Power, by the way, is often defined as being able to force others to do things they don't want to, which fits pretty well into your quote below.
Great powers don't face each other with motorised divisions. They use them to bully smaller, weaker states.
Bully, of course, is one oway of putting it. Influencing is another. Or reacting to the actions of other powers, be they great, small, or regional great powers. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Bully, of course, is one oway of putting it. Influencing is another.
What's surreal is that the invasion of one of the smallest and weakest countries in the world is being justified by some of the largest and most powerful countries in the world as a defensive military action.
How would Afghanistan need to behave to reassure the world's top superpowers that it has no intent to annex them?
How creating failed states (as in Iraq: Saddam's was authoritarian but definitely not a failed state) escapes me. Afghanistan also became a failed state in the 1980's and the US activity in both Afghanistan and Pakistan since then has contributed decisively to Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terrorists. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
But if terrrrism is being promoted - which it is - that implies that US foreign policy is stupid and insane. Or that it actively wants to promote terrorism. Or that it needs a war for domestic reasons.
Or possibly all of the above.
What would be the worst that would happen if the Taleban were allowed to have the country back?
This might seem like a bad thing for the inhabitants, but continual war hardly seems like a positive alternative.
Nov 2007:
Nov 2008:
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
It looks like Iran (on the Western border) would be a very valuable ally if one wanted to cut the Taliban vanguard in the north from their bases in the South and Southeast (including Pakistan's frontier province). The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
Compare ethnic group majorities:
