More on Love and Hate

Some things that I thought of in the interval between writing that post:

First, while hate is not strategic it can be tactically quite effective. Stathis Kalyvas's work on civil wars shows how local disputes can intersect with larger causes (the core-periphery model of civil wars) and local blood feuds (such as those of the Chechens) are not unimportant. Personal reasons (a relative killed by an errant bomb) can also coalesce with national-political ones. Ali a la Pointe in The Battle of Algiersfinds a way to connect his personal feelings of humiliation with the humiliation of his people. But in the larger sense all large-scale conflict is driven by a basic difference of policy. Both Native Americans and the people who would become Americans wanted the land. One succeeded through greater force of arms in taking the land. Hate and misunderstanding certainly motivated both sides and made it easier for them to dehumanize each other, but the core issue was the land and who eventually would have it. I will elaborate a bit more on this later when I discuss the Clausewitzian trinity.

Second, I think M.L.R. Smith's article on strategic theory in E-IR is really, really good as a summary of neo-orthodox thought, with this point beautifully made (much better than I can with sleep deprivation):

It is sometimes said that strategic theorists assume rationality on the part of those whom they study because they cannot assume anything else.To pass judgment on whether anyone is rational or irrational in political life is to assume that one exists in Olympian detachment with a unique insight into what constitutes supreme powers of reasoning (a self-evidently delusional position). The assumption of rationality, however, does not suppose that the actor is functioning with perfect efficiency or ‘that all rational decisions are right ones, merely that an actor’s decisions are made after careful cost–benefit calculation and the means chosen seem optimal to accomplish the desired end.

Comments

[Sexy girl!]

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[Susan Fan]

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