"The question is not really about a shift to the economic cone where officers are writing about the balance of payments and the need for economic stabilization"
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He’s swatting away a fashionable misread: that foreign policy is “pivoting” into spreadsheets, with generals turned into amateur economists fretting over balance-of-payments tables. Eagleburger’s phrasing is doing quiet but deliberate damage. “Not really” is classic diplomatic undercutting - a soft landing for a hard correction. And “economic cone” is a bureaucrat’s metaphor that slightly mocks the idea of a neat, technocratic funnel where messy strategic problems become tidy economic ones.
The intent is defensive and clarifying. Eagleburger is insisting that talk of economics inside the national security apparatus doesn’t mean the mission has been redefined. In the late Cold War and immediate post-Cold War years, Washington was wrestling with how power was changing: oil shocks, debt crises, Japan’s rise, IMF stabilization programs, and the growing belief that markets and macroeconomic discipline were as consequential as missiles. Critics could hear “economics” and assume a wholesale doctrinal shift - the military and diplomatic corps repurposed as development consultants.
His subtext: don’t confuse tools with identity. Yes, economic stabilization matters; no, it replaces neither geopolitical judgment nor coercive capacity. He’s also protecting institutional turf. If officers are “writing about the balance of payments,” the implication is mission creep, even absurdity - uniforms in the weeds of monetary flows. Eagleburger’s line reassures insiders that strategic priorities remain strategic, while signaling to outsiders that economic language is now unavoidable in statecraft, not because policy has become bloodless, but because the battlefield increasingly includes currency, credit, and credibility.
The intent is defensive and clarifying. Eagleburger is insisting that talk of economics inside the national security apparatus doesn’t mean the mission has been redefined. In the late Cold War and immediate post-Cold War years, Washington was wrestling with how power was changing: oil shocks, debt crises, Japan’s rise, IMF stabilization programs, and the growing belief that markets and macroeconomic discipline were as consequential as missiles. Critics could hear “economics” and assume a wholesale doctrinal shift - the military and diplomatic corps repurposed as development consultants.
His subtext: don’t confuse tools with identity. Yes, economic stabilization matters; no, it replaces neither geopolitical judgment nor coercive capacity. He’s also protecting institutional turf. If officers are “writing about the balance of payments,” the implication is mission creep, even absurdity - uniforms in the weeds of monetary flows. Eagleburger’s line reassures insiders that strategic priorities remain strategic, while signaling to outsiders that economic language is now unavoidable in statecraft, not because policy has become bloodless, but because the battlefield increasingly includes currency, credit, and credibility.
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| Topic | Money |
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