Foreign Policy for Idiots

I took a class last year entitled Strategy, taught by Robert Pape. In the class Pape, described an incident between Taiwan and China during the Clinton Presidency in which China had become especially belligerent towards the "rogue province" and invasion seemed like a legitimate threat.

Clinton's move was to send an aircraft carrier into the Taiwanese straight, right in the line of fire if any kind of confrontation were to occur. This move diffused the situation as it signaled to China that an invasion of Taiwan meant war with the US, because they'd necessarily have to go through our carrier. Thus the situation was diffused, lives spared, and the peace preserved by using the THREAT of a response.

Bush seems totally incapable of this type of maneuvering. With our armed forces committed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, they become fundamentals useless as a lever in foreign policy. We can't fight a third war, and Iran and North Korea know this. Ultimately this is why both will be able to successfully acquire nuclear weapons, thus creating a deterrent to invasion.

And to add to that, not only has Iraq reduced our literal capacity for war, it has also made our case as the International Keeper of the peace seem like the excuse of a tyrant. Because we decided to "go it alone" in Iraq, the world has decided that we'll being "going it alone" in the perfectly legitimate quest for nonproliferation.

Theodore Roosevelt's famous invocation of the proverb "Walk Softly and Carry a Big Stick" is thus twice violated by the Bush Administration.