Interesting opinion piece in today's LA Times called The Godfather Doctrine. Here's my comment, which may or may not actually be published:

There's no denying that Hulsman and Mitchell's advocacy of a "realist" position for the US in the world makes sense, as the centers of global power and influence have shifted, and nimble super-national or decidedly anti-national groups have risen to confront us. But they fail to sufficiently hammer home the key point: Proceeding realistically means abandoning most of the structures and rules of international operation that have governed our conduct since World War Two, including those which the US has been most instrumental in building.

Are we willing to reconsider who we can kill and when? Michael Corleone decided that maybe the previous "mobster rule" prohibiting killing a police officer could be broken in some cases. Are we willing to consider that targeted assasination is preferable to outright war? Michael Corleone did. Are we willing to consider that the existing power structures and institutions -- the ones designed by Eleanor Roosevelt and members of her generation -- may be completely obsolete and no longer worthy of support or reverance in their current form? Michael Corleone certainly did this too.

A realistic policy will force us to recognize and abandon long-held beliefs about everything from the usefulness of the United Nations, to the legality of killing foreign leaders pre-emptively, to the reality that in many places and at many times the distinction between "civilian" and "military" is no longer a meaningful one. Our adversaries have already either discarded these beliefs or never shared them in the first place.

Michael Corleone discarded many of the rules that had governed his father's life when a changed reality turned them into liabilities rather than assets. The question for the next decade is whether we are willing to be similarly cold and ruthless about the realities of our world.

-btc