[Rictor]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDM1ZmQ0YzI0NGM0YzIxN2YyNGVmN2RlNmE4OGFkNDU=

Oh if only it were so. Victor Davis Hanson (basically a neocon with a thin veneer of scholarly respectability) laments the tragic consequences of the US losing in Iraq:

But, in fact, I fear it could be worse than that the perception of impotence that galvanizes enemies. If we lost in Iraq and fled, it would not be the perception at all, but the reality of power that would be gone, in the sense the United States would never in our lifetime intervene successfully again on the ground abroad-convinced it would inevitably lose.

If only that were true. But I fear that this particular bull has a pathalogical need to charge at stuff, regardless of its chances of success or the justness of the cause, and will continue doing so for quite some time longer.

But the next step would be the complete loss of public confidence, in the fashion of the French, that we even could win a war if we had to. And then watch out. Great powers, like the largest animals, have a small central nervous system that directs their enormous limbs and sinews. And when it goes—call it public confidence in one's civilization—then armies tremor, enervate, and, Europe-like, wither away.

Somehow, Western civilization is equated with the divine right to police the world and impose one's will on poor brown-skinned people overseas - if that collapses, our entire civilization wouild lie in ruins. And the great America would wither away into a sorry state, just like poor, starving, wartorn Europe. Oh wait.

[Ashrak]

maybe america could buy a brain?


shure theyr military tech is uber, but half if not more of theyr population still uses 56k dial up ffs


the LOWEST connection speed you can imagine using here is what? 2 MB?! at the cost of a sandwich per month



12 MB and the needs of the people come first !

[aldo_14]

Hah! Where would be a neo-con article without a needless dig at France?  Racist ****wit.

[Colonol Dekker]

Dont use the words American + Empire together, it offends my sense of history 

[Janos]

Short is the memory of people. American interests or their power does not simply vanish overnight. It didn't take many years after Vietnam until programming was back as usual.

[Goober5000]

Pbhh.  Iraq got flattened in less than a month... it's only when we tried to change a several-thousand-year culture overnight that we ran into problems.  America is great at killing people and blowing stuff up; nation-building is what we (and probably everybody) stink at.

[Ace]

Didn't do a half-bad job with Japan and Germany.

Maybe it's when you let greedy short-sighted idiots run empires is when there's a problem?

[Mefustae]

Maybe it's when you let greedy short-sighted idiots run empires is when there's a problem?

What could possibly be wrong with doing that?!

[Kosh]

Pbhh.  Iraq got flattened in less than a month... it's only when we tried to change a several-thousand-year culture overnight that we ran into problems.  America is great at killing people and blowing stuff up; nation-building is what we (and probably everybody) stink at.

So Japan and Germany are not really old? The bottom line is that while America can defeat a third world country's hopelessly obsolete army, it couldn't rebuild a country that was more or less intact just after the invasion because of an incompetant government.

[vyper]

Dont use the words American + Empire together, it offends my sense of history 

It offends them too, that's half the flipping problem. They have an empire they refuse to accept exists, and therefore refuse to take responsibility for.

[achtung]

Dont use the words American + Empire together, it offends my sense of history 

It offends them too, that's half the flipping problem. They have an empire they refuse to accept exists, and therefore refuse to take responsibility for.

Deniability FTW

[Colonol Dekker]

I deny that statement.....





non-starter.

[Goober5000]

Didn't do a half-bad job with Japan and Germany.

So Japan and Germany are not really old?

Points taken.

I read somewhere that there are only two ways to maintain an empire.  One is the Roman way, which is to crush them militarily and enslave a large part of their populace.  The other is the British way, which is to play off the different factions against one another.  The U.S. is doing neither.

[Iron Wolf]

I read somewhere that there are only two ways to maintain an empire.  One is the Roman way, which is to crush them militarily and enslave a large part of their populace.

if the US did that, what would be the point of liberating them in the first place?

[vyper]

What's the point of "liberating" them anyway? It's not like they want us there any more than the other guy.

[Nuke]

it seems to be from my interpretation of history that empires fall shortly after a push for expansion. rome, japan, germany, britain, all held big empires for a time, only to have them collapse. most of the time a sensable state is formed as the nation turnis its attention inwards to its own problems (the exception being rome, which became a religious empire instead). i see it as an essential part of a country's maturation. while all the countries i mention have grown up to a degree, the us is still an angsty adolescent, waiting to be whipped into adulthood. the power vaccume will allow another country to take its palace as world power (china is looking to take that spot). hopefully one buy one nations will go through this process and in the end create a world thats fairly stable. assuming somone doesnt decide to launch a bunch of nukes in the process.

[vyper]

Rome fell to the Visigoths and it's own corruption, the British Empire fell to the dual enemies of a world war and US determination to dismantle it.

Japan and Germany were rather small blips in comparison to The Roman Empire, British Empire or the modern US "Empire".

Edit: But a more stable world is also a slower one. Advances in both the development of technology and society as a whole are driven by empires, not individual nations, and thus when you remove the empire you remove the driving force behind the whirlwind like developments of the 19th and 20th centuries.

[brozozo]

So, what exactly makes up this American Empire? I hear the term thrown around a lot,  but I don't think there is much basis to it.                                                                                                                                                                     

[Rictor]

Lots of power outside of its national borders. That's my defintion of empire anyway, or you can use "bully" if that's more to your liking, or "hyperpower" or "hegemon" or any of a thousand names.

Fact is, the US has power over sovereign nations which it should not have, which have no basis in international law and which no one has over the US. There are exceptions and double-standards as to what is acceptable because of the US' position as a dominant power. It dominates culturally, economically, politically, militarilly and so on.

[Kosh]

Japan and Germany were rather small blips in comparison to The Roman Empire, British Empire or the modern US "Empire".

Germany didn't have big of an empire, but it still had the best army in the world and was considered to be the most advanced civilization in the early 20th century.