This blog believes fundamental conflicts within the West, fermenting within our institutions, foaming-over into our politics, invite the calculated meddling of those who think differently.
In the world of Statecraft, I’d prefer cold-eyed realism and calculated bastardry, when necessary, in the pursuit of American interests (ideally attached to decent human beings with checked, limited powers). Overreach and hubris is easy. Humility and good strategy is hard.
It’d be nice if Russia wasn’t being run as a kleptocracy by an ex-KGB agent, incentivizing a lot of bright hackers with little economic opportunity into the service of State propaganda and espionage…but:
C.S. Dickey: ‘Putin Outfoxes Obama, Lies In Wait For Trump‘
Populist steam seems to be translating directly into policy these days. Maybe it’s a kind of passive-aggressive placation of outrage in the service of ‘optics’.
That would be short-sighted and petty.
Link from a reader: The Deep State in Egypt has been controlled by the military for a long time…’Egypt’s Failed Revolution.’
Many Westerners will probably go ahead and double-down on certain radical/semi-radical Western ideals just as those ideals are failing to translate into effective strategy by an exiting American administration.
Better keep James Taylor handy.
From Abu Muqawama: ‘Mubarak And Me’…From Michael Totten: ‘The New Egyptian Underground’…Michael Totten At The American Interest: “A Leaner, Meaner Brotherhood”
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Gore Vidal had a line that stuck with me in his review of Italo Calvino.
‘For the last year, Calvino had been looking forward to his fall and winter at Harvard. He even began to bone up on “literary theory.” He knew perfectly well what a mephitic kindergarten our English departments have become.
Well, that might be a little much.
Personally, I like to read people who don’t really think like me, especially when they satirize bureaucratic bloat and puffery as they find them.
I like folks on the outside looking in…tracing the shape of something.
Why do we have so many administrators, regulators, and overseers within our institutions?:
Incentives matter. A vigorous freedom and skeptical citizenry is hard to maintain, but vital nonetheless.
Climb aboard and hang-on, dazzled as you may be by the thrill of the thing.
Beauty is no quality in things themselves, it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.