Quote:
Originally Posted by Splitter
Friendly, to the question of how you prevent the "radicalization" of a country is to make the rewards for rejecting the radical beliefs too great to ignore. And, of course, the consequences for accepting the radical believes too severe. You want them to either respect you enough to reject those beliefs or fear you enough to reject those beliefs. If you fail on both counts, the radicals take over and come after you.
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Blackdog just posted a very well thought and argued piece on what we defend. I would just like to ad my 2 pennies as it were:
People will fight (or seek radicalism, it fairly much boil down to the same thing) when they have more to gain by fighting than they stand to loose by fighting. This is why radicalism find fertile ground among the poor. They have very little to loose, and while the radical ideas may not offer them much, they offer more than they perceive themselves risking.
By threatening poor people with with "armed response" or some vague threats like "those who are not my friend is my enemy", you effectively signal that what little they have may not be secure. As unsecured property has less value than secure property, you effectively lower the value of their current life. In effect you lower their barrier to embrace any radical notion that promises to help them in their struggle to protect whet little they have.
Threatening peoples homes, livelihood and social structure really only works if people have something to loose. Thus, if you level the same threats at e.g my country (Norway), it will be much more effective. Threaten poor Afghanis, who own a goat and a robe and an AK-47, and they find they are better of fighting.
The other half of the equation, the carrots, do work exceptionally well with poor people. However, in the Neo-Con world, carrots are not commonly handed out. This is the reverse condition from the post-war period, where the US did not throw threats around to the same degree, but was rather round handed with their Marshal-help program. All through the 50ies and 60ies, the Western European population remained thankful allies of the US, much to the economic and political benefit of the Americans. The governments still remained US allies through the century.
With the "stick without carrot" politics of the Busc Jr. era, support for the US in the general population in Western Europe fell to the degree that governments had to follow suit. Many nations refused to back the Iraqi war, and in my native Norway (which used to be among the most pro-US states in WE) the relationship has now deteriorated to the point were the government actively promote things like ban on land mines and cluster ammunition and has initiated a
de fact boycott of Israel. Now, Western nations have
a lot to loose, and they still did not take kindly to the new American "all stick" foreign policy. What do you think that same policy do to 3rd world nations?
If you want to stop people from embracing radicalism and and shy away from attacking the US, you need to give them something to loose. Taknig away what little they have and then threaten to bomb their goats to Kingdom Come is not going to cut it.