[PEN-L:32625] Re: Re: revenge of Henry the K

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

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> > Kissinger now has another chance to be a player in the great game of
> > international strategy, a game in which truth will inevitably be traded
off
> > against perceived national interest, a barter at which the American
> > Machiavelli is a master.
>
>
> This is a shocking insult to Machiavelli.
>
> Thiago Oppermann
>
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It is somewhat troubling how some commentators on international
relations/theories of the State hark *back* to the origins of cynicism
regarding the role of the State. As if *Bush* has even read/remembered
Machievelli in his strategizing. Sure we can say Rice et al know their
Kenneth Waltz etc. but to the extent that Waltz and his network of
colleagues take out a full page ad in the NYT seriously warning/denouncing
the current risks/dangers involved in carrying through the implications of
"his" own paradigm of IR, one cannot help but wonder why the "return to
origins" is of much more than  a facile narrative "grounding" of the
problems to be dealt with in this decade.....Machievelli is of no help to
us, to suggest otherwise it seems, is to indulge in antiquarianism. That
Henry the K might still be enamored of Metternich is a distraction at this
point........

Ian