Foreign Policy Blogging at OTB (Updated)

I’ve just published a couple of foreign policy-related posts at Outside the Beltway:

That’s a Good Question

Jeffrey Tayler asks President Obama ten questions about the Ukrainian situation. Foreign policy does tend to happen to presidents, willy-nilly. It’s how the job is defined.

No Meltdown But the End of 10% Economic Growth for China

In this post I excerpt and remark on a good column by Martin Wolf in The Financial Times.

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    I saw an AP story this morning about the US government’s effort to foment political unrest in Cuba through the creation of a “primitive” social network designed to get around the Cuban government’s restrictions on the internet.

    The agency behind the plan apparently planned to first recruit young people to the network and the steer them towards rebellion. Personal data would be collected on users for later political use by pur government.

    Can someone pleass explain why this is okay but Russian meddling in neighboring countries isn’t? I mean as a matter of international law and such, which we claim to hold dear.

  • Can someone pleass explain why this is okay but Russian meddling in neighboring countries isn’t?

    It’s because we wear the white hats and the Russians wear the black hats. Actually, I have some sympathy with that point-of-view.

    However, we need to remember that the hero doesn’t have complete freedom of action. He can’t drink or swear or hang around with loose women or shake down the local storekeepers. Otherwise, he’s just another guy in a black hat.

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    If we want to base our foreign policy solely on the idea that we ate the men in the white hats, fine. Then spare me all the hypocritical BS about international law.

    Also, we had better start acting like the good guys and quit breaking countries we have no intention of putting back together.

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    It would also behoove us to remember that others may have a different idea about who is wearing which colored hat. Or even about the significance of particular colors. I seem to recall that white is the color of death in some places….

  • If we want to base our foreign policy solely on the idea that we ate the men in the white hats, fine.

    There are plenty of countries that would really like us to ride off into the sunset. But we keep hanging around and hanging around…

    We should be thinking Shane rather than The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

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