Experts can badly misjudge a region’s strategic importance to global powers

Evidence

Our region is not a center of great political power nor does it have the potential to become one.… The Middle East (less so North Africa) has been receding in immediate political importance to the U.S. (and even in “headline” or “nuisance” value) relative to Africa, Latin America and the Far East. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 733

Categorization

• QUESTION: Berger’s 1950s-era claim that the Middle East lacked political power — worth verifying against the actual report he wrote.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 733
• XREF: connects to: Local experts contradict each other when each has interests at stake. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 183; Weak local forces can succeed when international conditions favor them; Misunderstanding the state as dictatorship plus hegemony causes strategic errors — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 906 (+4 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Local experts contradict each other when each has interests at stake. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 183; Weak local forces can succeed when international conditions favor them; Misunderstanding the state as dictatorship plus hegemony causes strategic errors — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 906 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Deferring to authoritative sources makes one vulnerable to their weaponization #complicates (0.74) — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age, 449