Greece: I had no idea so much European "fall out" was effecting them. It make sense, Greece has always been in a strategically significant position. Greece was just the first to fall, others are teetering and may follow shortly. As "larger" nations fall, baling them out is going to become more and more difficult and possibly lead to still larger nations falling.
Preemptive wars: Interesting take, Friendly. What you write is true until there is a "direct threat" to one's nation. What people will argue over is when a threat becomes a direct threat.
US foreign policy changed in the early 21st century. We no longer took an approach of "measured response" to attacks. In the 90's, under Clinton, if you blew up one of our ships, we might take out one of your training camps and call it even. That sort of policy emboldened adversaries and led to more attacks.
After 9/11, we decided that anyone who supported terrorism was a direct threat. People point to the absence of WMD's in Iraq as evidence that the war was not justified. While it is true that most intelligence sources agreed (foreign and domestic) that Iraq had WMD's, they were not the only only reason we went to get Saddam.
Saddam was thumbing his nose at UN inspectors, financially supporting terrorist organizations, and preaching for the destruction of the West. Did he have WMD's? The answer appears to be no, but he had used them in the past (and nothing says that he had them and shipped them elsewhere prior to the invasion). For those reasons, he was deemed to be a direct threat.
Do preemptive strikes work? People want to say "no", but if you will remember, Khadafi was a supporter of terrorism at one time. A series of strikes that almost got him, and killed some of his family, led him to get out of the terrorism business. His decision stopped any further action against him. So, yes, they can work.
The attacks against Libya were VERY controversial at the time on the foreign front. France would not even let our bombers fly over their territory (from England) on the way.
Convoluted American Politics.: Liberals (Democrats) in the US did not want to go to war in Iraq. They wanted to go to war in Afghanistan where the Taliban was supporting Al-Qaeda who had brought down the world trade center. They didn't see a direct link between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks.
Conservatives (Republicans) wanted to go to Iraq and Bush was a Republican. So we went to Iraq first and took out that threat.
Now the Democrats are making the mistake of reversing themselves in Afghanistan and wanting to withdraw our troops. Even when commanders on the ground said they needed "X" number of troops, the present President would only send a portion of the troops requested (same as Vietnam). Now, all that our opponents need to do is wait until we pull our troops out of Afghanistan and they can come in and take over. We certainly won't be "winning" that war in the time frame allotted, with the present rules of engagement, and with the resources that are there.
It appears that Iraq will be much more stable as we draw down troops levels, but that could (and probably will) change. Many of us think we were unwise to stay there and that we should have left and let the different factions battle it out among themselves. They hate each other almost as much as the US lol. And if they are fighting each other, they won't be exporting their war.
People bash me for seeing world politics in a "pessimistic" light. That some nation's leaders are "evil" and that there are powerful people in the world who want to destroy anyone who doesn't believe their way. Obviously, I say that such a view is only "realistic" given world history and WWII is a great example of that.
Put simply, if other nations will not respect yours, you better hope they have enough fear of your nation to make them leave you alone. If they lack either a basic respect or fear of retaliation, your nation will be attacked in some way. This plays out over and over again on the world stage.
So the answer, 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.
Example: Did Hitler fear France? Did he respect France's sovereignty? Answers are no and no. Hitler takes France.
Example: Did Japan fear the US? Did Japan respect US sovereignty enough to prevent them from attacking US territories? The answers are more vague. No they did not respect US sovereignty within their sphere of influence, but they did fear US might.....just not enough.
Example: Did Hitler fear Britain? Did he respect their sovereignty? While he did not respect their sovereignty, he did fear them enough (after being shown) to not throw his troops away on an invasion.
Lesson: As long as there are bad people in the world, stay strong. Bad people won't respect you but they may fear you enough to leave you alone.
Splitter
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