[lit-ideas] Re: Motive, and the quality of foreign policy

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 06:58:03 -0700 (PDT)


--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 5/16/06, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 
> > Apart from a
> > couple of military adventures like Korea and
> Vietnam,
> > where the US faired rather poorly, much of the US
> > policy toward the Communist block could be
> described
> > as appeasement.
> 
> This statement is nonsense: Containment was not
> appeasement.

*I did later qualify that statement. Yes, the US
applied containment but it also applied measures that
from Lawrence's perspective would qualify as
appeasement. There was communication, including
face-to-face meetings between the US and
Soviet/Chinese statesmen. There was some economic
co-operation. It is doubtful that the Soviet Union
would have deconstructed itself in a relatively
peaceful manner, or that the Communist China would
have embarked on a massive reform program, if it were
not for these contacts. Iran might have had its
Gorbachoff, Khattami, but the US wouldn't deign to
talk to him and so Gorbachoff went down.  

Also, containment worked much better on the economic
and diplomatic levels than on the military level.
(e.g. Korea and Vietnam) The pursuit of containment
also produced "blowback", for example in Afghanistan
and in Iran. The US policies in the Cold War were of
course highly realpolitical and often brutal or
deceptive but still more reasonable than what I
suspect Lawrence and Eric would propose today. That is
what I was trying to say.

O.K.

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