Monday, March 03, 2014

Why are neocons trying to rescue Bill Clinton's failed strategy?


The roots of the crisis in Ukraine go back to the days just after the end of the Cold War.

This is from a post from last October.

The Clinton administration had no grand strategy because they did not believe they needed one. As historian John Lewis Gaddis notes:

President Clinton himself saw little need for a grand strategy under these circumstances. Neither Roosevelt nor Truman had had one, he told one top advisor early in 1994: 'they just made it up as they went along.'
Instead of the careful balancing of ends, means and interests, the Clinton years relied on ad hoc crisis management. All too often that degenerated into a battle to win the next news cycle and the next election (e. g. Susan Rice and Rwanda).

The damage created by this anti-strategic mindset lasted long after Rwanda, Kosovo, and Bosnia dropped from the headlines.

One thread connects Syria, Iran, and North Korea. We need Russian cooperation which Putin stubbornly refuses to give.

Gaddis:

the Clinton national security team-- notable for its simultaneous cultivation and humiliation of Russia


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