FSTDT Forums
Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: The Illusive Man on November 05, 2013, 05:10:36 pm
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Once upon a time I tumbled across this page from The United States Army War College (http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/) written in 1998. For those who do not know what The United States Army War College is. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_War_College) Among all of the blind USA! USA! USA! propaganda dribble the following stuck out:
Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States
The Seven Factors
These key "failure factors" are:
• Restrictions on the free flow of information.
• The subjugation of women.
• Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
• The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
• Domination by a restrictive religion.
• A low valuation of education.
• Low prestige assigned to work.
(http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/98spring/peters.htm)
Here is a fun game, how much of the above applies to the United States?
Oh geeze…
Faced with the complex reality of geopolitics and markets, we must often go to Country X, Y, or Z against our better judgment. Despite failing in all seven categories, Country X may have a strategic location that makes it impossible to ignore. Country Y may have an internal market and regional importance so significant that it would be foolish not to engage it, despite the risks. Country Z may have resources that make a great deal of misery on our part worth the sufferance. Yet even in such situations, it helps to know what you are getting into. Some countries would devour investments as surely as they would soldiers. Others just demand savvy and caution on our part. Yet another might require a local ally or partner to whom we can make ourselves indispensable. Whether engaging militarily or doing business in another country, it gives us a tremendous advantage if we can identify four things: their image of us, their actual situation, their needs, and the needs they perceive themselves as having (the four never connect seamlessly). (http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/98spring/peters.htm)
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First link doesn't seem to work.
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whats so bad about extended family trumping nuclear like this is saying all of Asia is bad
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I just quickly want to ask: is he praising Marx? And what was that bit about Jewish people?
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I just quickly want to ask: is he praising Marx? And what was that bit about Jewish people?
The author of that article is so all over the place I found it amusing. It’s sort of like a so close yet so far mixed with some WTF. Conservative craziness is called out yet he gets history wrong.
First link doesn't seem to work.
Fixed after some weird problems with preview.
whats so bad about extended family trumping nuclear like this is saying all of Asia is bad
His statement is that extended family structures causes a culture nepotism thus political instability on a national level. He tries to use China as an example but has his head firmly planted in his ass because nepotism requires a family structure, any family structure.
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The war college is very up and down. I do often find thesis from there useful as hyper-realist strawmen to beat up in Int Relations essays. Unlike most academia, the War college produces people who write in normal goddamn English. Sometimes they're even right about stuff.
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"Military intelligence" is my favorite oxymoron.
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Dammit, queen! Stop being so sexy and fast!
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China you mean the society that invented civil service to combat nepotism ??? Nepotism is always gonna be around and its everywhere