You favour game theory, which I don't understand very well, and which seems too grounded in individual psychology rather than social and economic conditions to suit me, but we seem to have arrived at similar conclusions.
[WS:] Well, this particular theory does the exact opposite of individual psychology (i.e. preferences), as it explains how things happen in a certain way DESPITE individual preferences. That is to say that particular individuals may strongly prefer a change in the course of action but they quickly discover that making that change is too costly, so in the end they "go with the program."
My favorite anecdote illustrating this is an attempt of Stalinist apparatchiks in Poland during the 1950s to change industrial standards from DIN (European) to GOST (Russian). The move was purely political - to demonstrate allegiance to the Big Brother. Now, you need to understand that questioning this allegiance and its public displays or even being insufficiently enthusiastic about it in those times could end your career rather quickly (cf. Milan Kundera, _The Joke_.) Yet, government technocrats opposed this initiative on very prosaic grounds - high transaction costs (i.e. costs of implementing the new standards.) So despite political pressure, the existing standards were retained.
The reason I quoted this theory is that it provides a nice counterbalance to a voluntaristic bias in the thinking of social activists and reformers ("activistists" as Doug dubbed them) who may pay lip service to objective forces, systemic causes, etc., but they abandon that objectivism for idealistic (largely of Soviet and Maoist provenance) belief that strong will and determination of the cadres can move mountains and change those objective forces. In countries like the US, such attitudes seldom advance beyond pathetic, but elsewhere they gave birth to murderous regimes established to "change the course of history" and create a "higher form of social consciousness and organization." Again, Philip Short's biography of Pol Pot, which I just finished reading, provides an excellent case in point.
Beyond that, I largely agree with your position. I still wonder, however, whether Bush's "unilateralism" and military adventurism is really a substantive departure from the "normal" US policy course set after WW2, or merely a change in the appearances and the rhetoric of that policy, an attenuation of the shadow cast by these policies, if you will.
Wojtek