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The Mealy-Mouthed West
Among the numerous challenges the West faces, one is consistently overlooked: its addiction to meaningless rhetoric. When a country's strategic statements require endless interpretation and explanation, their impact on adversaries, allies, citizens, and government agencies is weakened dramatically.
MADRID – Among the numerous challenges the West faces, one is consistently overlooked: its addiction to meaningless rhetoric. From US President Barack Obama’s oxymoronic first-term mantra “leading from behind” to the recent German variant “leading from the center,” empty phrases have become the currency of Western governments’ foreign policies.