Känslor och intressen

Gideon Rachman (Financial Times) har några visa ord väl värda att betänkas inte minst i svensk debatt om våra relationer till omvärlden:

The implication of all this is that solving international conflicts may involve thinking as much about emotions as about interests.

Sometimes the concession required to address a sense of national or cultural humiliation may be impossible. Nobody is going to concede a caliphate to tend to the wounded feelings of Isis.

But sometimes the gestures required to restore a sense of national pride may be relatively minor. Greece does not seem to have extracted significant concessions from its creditors. Nonetheless, a display of national defiance, combined with some linguistic and technical changes, appears to have mollified the Greeks for now. As the west contemplates a dangerous conflict with Russia and the ambitions of China, it might remember that symbols can sometimes matter almost as much as substance.