On one level, it’s easy to forgive those who fall victim to unintended consequences when their actions were clearly meant to promote the greater good.
On another level, leaders - whether operating in the public or private sector - are expected to demonstrate some degree of foresight when making important decisions so that the consequences of those decisions don’t end up being so detrimental as to negate entirely any perceived benefits.
A good example of this in the corporate world is Wal-Mart, where a presumably well-meaning attempt to raise the wages of the retailer’s lowest paid employees turned into a veritable disaster that led directly to a series of attempts to squeeze more “value” out of the supply chain and culminated in this week’s utter corporate carnage (see here).
In the world of geopolitics, the quintessential example may well be the Iran nuclear deal.
Just as “higher wages for everyone” sounds good on paper, “deterring nuclear proliferation” sounds great from a “save humanity” perspective.
However, the fact that Iran has a right to develop technology that will deter its enemies (some of whom are nuclear powers), and the fact that frankly, it makes little sense for the US to take on the role of global nuke police officer given that history shows America indeed cannot be trusted not to nuke people, means that any deal Washington strikes regarding nuclear proliferation is likely to engender a series of unintended consequences thanks to rampant counterparty mistrust.
Case in point: before the ink was even dry on the Iran deal, Tehran i) stepped up its on-the-ground involvement in Syria, ii) flouted international inspectors by taking its own samples at Parchin, and best of all iii) test fired a new type of advanced ballistic missile on the way to proclaiming that the country will not be asking "anyone’s permission to enhance defense power or missile capability and will firmly pursue defense plans, particularly in the field of missiles."
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