In class on Monday we learned about the “sacrifice trap” which is when a politician or leader chooses a course of action in foreign policy but then if it turns out its failing, the leader fails to accept it and pushes on with the plan because he or she believes it is too late to stop what he is doing, that they’ve already made such a sacrifice where they wont stop till they feel the cause is justified, that their sacrifice was worth it. I see a lot of examples of this in recent news. One example is with Hillary Clinton, how she persisted on until the bitter end, how she kept in the race despite the fact that she had pretty much lost. Some may say its just determination but it also can be seen as exemplifying the sacrifice trap. Other more famous examples of this are Vietnam and as many might agree, Iraq. No one likes to admit their wrong or that they have been defeated, somehow the future of foreign policy actors have to reverse this trend or the ramifications could be extreme.
One promising event that just happened is the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas for the Gaza Strip which is scheduled to begin Thursday morning. This article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/world/middleeast/18mideast.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin explains more about it. As we discussed in class, NGO’s can be very effective in putting a halt to, or even preventing ethnic clashes such as this, and when these types of clashes do occur between different international actors and civilian lives are being compromised, NGO’s are even more effective in getting aid provided by other countries to the right people in the conflict-ridden area. I’m personally a fond supporter of NGOs as long as they stick to their objectives and don’t become irrational, Amnesty International I believe is a great example of an effective NGO.
