Intresting read about the US

Hobbes

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/01winter/peters.htm

Not sure if it should be on Politics or not.

Biffa Bacon

Seems to be a broken link.

bonkey

Works fine for me biffa.

Interesting article Hobbes. Very provoking, irrespective of which side of the fence you sit on.

Its the type of thing I expect wont get too much discussion too soon, because its too long for casual reading

Nice one.

jc

Hobbes

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
Seems to be a broken link.

Might be slashdotted at the moment, prolly why.

Victor

Ah sod ye Hobbes, I'm not going to read all that.

What I will say is that there has to be a balance between stability, human rights and democracy. The reason that Eastern Europe (and to a lesser degree South Africa) generally succeeded in a peaceful transition to democracy around 1990 was because they were generally stable, their institutions continued in operation until they were properly reformed or abolished. Change came about by general consensus, not prolonged instability or violence (with exceptions in Romania and Yugoslavia, neither of which were within the Soviet sphere of control). While differences did exist within the countries, there was a maturity (but not necessarily consensus) that allowed them progress to the point of (a) economic and social development (b) in the case of in particular Hungary and the USSR realising the futility of superpower confrontation (c) voting themselves out of existence.

You also have Indonesia and the Philippines. Both have in the medium term been stable insofar as they were developing economically and to some degree socially. It was the stability (and sometimes brutality) of central government that allowed this progress. However, with corruption, extreme variances in incomes levels, internal dissent and difficult internal communication, their efforts at reform have been and will continue to be fraught with difficulty. Yet on a day-to-day basis, most people can still go about their business, most people have enough to eat and roofs over their heads.

The flip side of this is countries like Afghanistan / Pakistan / India, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Israel / Palestine which are largely artificial entities with historical / tribal / religious / political allegiances not concurring with modern borders (much like the rest of Africa). With an absence of identity, substantial minorities have engaged in violence in the attempt to gain power, either in their own areas or of the whole country. This violence has led to poverty and hunger, and the diversion of resources from the social and economic development through the destruction of agriculture, water resources, industry (where it existed) and general infrastructure. Stability would give these countries the breathing space to repair this infrastructure and hopefully this will bring the maturity to move towards democracy and an acceptable human rights record.