Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

[webified]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

citbodoe wrote - Then what was the Navy, Army and Air Force, and probably Coast Guard armed to the teeth doing on the Front Line in front of the diplomats? What the Navy, Army and Air Force, and probably the Coast Guard that were armed to the teeth were doing on the Front Line in front of the diplomats were providing lethal teeth for the diplomats. If someone says that they will blow your head off but is not holding a gun, you may blow it off and do whatever it is that you feel like you need to do. However, if someone is holding a gun to your head and they say that they are going to blow your head off, you may think twice about doing whatever it is that you are about to do. Wasn't diplomacy all about mutually assured destruction back then, and to some degree, still is today?

[Guest.Visitor]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

Cold War, not Cold diplomacy.

[dacust]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

ctibidoe said "Cold War, not Cold Diplomacy" I thought this discussion was how we can sometimes avoid wars, meaning how we can avoid invading and having so many casulties. Using this definition, I'd think the Cuban situation was a place where loss of life was kept to a minimum by people who tried to think their way through the problem. Call it "War" if you want, but I didn't think that was really the spirit of the discussion. -dan

[Guest.Visitor]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

My point was.... Diplomacy is not amassing a battle group and placing them infront of someone who has their hand on the trigger. If the other side had decided to duke it out we had a war. Would you be saying today that what Kenedy did was reasonable and thinking if they had busted the blockade? Or would you be saying that he was a warmonger and had wasted a lot of young American and Russian and Cuban lives, but had won anyway? A military group was placed in harm's way and was armed to do their duty, and magic...presto...chango...we didn't have a bullet exchanging war, but we got the temporary desired result, and I don't think you can call it diplomacy. Now, do I think you need to shoot your way out of everything, of course not. But, when someone is bent on forcibly using their military to do someone else harm, I have yet to see where diplomats stopped the inevitable. The Cold War was won with a military escalation and standoff that had nothing to do with reason (reasonable people don't do things like that). Someone show me where reason has defeated an enemy bent on someone else's destruction.

[Guest.Visitor]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

The arena of ideas is not always a popular place, or a comfortable one. I say, talk, and write with passion for what I believe in and out of the workplace. And what I believe may be different later today if you show me the way. I specifically posed my view of the crossover between diplomacy and war as a question to agressively draw other opinions into the disscussion, for I believe the discussion begins when we understand where we disagree, not when we stop talking to everyone we disagree with and then congratulate everyone with whom we agree. I didn't bring up the Cuban Crisis. I offered my opinion and questions that I haven't answered for myself. I still say that the blockade wasn't diplomacy, but at the same time, I don't disagree with it. I don't have a problem with agression when it makes sense, and I have a problem with people who always one dimensionally reason it away. I also spanked my kids, who haven't been to jail and functional as tax paying adults, with one on his way to Europe to serve his country. Not sure about that longtimer stuff. But if you are versed in XSLT, XSLFO 2 PCL, RTF 2 FO, DOM, XSLT, FOP, CLOBs I could sure use some different ideas right now.

[frankgw@adelphia.net]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

Click here for details - http://www.booktv.org/General/index....85&schedID=331

[webified]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

Ctibodoe wrote 'Cold War, not Cold diplomacy'. I respect your opinion, however, I see it more as strategic deterrence.

[frankgw@adelphia.net]

Perhaps the most important book you will ever read...

I just read it while celebrating my 65th birthday on the sunny U.S. Virgin Island of St. John. Click here for more information direct from the author's website - http://www.samharris.org