Imagine a mother. Her child is busily involved in stripping her shelves of every piece of heirloom China she owns, and then hurling the stuff to the floor. The mother is ineffectually fluttering around the child saying, "Stop, please stop." Her neighbor walks in and says, "Why don't you promise to give him a hammer?" The mother does so and the child, intrigued by the promise, stops long enough to demand and then receive the promised hammer. After that, hammer in hand, the child redoubles his destructive efforts. The child has learned a valuable lesson: If I'm destructive, I will be rewarded.
Any mother who parents like this should be reported to Child Protective Services. A minimal level of intelligence dictates that the first thing you do is stop the child's destructive acts. Depending on your parenting style, you can either follow that with a consequence or not. (I fall in the former category.) Only then is it carrot time. You tell your child that, in return for continued, sincere good behavior, rewards will follow. Any return to the former bad behavior will see instant consequences. It's not brain surgery to figure out this type of cause and effect.
But if it's so simple, why don't world political leaders get it? Throughout the 1990s, the West, led by America, continuously rewarded N. Korea for bad behavior. You could just imagine the N. Korean leaders sitting around the conference table: "We need a new water purification plant in the northern provinces. Let's tell the U.S. we're building a nuclear weapon. That ought to shake something out of them." Every threat or bad act received an instant reward in terms of money and technology.
Now, the beginning of the 21st Century sees Iran, which starts off more heavily armed than N. Korea and, if possible, even more insane, having figured out the same pattern. Shake some sabres, threaten a renewed Holocaust, and get a reward. The latest example has Europe in the role of the helpful neighbor, urging us to give Iran some "incentives" even as Iran continuously escalates its rhetoric and armament:
Diplomats say European countries asked United States to consider selling new airplanes to Iran as part of proposed package of incentives aimed at resolving nuclear crisis with Tehran
European countries have asked the United States to consider selling new airplanes to Iran as part of a proposed package of incentives aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis with Tehran, diplomats said on Friday.
What is it about politics, especially European politics, that sucks the brains out of people?
I hate that “if you stop, you can have a cookie” mentality! And there are WAY too many parents (and countries) acting that way!
I say we give them some incentives. The incentive should be thatt we WON’T bomb them back to the tone age if they behave. Great blog!
But if it’s so simple, why don’t world political leaders get it?
Because two adults can self-rationalize each other out of anything. With a child, we least have one constant for any experimentation.
I think Europe suffers from the problem all spoiled children suffers from. They can’t take care of themselves, because they weren’t the ones responsible for their own peace and prosperity, no diplomacy stopped WWII or the Soviets. So if Europe can’t even stop their own wars by their own diplomacy without outside, what makes anyone think Europe can help anyone else?
I’ve been railing for a change in North Korea for years. Of course it won’t happen, in part because of the difficulty of fighting a war in such a nation and in part because of the damage it would do to South Korea’s economy (see West Germany for a comparison, the South Koreans have). But there was much more powerful rationale for invading North Korea, with its human rights record (over two million in lost population over the last decade), blatant nose-thumbing of the agreements it makes, the continued quest for nuclear weaponry – we invaded Iraq for much less – even less than we believed at the outset.
THe US takes a lot of sensitivity concerning sovereign or even non-sovereign nations. It’s like the red carpet treatment for South Korea. It is as if the US is ashamed of its power, and never wants to appear the bully, and never wants to invade a country and then leave it to the South Koreans to clean up because it is somehow shameful to let weaker people clean up messes with less resources than the US has.
A different superpower would most assuredly behave differently, and with different results. If China or Russia had the power to take over their immediate neighbors as easily as we took over a country half way across the world, two countries at that, does anyone really think China or Russia would refuse to do so based upon respect for other nations?
Gail had the kids at the college swimming pool when they were young (a LONG time ago, now) and a friend was there with her boy — two or three years old. She was holding him, and he was striking her in the face!! She was turning her head from one side to the other, saying “You don’t want to hit Mommy….You don’t want to hit Mommy…..” and doing absolutely nothing to stop him from doing what he so obviously DID want to do!! The ability of “liberals” to deny a truth they don’t wish to recognize is breath-taking.
[...] Continuing on in my project to visit one member of the 101st each day, today I went to The Bookworm Room and found a really good description of how not to modify behaviors. You really should look at this analogy, it's spot on. [...]
So why is Bush basically standing in his one-piece, saying, “You don’t want to hit Mommy….You don’t want to hit Mommy…?”
Cause Bush’s job is to make sure AMericans don’t start obliterating people as a lot of people want, given how tired they are of doing it the “by the book” way. I tend to see Bush’s role as that akin to Roosevelt. Roosevelt started the war, and it really doesn’t matter whether he lied or not about going to war. Roosevelt also was kinda buddy buddy with Stalin. Bush’s role in history is not to finish the conflict, that is left to the Trumans, who will end the war with a nuclear bomb, demonstration or not.
A person’s role in history, is independent of what kind of a person he is. I’m not comparing Bush to Roosevelt or Truman, although you could make comparisons, but describing what Bush’s historical role is. Given that Bush had to react to 9/11 as Roosevelt had to react to Pearl harbor, there are many similarities. Bush won’t see the end of his war while in power, Roosevelt didn’t see his while in power.