A recent column in U.S. News and World Report talked about President Clinton's soggy foreign policy that should be more crunchy. Until I read the article, I thought words like crunchy and soggy apply to cereals, not to foreign policy. But a classic 1988 editorial in the Economist apparently changed all that. Crunchy systems are those in which small changes have big effects leaving those affected by them in no doubt whether they are up or down, rich or broke, winning or losing, dead or alive. Sogginess is comfortable uncertainty.
Bombing is crunchy, while agreements for weapons inspections are soggy.
President Clinton prefers soggy response to crunchy responses. To End a War , that President Clinton was persuaded to order bombing of Serbian-held Bosnia only when informed that the U.S. was committed to a NATO plan to send ground troops to help British and French troops leave Bosnia. Only when confronted with a hazardous task of covering a retreat did the president agree to bombing. A similar situation developed last month when President Clinton choose to bomb Iraq. Richard Butler's report along with Iraqi actions and the approach of the Muslin holy month of Ramadan forced President Clinton's hand.