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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (162608)	5/19/2005 6:29:15 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

you are saying that the city of Rome imported most of its goods, I may live with that. If you are implying that wheat was travelling half way across Europe to make it to every citizen, then I need some proof. The City of Rome, which around 100 ce held about a million people, imported its wheat from North Africa. That's what I'm saying. Yes, yes, the Roman Empire had badly broken down by the 6th ce, esp in the West, where it was a series of Gothic and Visigothic kingdoms. But if you look at documents of the day you see the realization that things were no longer as they had been, but there is not sense of a break with the history of the Roman Empire. That came later, after the Arabs took the sea and European civilization had to reinvent itself, pretty much from scratch, switching from a sea-based to a Northern based civilization. An empire can at best provide a so-so goods at a "great" price for its citizens (and it can do this only for a limited time). But a cooperative confederation based on fairness and equality makes for a great "business" at a fair price for a very very long time. Empires of force last for a generation at most. Every empire that lasts is a confederation that has something to offer as well as something to impose. Rome was swamped at the end by Goths who didn't want to destroy it, they wanted to enter it and get the benefits.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (162608)	5/19/2005 10:45:35 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Rise and Fall of American Soft Power huffingtonpost.com <<...The reaction across the world over the Koran-in-the-toilet at Guantanamo apparently falsely reported in Newsweek and blogged about endlessly reveals a new reality: Since the Iraq invasion and Abu Ghraib, America is nowadays considered guilty until proven innocent. This is new. In other words, America has lost the protection of its "soft power"-- the phrase coined by Harvard professor Joe Nye to define the persuasive and globally attractive model of an America that was all about human rights, the rule of law, liberation instead of occupation and social and economic opportunity. Since World War II this has been the legitimating complement to military might. The US has discovered that by acting in Iraq without the legitimacy conferred by consent of global public opinion, the political objectives for which our military might was deployed, and for which we are draining our treasury, cannot be met. The ability of America to dominate the global environment -- power -- is thus frustrated if not entirely defeated. In short, the US has been demoted by the public opinion of even its closest allies from a hegemon to a merely preponderant military power about which most of the world has grown suspicious. [To paraphrase Walter Lippman, the US coalition is a "phantom coalition" because it is not backed by its public opinion]. And there is a paradoxcial but profound strategic consequence: By acting unilaterally as it has over the past few years, the Bush Admininstration has finally pushed the multipolar world order out of its post-Cold War womb. Whether Europe, East Asia, India or Latin America -- all are now acting in their own interest because they can't trust the superpower to take them into account. Only the weakest powers abide by American leadership these days...>>