Herman Melville believed that danger often begins with conviction rather than cruelty. Captain Ahab is not only a tyrant, but also a visionary who believes the world should follow his plan. To him, Moby Dick is not just an animal, but a theory, a symbol powerful enough to justify risking his ship, his life, and his future. Ahab’s confidence in himself makes him insecure. He treats his ideas as destiny and expects reality to match.
Graham Greene considers a similar problem: quiet americanthrough a character who is almost the exact opposite of Ahab. Alden Pyle’s so-called “innocence”, characterized by academic idealism and impatience, turns out to be more dangerous than malice. Pyle meant well, but he misunderstood greatly. His efforts to change Vietnam through a “third force” demonstrate how good intentions can mask ignorance and how moral purity can lead to disastrous policies.
This is not a call for isolation, but a warning against treating other countries as blank slates for outside projects. The problem is not the involvement itself, but reckless confidence and a shallow understanding of the consequences. Political leaders who alternate between boy scouts and bullies often resemble volatile mixtures of Ahab and Pyle. There is no need to lament that Donald Trump has accepted the consensus of foreign policy experts. That ambition is not going to work out.
Recent American interventions began with promises of justice but ended in chaos. Like the builders of Babel, those who planned regime change believed their blueprint could not fail, but as it turned out, the world did not easily conform to human wishes. Without a “next day” plan, a change of government is unlikely to lead to progress. Libya has collapsed. Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan. Real change is not just a military mission, but a political undertaking that requires legitimacy, social support, and a willingness to bear high costs.
This concentration of factors is rare. As it turns out, Aesop’s lessons still apply. The tortoise wins over the hare. Steady persistence wins out over haste in trying to create a new reality.
There’s a big difference between responding to change and trying to create change. Cold War containment worked by shaping the political environment and allowing change to unfold over time. In contrast, forced migration from the Bay of Pigs to Libya often relied on scant information and unrealistic hopes. Today’s debates about Venezuela, Gaza, and Iran demonstrate the common mistake of hoping for the benefits of change without paying the costs. Greenland remains an extreme example of this idea. You can’t just buy the North Pole like a run-down condo in Queens.
When pretend is policy and fantasy becomes reality, regime change can alienate allies while pleasing rivals like Russia and China and providing convenient pretexts for their own ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. The U.S. military intervention in 1989 to oust Panama’s Manuel Noriega, a longtime intelligence operative turned “drug trafficker,” was a rare success, but it remained controversial and required years of planning and on-the-ground coordination. These important elements are missing from recent interventions.
It’s like America’s first president calling us to our senses. George Washington warned us to beware of the illusion of sacrificing national happiness for dreams. Such obsessions lead to “project opinions” rather than the concrete reality of our situation, and ultimately keep us captive to our own fantasies.
As Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches, Dr. King’s words stand out once again. King warned against the “arrogance” of the Western world, which thinks that “we have everything to teach others but nothing to learn from them.” For Dr. King, going to war was often a symptom of spiritual blindness, the same blindness that mistakes grand plans for moral destiny.
Ahab’s question, “Have you ever seen a white whale?” is not a request for information, but an invitation to participate in an obsession. Modern politics is often similar, encouraging us to chase our enemies and “solutions” as if it were our destiny. The real challenge is recognizing when the question itself is a disaster.
notes and reading
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Herman Melville Moby Dick. Or a whale (1851). Melville’s portrayal of Captain Ahab serves as a definitive study of monomania, the relentless pursuit of a single object to the exclusion of all practical realities and human costs.
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graham green quiet american (1955). Greene’s novel features Alden Pyle, an American agent whose “blind” idealism and academic theories about a “third force” in Vietnam lead to an unintended massacre.
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Aesop’s “The Hare and the Tortoise.” This classic Greek fable serves as a basic metaphor for the superiority of slow and steady over impulsive and arrogant speed.
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the 1989 invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause); Historians often cite Manuel Noriega’s dismissal as a logistical exception. Unlike recent “regime changes,” it targeted specific individuals with clear, locally tailored objectives and a short-term military presence.
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George Washington “farewell address(1796) Washington warned that “ardent attachment” to foreign causes would lead the republic away from its own lasting interests and security.
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Martin Luther King Jr.Beyond Vietnam: Time to break the silenceKing’s speech at Riverside Church criticized the “arrogance” of American power and warned of “spiritual death” caused by a foreign policy that prioritizes military power over the humility to understand regional realities.
Hell of good intentions—Stephen M. Walt (2018). As the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, Walt serves as one of the most prestigious professors in his field.
Regime change: What history teaches us about when and how to promote regime change.Richard Haas foreign affairs (January 13, 2026). Haas presided over the Council on Foreign Relations for 20 years (2003-2023) after serving as the Director of Policy Planning at the State Department under President Colin Powell.
A world without rules: The consequences of President Trump’s attack on international lawOona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, foreign affairs (January 13, 2026). – Hathaway is a professor of law at Yale Law School and president-elect of the American Society of International Law. Shapiro is a professor of law at Yale Law School and a professor of philosophy at Yale University.
Making a difference: Martin Luther King Day, January 19th
extreme caution
Approximately 2+2=5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
