{I just lost a long post and some good links on this topic.}
Dick and Jon are still debating the merits of Adam Garfinkle's article on Foreign Policy.
I just want to address a couple of Dick's points. Dick questions whether intervention in Iran, Chile, Indonesia, Vietnam and Nicaragua were ultimately in the interests of the US. In hindsight that question is easy to ask, but given the experience of the 1930s and 40s, it seems to me to be a sensible approach to stand up to a threat as early in its growth as possible. At what point did Manchuria, Abyssinia, China, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway, Holland, France and/or Britain become vital to US national security? I don't know, but that point was passed along the way to Pearl Harbor.
Dick also worries that Afghanistan may be heading into another civil war. That would be a disaster for the Afgani people. However, I don't think US national security depends on law and order taking hold in that country. Merely preventing Afganistan from resuming its role as host to Al Qaeda training camps would be sufficient.
