True,US is not an Imperial builder, nor does it wage war for territory.Where is the nececessity for wars when you can overrun Natives with your military?Why should you wage a war when you can control countries by Dollars?
US does not wage war-it just entered Vietnam, to help people out.
It helped Kuwait by moving in Iraq .It is helping Afganistan right now.
It is trying to help Pakistan as well.
Yes, it does not wage a war directly unless attacked directly as in Pearl Harbour.It just acts as a catalyst when local conditions are conducive to US’s economic benefit,by aiding both parties against each other, some times helping one,sometimes another and many a times both at the same time.
Story:
PARIS — He’s in there somewhere, under the gilded dome of Les Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. The Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, is entombed by six coffins in what has to be the most spectacular sarcophagus in all the City of Light.
I stared at this extravagance of marble and mortality not long ago, thought about Napoleon’s campaigns in Russia, Italy and Prussia, the wars that briefly remade Europe, and realized that I owed a considerable part of my heritage as a citizen of the American West to the Little Corporal in the coffin.
Distracted as he was in trying to build an empire, Napoleon looked across the Atlantic and decided he had little use for the mid-section of a distant continent. Needing cash for conquest, he then sold the French holdings for a pittance to the fledgling United States.
Putting aside the fact that these lands had Native Americans living on them, with deep attachments and rights of sovereignty of their own, the United States got one of the greatest real estate deals of all time from the French.
For barely 5 cents an acre, the U.S. picked up more than 800,000 square miles in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. With the stroke of a pen at Thomas Jefferson’s behest, and without the loss of a single life, America doubled in size.
We were wary, following the advice of Jefferson and others, of ceaseless and senseless overseas wars. Wars for territory. Wars for defense. Wars for revenge. Wars because one religion was better than another. This was not our way. We didn’t meddle. We fought “good wars,” against imperial occupiers like Great Britain and, much later, the Nazis.
And we were slow to rouse, intervening only when called to the rescue. That was — perhaps still is — our narrative as a people.
From that peaceful triumph with France, you pivot to the present day, and wonder how we will fit what are likely to be our two longest wars into this story. The United States has been in Afghanistan coming up on a decade. Iraq is not far behind.
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/napoleons-dynamite/?8ty&emc=ty
Agreed.Even Germany had to use Jews for war efforts especially in Peenamunde for development of rockets.It was those who,in the opinion of Nazis, were of no use to Deutscheland and were hounded out to Auschwitz,Bergen Bergen, Treblinka.
You are right in that fulcrum is turning to Asia especially.
But on any day US is preferable to China as a world player
India must talk to China from a position of strength.
Keep offering your views as they are stimulating and well thought out.
Regard,
Neither the Roman empire, nor Hitler’s Germany was built by using the brain-pool of the world. In none of these cases, the foreign brains were given so much respect and recognition, Einstein had to escape from Germany to save life. Soviet Russia’s scientific and technical prowess of the 20th century was due largely to a sizable population of Zews, that have since migrated to Israel.
That is why I said, there will not be another like the US.
And you are absolutely right, as I have mentioned, as long as there is no counter, the logical continuation of corruption of absolute power will go on.
However the wheel is turning and the centre of gravity is shifting towards Asia-Pacific.
A lot in future will depend on China’s medium to long term policies towards India, and by extension towards Pakistan.
I hope to see India as the king-maker of the 21st century.
Regards,
The US is like a dinosaur, its economy larger than the next four economies combined. A mammoth economy can only be sustained with a proportional leadership in knowledge, Technology and innovation.
The US is the meeting place of the top brains from all over the world, India being the largest contributor. The kind of environment, encouragement and financial support that these brains receive in the US, in addition to the respect in society, make them the most prolific innovators the world has ever seen.
Now, such dis-proportionate share of knowledge and wealth naturally translates into total military domination. No other nation on earth is anywhere near the kind of force-projection capability that the US have. No other nation has even a fraction of the capability to sustain two wars simultaneously for years without any end in sight. The Soviets colapsed in six years, so will China or any other nation.
As long as there is no match for the US, either individually or collectively, there is no use discussing the wrong doings of the US State Dept.(CIA) and the Pentagon. The best policy would be to benefit from it.
The world will not see anything like the US ever again …….. !
May be.Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.What about Roman Empire? US owes more to immigrants.US,An economy run on plastic money and no proportionate reserves. They have been sustaining war,yes, have they won?, be it Vietnem,Iraq,Afganistan.Wars by US are for the benefit of armamaments industries in US . Yes,they are like a Dinosaur,possibly a parasitic Dinosaur. Moral Wrongs are to be questioned and failure to do so will be a grave mistake,the same mistake committed by Germany when Hitler was in ascendency.