26.18 Stop playing ‘goodies and baddies’

A mistake that we make time and time again in foreign policy is to oversimplify things into goodies and baddies. The game of goodies and baddies makes it easy to explain policies to the public and justify decisions. Unfortunately, there are few situations that are so simple, so it encourages foolish strategic errors and precipitous actions that we later regret.

New Magna Carta Medium