Somewhere, Kennan said something like, ' for the people of Austria Hungary, after the disintegration of the Austro Hungarian Empire, weak and decrepit as it had been, nothing anywhere near as good emerged to take its
place.... ' something like that.
Maybe it's in his diaries...
Certainly, in my judgment, one can say more or less the same thing, maybe even more forcefully, from a Western Civilization perspective, which is the one I use, about the Ottoman Empire, and to criticize the horrifically poor decisionmaking of the Western Powers in dismantling it, as revenge for siding with the losers in WWI. Much better to have allowed it to limp on as it was than to have promoted the conflicts and fragmentaion which then followed.
Anyway, I want to further generalize his point.
No comments:
Post a Comment