Reflection 5

This week’s discussion was primarily geared towards a real-life scenario, which I appreciate. I thought it was interesting that we came to a conclusion that it would be most important what “subtle” messages we would be sending by the smallest of moves. Would sending a few...expendable representative (i.e. Hilary Clinton) portray a defensive message? I thought that the best course of action would be to rely on a defensive plan of attack. That is, wait entirely for them to make any sort of first move and if and when they do, plan accordingly to their strike or peace offering.

I think that when nations become too wrapped up in planning pre-emptive strikes and form elaborate plans for how interactions with nations should go, the entire process of peace offerings is lost in the bureaucratic sense of over-analyzing. This can be tied to the international community relating to the European Union trip we took on Wednesday. Because every country within the European Union finds an utmost priority to preserve individual culture, the fact that there is no collective European identity works in their favor in regards to the rest of the world. The intimidation and the carefully planned international interworking would create a tense atmosphere that would most definitely override the original intentions of the EU if the rest of the world felt as though they were facing Europe as a whole, instead of Europe as it is intended to be- nations coming together with common interests and needs.