Military action is often misguided. During World War II, the Nazis bombed London, hoping to induce a surrender; it had the opposite effect, increasing the British resolve to resist. In 1941, the Japanese tried to prevent the United States from entering the war by attacking Pearl Harbor, which backfired when it impelled the United States to enter the war. In the 1980s, the U.S. government provided funds for military action against Nicaragua to obtain political reform. During late 2013 and early 2014, three years after the start of the Egyptian revolt for democracy, the acting government was locked in a vicious cycle of terrorism and repression with the Muslim Brotherhood that hardened the determination of both sides. Why are these interventions so often unsuccessful ? Because of in-group and out -group bias, we tend to think that coercion will be more effective with our enemies than with ourselves, and conciliation will be more effective with ourselves than our enemies. Former secretary of state George Shultz, reflecting on forty years of United States foreign policy from 1970 to the present, said, “When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world . . . Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us.” Levitin, Daniel J. (2014-08-19). The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload (pp. 155-156). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:21:52 +0000