homo_nudus прочитал статью в "Нью-Йорк Таймс", в которой автор объясняет, почему американцы должны оказать военную помощь Украине. По-моему, важно для понимания происходящего. Кто читает по-английски, читайте. А для других переведу два маленьких кусочка.The West needs to be honest with Ukraine. We talk as though this country were one of us — as if, one day, it will become a member of the European Union and the NATO alliance. That is Kiev’s wish, but the West is not giving Ukraine the means to fight this war.
Запад должен быть честен с Украиной. Мы говорили так, как если бы эта страна была одной из нас - как если бы однажды она станет членом Евросоюза и НАТО. Таково желание Киева, но Запад не дает Ураине средств вести эту войну.
If we believe that Ukraine will one day become a member of the European Union and NATO, then we should be ready to arm it. We must face the fact that the costs of unlimited European Union and NATO expansion have meant war with Russia by proxy — and then fight the war. Having reignited the hottest moments of the Cold War, we must deal with the consequences of encouraging democratization in Eastern Europe.
Если мы убеждены, что Украина когда-нибудь станет членом Евросоюза и НАТО, то мы должны быть готовы вооружить ее. Мы должны принять тот факт, неограниченное расширение Евросоюза и НАТО подразумевает войну с Россией - и вести эту войну. Вернувшись к самым горячим моментам холодной войны, мы вынуждены иметь дело с последствиями поощрения демократизации в Восточной Европе.
if we force Ukraine to surrender, rather than sacrifice lives in a fight for which we have no stomach, then we must accept that it is a surrender, too, for NATO, for Europe and liberal democracy, and for American global leadership.
... если мы принудим Украину сдаться, а не жертвовать жизнями в борьбе, в которой нам участвовать неохота, то мы должны принять и то, что это будет капитуляция и для НАТО, и для Европы и либеральной демократии, и для американского мирового лидерства.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/a-way-out-for-kiev-and-moscow.html?_r=0
еще рекомендую почитать Фукуяму, у меня есть подозрение что и во внешней политике есть в Америке какие то системные проблемы, что и у иллюстративного примера с министерством леса
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141729/francis-fukuyama/america-in-decay
т.е. действительно дурные кадры в виде той же нуланд и так далее - то это довольно таки даже страшно,
ибо если Гулливера колбасит то лиллипутов будет плющить
А не поясните, что Вы понимаете под "проблемами в формировании внешней политики"? Политика не отвечающая национальным интересам? Противоречивая, непоследовательная? Неспособность вообще сформировать такую политику?
книг
"Part of the genesis of this book lies in a conversation at a U.S. Embassy party in
May 1989 in Islamabad, Pakistan, where I was then working as a stringer for
The Times (London), covering both Pakistani affairs and the war in Afghanistan
from the side of the mujahideen. The party was in honor of a newly arrived U.S.
diplomat, who to the best of my recollection had never worked in Pakistan or any
other Muslim country before.
I backed up a colleague, Kathy Gannon of the Associated Press, in criticizing
U.S. policy on Afghanistan. We argued that especially now that the Soviet forces
had left, the United States' giving massive financial and military aid to Pakistan so
that its secret service could help mujahideen groups of its choice was lunacy. The
groups in question (we were thinking at the time chiefly of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
who since the overthrow of the Taliban has emerged as an anti-American warlord)
and their Arab allies were not only a serious threat to peace and progress in
Afghanistan, they were pathologically anti-Western.
To this the U.S. diplomat replied that because of his access to intelligence sources,
his knowledge of Afghanistan was greater than ours (we had both visited Afghanistan
repeatedly with the mujahideen, Kathy for much longer and much more often
than I; he had never been there). He said that he was confident that the Afghan
resistance was going to build a "successful free market democracy" in Afghanistan.
When these arguments were demolished, others emerged: that the destruction
of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul was essential to "defeat communism" in
the world and that "the Russians did it to us in Vietnam, and we're going to do it to
them in Afghanistan." Finally, he declared in exasperation that Kathy and I were
"the kind of people who lost us Vietnam."
This diatribe encapsulated many of the features of American nationalism addressed
in this book. They include the belief of the national security elite that its
access to intelligence makes it supremely wise and well informed—despite repeated and catastrophic evidence to the contrary. The belief in the democratization of
Afghanistan by the mujahideen reflected a messianism rooted in the American
Creed but was accompanied by a total ignorance of Afghan history, society, tradition
or reality in general."
Re: книг
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5s4ln2b8hn2fcng/147731396-America-Right-or-Wrong-an-Anatomy-of-American-Nationalism-2005.pdf?dl=0
кто же нерационален тогда
и что Россия давно уже у них в прицеле.
Из статьи этого не следует.
но статья косвенно подтверждает тот вывод, который я уже сделал по ситуации.