10 years ago, Robert Kagan wrote an essay making the now-infamous "Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus" analogy. In a review symposium, Kagan reflects on the piece's influence – and weaknesses:
Ten years ago, when I wrote the original essay, it would not have occurred to me that anyone would be commenting on it a year later, let alone a decade later…I only wrote the essay because [Tod Lindberg of the Hoover Institution] had invited me to speak at a conference, and I had to deliver something. No doubt the other contributors will recognize the experience. Therefore from the beginning I have been acutely aware of the essay’s limitations — and have had the good fortune to have all those limitations pointed out to me frequently, in many languages, with greater or lesser kindness over the years, and now again at the scene of the crime a decade later.
Dan Drezner issues a warning:
I remember talking with Kagan when the original essay came out and blew up, and I can aver that he was just as surprised as anyone else about its impact. Let this be a lesson for policy wonks everywhere. Sure, most of the time when you write something it disappears into the ether, to be forgotten almost immediately. But on occasion, serendiptity or fortuna strikes, and you've suddenly got a major essay on your hands. Always write with that in mind — because if your essay does blow up, you better be ready, willing and able to defend every paragraph of it.
The Dish 