On Thu Jul 19, Brad DeLong wrote:
> > > But what does the U.S. get from this $3 billion a year, besides
> > > a more difficult and prickly relationship with the Gulf states
> > > where the oil is?
<snip>
> > A good case can be made that the annual payment to Egypt (which
> > could never be made without a larger one to Israel) bought the
> > end of general war in the middle east and made the Middle East a
> > one-superpower zone. We essentially bought condominium....
> And what good for the United States--speaking as a flinty-eyed State
> Department realist--is "condominium" over the western Middle East?
What good was the end of the prospect of general war in the Middle East? What good was ruling out a war that could lead to the end of the world? Come on, Brad. This was one goal that idealists and realpoliticans could both agree on. And even from an flinty-eyed imperial gain perspective, it was better to lock in a steady edge in a steady middle east. Lock out the chance of general war, lock out the competitor who only has military inducements to offer, lock in an alliance system where all the oil producers are in your camp. Volatility is your main enemy when you have big fixed investments. A steady predictable environment without real opposition is your long-term friend.
(BTW, when I said "condominum," of course I meant "imperium." You can't have condominium with one power)
> Giving both Egypt and Israel an excuse to avoid war in order to
> receive aid is a good thing from the idealist perspective (to which I
> belong). But the U.S.'s strategic interests are in the eastern Middle
> East.
No. Its economic interests are there. It's strategic interests are in controlling the forces of war. Camp David was a compromise that maximized both to the greatest extent possible. You seem puzzled that we didn't try to maximize the one and just ignore the other. Is that the economist in you coming out? :o)
You are right that this view is common among State Department bureaucrats. But they do not always see the clearest. They tend to minimize the importance of war just as Pentagon bureaucrats tend to maximize it. IMHO, Camp David had a deep statesman-like logic to it. But all I'm trying to get you to agree to is that it had a logic to it, that we sought and gained something for the money that you asked about. Even if you think we should have sought and gained something else.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com