armed struggles over the past century regardless of who was in them, for they are usually decided by the socio-economic and political strength of the various sides — China after 1947 and Vietnam after 1972 are two examples but scarcely the only ones...
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/kolko.php?articleid=11426
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gabriel+Kolko
rudkla - 10. Aug, 12:23
