The problem with the American foreign policy community is that, since the fall of the Soviet Union, it has only faced weak countries and so has only had to justifies actions internally and not worry about the perspective of country the action is being taken against.
When you’re up against weak countries, it really doesn’t matter what they think, because they have no recourse against American power, so the current foreign policy community has only known an environment where they haven’t had to understand the perspective of their opponent.
Even in cases like Iraq and Afghanistan, where it would’ve helped to have a better perspective on local conditions, they still didn’t have to care about the existing states, which were easily defeated.
This is why current foreign policy perspectives on Russia and China come across as so childish. This is a community that has been able to get away with dismissing serious analytical work because rival states only produce ‘propaganda’, don’t have legitimate concerns, etc.
Taking the perspective of Russia or China into consideration is dismissed as ‘appeasement’, ‘whataboutism’, etc. Shrill analysts get mad online at any headline that takes into account what the ‘opponent’ might think about an action.
Criticism isn’t evaluated on its merits but dismissed because it ‘sounds like’ what China or Russian say. Nevermind actually considering whether Russia or China themselves make any good points (absolutely unconscionable!).
One shockingly stupid aspect of this: analysts openly talk in aggressive terms - containment, division, etc - but when Russia or China accuses the US of such actions, they dismiss it as ‘paranoia’, ‘propaganda’, etc. It’s as if they think leaders in these countries can’t read!
