0 for 3
Early this morning on the BBC they had a discussion with Ian Bremmer that covered the same ground as Dr. Bremmer’s earlier BBC interview on Newsnight about his book, The J Curve.
On the official site for The J Curve is the promotional blurb:
American policymakers have long sought to meet international challenges and manage threats to U.S. national interests with a simple formula: engage your friends and isolate your enemies. Weighing their options, those states still debating whether to adopt the role of friend or foe will choose profitable cooperation over damaging confrontation.
So the theory goes.
The J curve reveals why this approach has never yielded positive results. It is a tool designed to help us understand how the world’s political decision-makers make choices – and why nations rise and fall. It demonstrates why and how the U.S. can re-imagine its foreign policy.
The “curve” shows the relationship between stability and openness for a dozen countries around the world and why any move from a stable, repressive regime to an open society will almost invariably result in a period of chaos which should be planned for in advance.
The “0 for 3” is the “batting average” for the Shrubbery on the War on Terror™, Iraq and Afghanistan. As the man says “this approach has never yielded positive results.”
While looking for The J Curve, I came across the Davies J-curve Revisited, a piece by Michael H. Glantz from June 27, 2003. It makes for interesting reading.
Oh, I’m sorry, “no one could have imagined” any of what has happened.
2 comments
Well, Dubya is indeed a nobody, but if you ask me, he could not have imagined…
I must learn more about the “J curve,” but I can’t help subscribing to the “truly awful man” theory of history. With Cheney/Bush in charge, Condi running so-called diplomacy and Rummy as SecDef, the outcome seems all but inevitable, no matter what model you construct.
Actually, as a concept the “J curve” is very logical and corresponds to what we know about the world and what has happened in the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and every other incidence of pressure being suddenly released from repressive societies.
It also explains a lot about North Korea and Cuba.