The political press unconsciously treats hawkish positions as if they're more serious and legitimate, in part because they've thoughtlessly bought into the frame that experts can control geopolitics. This is a consequence of so many political journalists living inside a Washington subculture that attracts foreign-policy thinkers with an inflated sense of their own ability to understand and shape global events, says The Atlantic.
The American people are well aware of the shortcomings of those elites, having witnessed their performance in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Beirut, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, among other places. It's no accident that so few Americans favor intervention in Syria. They don't know much in particular about the country or its people. They've just learned to be skeptical of wars of choice because the assumptions of the people who launch them are so often wrong. That skepticism ought to be given more weight, especially given how many so-called foreign-policy experts are nothing of the kind. Read it all. [BJS]
The American people are well aware of the shortcomings of those elites, having witnessed their performance in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Beirut, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, among other places. It's no accident that so few Americans favor intervention in Syria. They don't know much in particular about the country or its people. They've just learned to be skeptical of wars of choice because the assumptions of the people who launch them are so often wrong. That skepticism ought to be given more weight, especially given how many so-called foreign-policy experts are nothing of the kind. Read it all. [BJS]
