"foreign policy that is inconsistently practiced is dangerous..."
Permit me to suggest that foreign policy practised in a consistent manner is more dangerous. The "de-colonialism" of last century left odd regional boundaries, drawn up because they looked good on a map, rather than taking into account the special needs and circumstances of each group of people involved. That is the source of contention upon which many of today's squabbles are based ("today" = "last 50 years"). To the cartographers — Kashmiri, Kurds, Pakistani, Persians, etc... were "all those useful foreign folks in places we're now leaving". It was very consistent.
We most certainly should not, for another example, apply Iraqi solutions to North Korean problems. Consistent foreign policy cannot be had in a world where every foreign policy equation has unique variables. To do so would create only more problems. Foreign policy has no "textbook solution".
"Worse, though, than inconsistently practicing foreign policy is the idea of attacking another country pre-emptively. How can we now argue with India if they decide to pre-emptively attack Pakistan, or if China wants to do the same with Taiwan?"
When Pakistan and Taiwan violate 12 years of UN resolutions imposed as the result of their conquest of a respective Kuwaiti counterpart, then the situations may take on a bit more similarity. They can't really be otherwise discussed in similar context. Nor, for that matter, Iraq as we didn't just wake up on morning and pre-emptively attack them on a whim simply because it was an even-numbered Thursday. Here is a helpful chronology from AP: the.honoluluadvertiser.com |
