« Positive Ends | Main | State of the Blog »

Desirable Instability
Stability, America's Enemy by Ralph Peters : Perceptive and knowledgeable, Peters never ceases to amaze me. This essay is one of his classics, and in it he makes a compelling argument that a blind commitment to stability as and ends unto itself is not necessarily the best idea.

America's finest values are sacrificed to keep bad governments in place, dysfunctional borders intact, and oppressed human beings well-behaved. In one of the greatest acts of self-betrayal in history, the nation that long was the catalyst of global change and which remains the beneficiary of international upheaval has made stability its diplomatic god.

As I noted below, the US has a tendency to hold stability sacred, and it has proved to be a mistake as we've strived to maintain a bad status quo. We need to lock Peters and Wass de Czege in room together and see what they come up with.

Peters, by the way, is the most intelligent commentator I've seen during this war. He has been writing editorials (such as this one) for the NY Post at a feverish pace, and though the pieces are less... polished than the above Parameters piece, they are no less perceptive. Its difficult to find previous pieces on the NY Post website, though. Perhaps I'll try and collect some of his better ones, as they don't seem to be inacessible...

This post is part of the Kaedrin Weblog. It's been categorized under Politics and was originally published in April 2003.

Inside Weblog
Archives
Best Entries
Fake Webcam
email me