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Maybe trying to exploit and maximize ethnic differences in other countries is fundamentally a bad idea in the medium/long term.
by refenestrator 5y ago
Maybe trying to exploit and maximize ethnic differences in other countries is fundamentally a bad idea in the medium/long term.
- wahern 5y agoAbsolutely, except in this case the U.S. wasn't even capable of that. They missed the importance of the ethnic dynamics, apparently too focused on political and economic dynamics that were at best comorbidities and at worst reflections and mirages. From the random CIA dispatch reports from Laos and Indonesia I've read, low-level American officials were capable of regional socio-political savvy. I just don't think that appreciation ever translated up the chain. So, for example, people have claimed that the U.S. incited genocide in Indonesia. That seems both true and false. True because low-level CIA officers certainly seemed to understand how political and ethnic divisions overlapped and therefore how their anti-communist campaigning could and did devolve to ethnic cleansing. But I don't think leaders in Washington appreciated that at all. Perhaps mostly out of a racist disinclination to consider such aspects, but oblivious nonetheless.