...one way to square your and Rubin's different conclusions could be by thinking of different time-frames of action (and scales of action). Rubin, that is, argues that minor US actions in the short term are not going to have much effect, while you argue that major US actions over the long term might. Those two positions are not entirely contradictory, and if one did agree with both, the question might come down to "how important is this issue and is it worth major long-term changes in US policies?"
This is doubtless true, though I would have to question the short-term efficacy of the tactics Rubin proposes. I discussed this at some length in a post to Gina, just before this one.
Also, you were the one who didn't like the Donnelly review of the Boot book a while back, right? Because he presented a distored view of the conflict in the Philippines a century ago? If so, what did you think of the "response" to that review by Gregory Bankoff, who made a number of the same points?
I confess that I did not read the Bankoff piece. I am not a regular Foreign Affairs reader. I live in the center of a remote mountain range in Northern Luzon; my reading is Internet-dependent (satellites are amazing things), sporadic and directed largely by curiosities of any givren moment. All of this fits in with a resolution I made several years ago in the face of analysis overload: I needed to read less and think more about what I was reading. This is, if nothing else, a good excuse to spend less time in front of a computer and more time in the forest or on a river.
So I looked through Google and did not find the Bankoff response; is it on the web? I try to avoid things written by people who agree with me – that always makes me want to argue against myself – but I wouldn’t mind taking a look. |
