Monday, December 31, 2007
Resource Wars Trump League of Democracies Every Time
One of the things I liked about the forthcoming The Next American Century by Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen--one of the books I review under the rubric of "FDR's Children" in the January/February issue of TNI--was their bluntness and honesty. They pointed out that, as much as we may want to ignore or downplay it, that democratic states as much as the non-democracies play a role in sustaining regimes like the ones in Sudan and Burma.
Whether or not "resource wars" are real or imagined--the subject of a pretty lively debate building on David Victor's essay in the last issue--the concept does exercise a hold over the imagination of policymakers. So I wasn't shocked when I read this Indian op-ed, entitled, "India in the Race for Resources". And the recommendation:
Like the US, Russia, France and China, we need to put our national interest first and not be swayed by external pressure, as we appear to be doing in Myanmar.
Whether or not "resource wars" are real or imagined--the subject of a pretty lively debate building on David Victor's essay in the last issue--the concept does exercise a hold over the imagination of policymakers. So I wasn't shocked when I read this Indian op-ed, entitled, "India in the Race for Resources". And the recommendation:
Like the US, Russia, France and China, we need to put our national interest first and not be swayed by external pressure, as we appear to be doing in Myanmar.
