How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

So why did the Pentagon choose to alienate major allies just now? Why didn't the Administration use a stiletto rather than a bludgeon, quietly handing out prime contracts to its friends without yelling about it? As always, you can explain things as a conspiracy or a screwup. In the first view, the memo is the latest proof that the Pentagon is running its own foreign policy and simply doesn't care whether it ticks off people in foreign capitals — in fact, rather enjoys doing so. Maybe I've got a case of seasonal goodwill, but I doubt that things are so crass. Of late, senior Defense Department officials have been acting almost house-trained when traveling overseas: witness Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's mild reaction last month to the European Union's latest plans to set up its own defense organization alongside NATO.

The other view, though, is more worrying: that the Bush Administration has such limited central control over policy that officials can say what they like, when they like, without anyone attempting to coordinate a coherent message. That would not matter if Washington were the capital of a tin-pot nation of little consequence; it does when it's the capital of the world's only superpower, on whose actions countless millions depend. It's not brains you need to figure that out but a small dose of common sense. Not much of that in evidence last week.