Saturday, December 02, 2006
Gary Kasparov tells the United States how to play chess
In this morning's Wall Street Journal, former world chess champion Gary Kasparov decries the failure of American strategy in some of the sharpest diagnosis you are likely to read in a newspaper. While I do not agree with every aspect of his prescription, he nails the description:
For the past few years, the dictators and terrorists have been gaining ground, and with good reason. The deepening catastrophe in Iraq has distracted the world's sole superpower from its true goals, and weakened the U.S. politically as well as militarily. With new congressional leadership threatening to make the same mistake--failing to see Iraq as only one piece of a greater puzzle--it is time to return to the basics of strategic planning.
Thirty years as a chess player ingrained in me the importance of never losing sight of the big picture. Paying too much attention to one area of the chessboard can quickly lead to the collapse of your entire position. America and its allies are so focused on Iraq they are ceding territory all over the map. Even the vague goals of President Bush's ambiguous war on terror have been pushed aside by the crisis in Baghdad.
The U.S. must refocus and recognize the failure of its post-9/11 foreign policy. Pre-emptive strikes and deposing dictators may or may not have been a good plan, but at least it was a plan. However, if you attack Iraq, the potential to go after Iran and Syria must also be on the table. Instead, the U.S. finds itself supervising a civil war while helplessly making concessions elsewhere.
This dire situation is a result of the only thing worse than a failed strategy: the inability to recognize, or to admit, that a strategy has failed.
Read the whole thing.
3 Comments:
By 
Lanky_Bastard, at
Sat Dec 02, 04:08:00 PM:
Shorter Kasparov: Iraq is a distracting liability.
If he'd said that last year, he'd get jumped by right-wingers.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Dec 03, 12:29:00 PM:
"You'd think. But then, apparently, you'd also be wrong."
That thinking, unfortunately, perpetuates our problems with Iran and others. It's how Europe thinks. 'We're going to pursue diplomacy no matter what; the use of force is out of the question.'
Well, diplomacy exists specifically as an alternative to the use of force. If your opposition does not believe that you can/will harm them, then they are not going to do what you want them to do. If the use of force against Iran isn't even an option, (and you say so) then they know that they can do essentially anything they want and not be punished for it.
I think that's how their mentality is now. They are convinced that no one can or will harm them over this nuclear issue, and once they get the bombs no one will dare.
By A.Mann, at
Sat Jan 27, 09:06:00 AM:
The problem with thinking of international relations as chess is that a single game of chess or a match or a tournament is a win- lose game. The strategy of winning and your adversries losing may well work in such situations as the stakes are comparatively small and the time span of the event small and well defined. In international relations if one party destroys lives and coutries or take what belongs to another- turning a situation into a win lose one , will leave the losers with no choice but to carry on fighting perhaps at a time favourable to them tactically. This in the long run will not only be damaging to the winner but he may subsequently suffer defeat. Playing chess, as a win-lose game, has been good for Gary Kasparov as a chess player, but in the field of human relation it is a dreadful philosopy to use as the foundation for behaviour. I believe one should pursue fairness and justice with the intention of creating favourable outcomes and conditions for all parties in order to then enrich everyones lives. After all chess situations apply to a single game, matches or careers. Human history is continuous and is wrong to think of it as a series of chess matches between adversries. In any case in the long run truth and fairness will prevail rather than might is right and my enemy must be destroyed.
