here i sit polishing up a paper that was due at midnight, eastern time. anyone want to write a paper on international cooperation? reasons for it? it’s boring to me baby! it’s all machiavelli, all the time. all this cooperation bull is just a bunch of states positioning themselves for advantage.
sorry i haven’t posted. i have a couple of posts saved, but i haven’t published them because i’m having a little problem with uploading pictures. so last weeks pop tart will have to be skipped. maybe this thursday, i’ll throw an extra picture or two up.
What, you think all international cooperation is just Kumbayah? Gee, you’ll make a great diplomat. We can’t do everything by ourselves– sometimes it’s like the difference between jerking off and making love (if you can imagine doing that without paying ca$h for the privilege). Each partner still weighs their own interests before/during/after, but the sum can be greater than the parts.
yeah, like our Great Sharing we had with the UN in the Somalia interventions!
The easiest way to come away from the Great Wall Of Cynicism is to think of things that *work*. One example is the International Postal Union, which allows us to put an American stamp on a box and send it to Japan–and the box arrives at its destination!
There’re lots of agreements like the IPU, boring but useful; if you’re bored I touch on it in this paper here in the first page or two.
Autarky doesn’t work. Despite my strong distaste for transnational postmodernist calls for a system of global governance, international cooperation is necessary and can be effective.