Monday Thuggery Education Open Thread

The laws of human nature are very much like the laws of physics: stubbornly intractable and dangerous to ignore. And yet, in recent decades, American foreign policy experts and the presidents they serve have often discounted these simple rules about human action and reaction. From Afghanistan to Ukraine to the Red Sea, our foreign policy elites have failed to properly account for some of the tenets of basic human psychology, usually with poor or even disastrous results.

and,

To begin with, any bad actor or bully will see inaction, inadequate action, or attempts at negotiation or dialogue as a sign of weakness and will continue to behave aggressively.

Of course, the mother of all historical examples of this kind of dynamic involves Germany’s aggressive rise in the 1930s, when each territorial concession made to Hitler by Britain, France and other countries simply prompted him to demand more territory until the situation exploded into World War II. But there are plenty of recent instances of this as well.

plus,

Even with the retaliatory airstrikes in recent days against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, they have accused the president and his advisers—correctly, in my view—of ignoring what might be called basic playground psychology. To begin with, any bad actor or bully will see inaction, inadequate action, or attempts at negotiation or dialogue as a sign of weakness and will continue to behave aggressively.

In the early spring of 1958 at St. Michael’s Episcopal School in Oak Forest, I had enough of the big class bully, Robert, who had made many in my 1st grade class miserable each day as he preyed on the weakest and small. On the playground that day Robert was tormenting a little girl. I walked over, stood squarely in front of him and hit him as hard as I could in the nose. Robert fell straight backwards flat on his back and didn’t move.  I could not believe my eyes; it was just like in the cowboy movies. He finally stood up, crying, nose bleeding and went off by himself. Robert never acted like a bully or said a threatening word to me or any classmate again. It was a great life lesson I haven’t always observed.

I wish all bullies and thugs in the world were so easy to reform, but is not to be. Nevertheless, they cannot be allowed an inch and have to push back steadily. Otherwise, a nation write its own death certificate.

and this,

But playground psychology encompasses more than just effectively deterring bullies. Another hard and fast rule that is often ignored by our policymakers is the notion that credibly deterring one bad actor in one place will make it easier to do so with others elsewhere. In other words, effective deterrence has a positive knock-on effect.

There are so many recent examples of problems stemming from the failure to recognize this simple rule that it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start by going back to Ukraine. It’s not difficult to make a connection between President Obama’s “red line” in Syria in 2013 and Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine less than a year later.