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It's all good as long as the trains run on time?
by klyrs 3y ago
It's all good as long as the trains run on time?
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoFrom an American perspective, unfortunately, yes. It’s long been known that autocracies deliver foreign policy goals more reliably than democracies.
- justrealist 3y agoNo I am not claiming this is not true as a rule, and most autocracies in fact fail badly at delivering basic services. But any government that delivers 8% growth is safe, and currently Modi is doing so.
- avgcorrection 3y agoTrue democracies want selfish things like nationalizing their natural resources.
- hbarka 3y agoYou mean to say autocracies are easier to predict because they behave with a firm consistent control (until they leave). They are obviously not always aligned with our foreign policy goals. All you have to do is name a handful of current autocracies that come to mind.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> autocracies are easier to predict because they behave with a firm consistent control Correct. This is actually a criticism of Cold War era U.S. foreign politics, where a short-term “win” was prioritised over strategic alignment, the lesson being it almost always backfired. The only way we can build resilient alliances is by turning friends into allies, not those we’d like to ally with into “friends.” My concern is we’re doing the latter, again, with India.
- philwelch 3y agoThere are multiple instances of Cold War era US autocratic allies developing into democracies, such as Portugal, Spain, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, and Greece. The claim that these alliances “almost always backfired” is just not true; it succeeded more often than it failed.
- nitwit005 3y agoWhen those goals involve use of force, quite possible, but for anything involving trade or non-military alliances, I'm doubtful. The basic problem being the need for trust that things will last past the head of state.
- justrealist 3y agoI am not making a value judgement, I am telling you how it is.
- ChainOfFools 3y agoActually this is the way the world works, whether we like it or not, whether we can change it or not. Doesn't hurt to constantly call attention to it but it may not make much of a difference if its consequences are kepr below the threshold of acute suffering.