Friday, September 24, 2010

From divide and rule to divide and sell

Whenever I read news stories saying that the US has struck a deal to sell so many fighter jets to a country, because of apparent threat to that country (from its neighbors, etc.), I feel sad. Because in many of such cases, the so-called threat has been created by the US itself.

(source: Emirates 24|7)

The brilliant strategy followed by "America" can be summarized as follows: Create widespread belief that a particular nation is rogue and thus too dangerous, and then sell tens of billions worth of military equipment to that nation's neighbors. It's in the interest of the US to create controlled tension between different nations of the world, because it gets strong pretext to sell military equipment to the threatened nations. It's annoying to see the US express its desire to see issues between India and Pakistan get resolved, and then see it sell or attempt to sell military equipment to both the nations, further escalating the tension between the nations (culminating in an arms race, fueled both by one-upmanship and by "America").

It looks like a modern form of divide and rule - I call it divide and sell.

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