Hard Power vs. Soft Power

Another excellent column from the great mind of Charles Krauthammer, discussing what is actually needed to overcome dangerous foreign adversaries. Hint: not soft rhetoric and listening to the "international community". Also a good reminder of the tenuous situation in South America, where Hugo Chavez is doing his best to establish an anti-American coalition to thwart democracy and freedom. What is needed is an organization like NATO to take the lead on these issues, and establish a firm and sizable military force that can act in situations like Burma, Darfur, and Zimbabwe. And it will only take a few such encounters before the other thugs running unfortunate countries into the ground get the message and start encouraging basic respect for human rights. Witness Libya's sudden capitulation on the WMD issue after our invasion of Iraq in 2003 as proof of the effects of force. Unfortunately America cannot do it alone. Europe MUST get involved. Just because they finally figured out how to to stop killing themselves en masse doesn't mean they have no obligation to get involved saving the other victims of out of control regimes.