Comments on: Policy Recommendations for the Demented

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:56:08 +0000

BTW, thanks for the compliment for ASHC on your blog Jon. We noticed and it was appreciated.

By: Jon Lester

Jon Lester — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:27:19 +0000

I’m sorry, I meant to thank Bryan for the thought. I appreciate you both, actually, how about that?

By: Jon Lester

Jon Lester — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:23:50 +0000

Thanks for the thought, Lance. I think you’re right; I was getting at the “perception is everything” dimension of foreign affairs. I agree that trying to do what good we can is better than not even trying because we can’t do it everywhere at once.

By: Lance

Lance — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:51:21 +0000

It should have more buttons, but I haven’t figured out why not yet. For now I just use italics. When we edit a comment all the tags are available.

By: Lee

Lee — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:15:02 +0000

I think if you click on the “remove formatting” button on the right, and then type your tags, it will work. Let’s find out:

test

Nope. May not be possible for a user. We’ll fix that in the future, guaranteed.

By: Bryan Pick

Bryan Pick — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:04:29 +0000

Thanks, Lance. What did I do wrong and how can I do it correctly in the future? Did I just misspell “blockquote” or miss a bracket?

By: Lance

Lance — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:35:22 +0000

Fixed!

By: Bryan Pick

Bryan Pick — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:30:59 +0000

Bah, I had forgotten, no HTML here. I guess I should have just used italics.

By: Bryan Pick

Bryan Pick — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:30:05 +0000

Jon Lester –

Right or wrong, we have too many compromises of principle in effect already. Lofty talk of forming a “League of Democracies” and excluding Russia from the G-8 ignores the arrangements we have with autocratic Central Asian republics in support of our Afghanistan mission, and the fact that heavy Chinese engagement with Sudan has effectively stymied our best efforts to help Darfur, to name but two examples.

Perhaps the problem is your concept of the principle. If your idea of principle is that you can’t fight one evil unless you also fight every other instance of that evil, then you’re doomed from the start. You can only hold the omnipotent to that standard.

If, on the other hand, your plan is to spread freedom, constitutions, and democracy where you are able, to the greatest extent that you can with the resources at your disposal, then you can accomplish some good in the world. Sometimes, people you wouldn’t invite home for dinner help you take out the trash in their neighborhood. Along the way, you keep your eyes open for new opportunities.

By: Jon Lester

Jon Lester — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:23:59 +0000

That was the right idea before this weekend, before Saakashvili’s irresponsible and disastrous offensive. Now we’ve all been set back a long way, and with both candidates advised by people who already wanted to antagonize Russia needlessly, I’m feeling discouraged all over again about the geopolitical near future.

Right or wrong, we have too many compromises of principle in effect already. Lofty talk of forming a “League of Democracies” and excluding Russia from the G-8 ignores the arrangements we have with autocratic Central Asian republics in support of our Afghanistan mission, and the fact that heavy Chinese engagement with Sudan has effectively stymied our best efforts to help Darfur, to name but two examples. We’ve already been trying to prod Russia to move further along the road to a free society (along with a few mixed signals) and, however relevant this is, Russia really is measurably more stable and free than, say, Pakistan.