Clintonian Revisionism

In a post that otherwise makes good points, Matt Yglesias writes:

The absence of giant blow-ups between the United States and our main NATO allies ought to count as a real accomplishment of the Clinton years.

Riiight. Apart, that is, from the major disagreements in the Balkans - ie, a pretty important foreign policy issue of the time - which resulted in Blair and Clinton falling out rather severely and, among other things, saw a British general disobey an American general's direct order on the grounds that he wasn't comfortable with the idea of "starting World War Three" there weren't any "blow-ups" in the Clinton years. NATO in fact came perilously close to cracking-up altogether during the Clinton years.

But of course, in the end, it just about held together, even if its purpose was increasingly questioned as the 20th century drew to a close. More importantly there's nothing too much wrong with these disagreements: friends should be able to disagree! If they're not then the value of the friendship is dramatically over-stated and you're talking about a relationship between an Imperial power and it's vassal satellites, not a friendly alliance between a big lad and some smaller, but still independent, chaps.

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