Mountain West Microbrew: Chit chat and irrelevancy

[s.p.hansen]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

More like 1815 to 1875 (so about 60 years) that could be considered a clear-cut unipolar world. But the key point is that the destabilization that occurs due to the shift results in an increase in global conflict with the kind of large-scale wars that go down in the history books (Thirty Years,Seven Years War, Napoleonic Wars, WW1, WW2, etc.) We've had over a half-century of relative peace and the tragedy would be another large-scale war (Russia/US, US/China, Pakistan/India, Isreal/Saudi Arabia, Iran/Saudi Arabia, Germany vs the World, etc) where the casualty counts would hit the tens of millions.

I don't think that will happen. States need to be self sufficient just like American families. If they can't do it alone they need to form coalitions. America can't be the glue. We're not good at it. We don't know how to develop countries anymore and we don't know how to wield our power with sobriety.

I know that most Americans are insulated don't understand what warfare actually means beyond the sanitized version that's delivered via the media or what the — to while on LiveLeak, but I kind of prefer the world that's maintained via the current hegemony versus the one where we have Victory Bond drives, rationing, conscription, etc. Should it cost as much defense-wise as what we're currently spending? No. But that's more a domestic issue than one of foreign policy.

I don't fully understand what this means but I agree that it's nice not to be in dire times.