I don't think you get a clear cut case of treason, except in a few cases.
Many policy decisions are nuanced, and depend on a model of what the future will be. They also depend on making decision on incomplete information.
So the US placates country X - is this wise or cowardly ?
The US moves on country Y - is this a bold, preventive action or a stupid provocation carrying someone else's agenda ?
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Take the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.
Let's assume that the US and EU cooperated in making this happen, and the Russians lost out.
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Was the US acting out the EUs agenda ?
The EU gets far more security benefits than the US.
Was the possible cost to the US in alienating Russia and pushing Russia and China together too high ?
The Russia-China alliance poses a larger threat to the US - but how much ?
If that alliance was going to happen anyway, there was little cost.
Can we say that because Russia has demographic problems that will cause long term decline, so keeping them happy is not important ?
Depending on what we see as the future and what guesses we make about hidden actions, we can get different conclusions.
So the EU is incentivized to paint the world a certain way, and the Russians another, much of it by planting false info, "news stories", intellectually dishonest analysis, direct lobbying, etc.
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Another example would be the oil resources of the Caspian Sea area. These were though to be larger than Saudi Arabia a few years ago. Now they are estimated at maybe 5% of Saudi Arabia...
The US engaged in a lot of high risk activity in Central Asia
over the past few years - was that justified because of oil, or anti-terrorism ?
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We could also talk about the WMDs and how close Saddam was to getting them.
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Decision making under uncertainty is not treason.
Maybe the solution is to have someone as paranoid as Richard Nixon.... |
