Political Tribes

Human nature is such that we need to feel a sense of belonging in a group, and that will frequently influence our behavior.  One of the great dangers to foreign policy is that one’s opinion about something can be influenced by which “team” one chooses to root for rather than consider the truth. For example, American soldiers who fought against Communism in Vietnam did not understand the hatred they evoked from the Vietnamese people because they did not see the conflict in Vietnamese terms. They saw it as a struggle between Democracy (as America saw itself) and Communism/authoritarianism.