International Politics Lecture

I find it interesting that the British are very good in putting together recent history and facts (a la George Smiley!!) into a coherent whole, to explain issues almost anywhere in the world but do not appear to care enough to come up with sensible possible forecasts and analyses for predicting the future on the basis of what they have concocted. Or they really never had this ability or the agenda.



The Americans are very poor in reading behind and between the lines and have difficulty in explaining the past or the present in realistic terms. What is worst, the Americans will then go ahead and build their own fantasy futures based on crumbling or stacked decks of cards. They then commit themselves to these false futures and have difficulty in changing political, economic, military, (even automobile production) policy to meet the true facts as they become known. By the time they have the clockwork re-arranged, oiled and in working order, the facts have changed and they have a new set of myths, disregarding some of the old ones, replacing others and producing new ones at science fiction writers workshops posing as universities although they also have some very good think tank institutions with better and rational capabilities which are not so popular because they criticize more than they advise.



And then, there are all the puny power hungry individuals and groups everywhere in the world who try to cheat and connive to get a larger portion of a pie they cannot eat in comfort let alone take with them.

April, 2012