Why It Won’t Work

Back in the late 90’s while most of us were watching the bimboes of the Barbizon School Of Former Prosecutors dissect the legal strategy behind Ken Starr subpoenaing Monica’s pedicurist, others were noticing that a foreign policy debate was taking place and they wrote about it:

Pax Americana: The Impossible Dream

To sum up, then: foreign fears of a hegemonic America imposing its will on others are misplaced. The U.S may have the raw military power to attempt such a role and some influential Americans call for it but the country has not developed the necessary will, temperament or strategy to succeed as a hegemon. It spends a great deal on international affairs, but does not allocate its resources wisely. It is overcommitted in the military field and undercommitted in the diplomatic field. It proclaims strategic doctrines that are designed more to win the next election than to secure international support. Its leadership groups enjoy the aura of world leadership, but they are unwilling to make any sacrifices themselves in pursuit of leadership. Any quest to establish a Pax Americana that involves sacrifice will therefore lack legitimacy. It will be deprived of the political and moral underpinning that makes a sustained effort at global hegemony possible.

The danger in fact lies elsewhere. The world is unlikely to see a Pax Americana but, depending on political fortunes, it might see an effort to attempt one. The effort would fail — but with it would also die the commitment to internationalism that is a prerequisite for American leadership. And no one should be in doubt that the loss of that leadership would be extremely harmful.

They didn’t even try to use 9/11 to call for sacrifice, they completely ruined our diplomatic relations with the world and they have allocated our resources so ineffectively that we are going to have the equivalent of the Argentine economy in a matter of a few years. In pursuit of their absurd fantasy, they have exacerbated every single weakness the U.S. had and yet they persist in allowing those like the Jesse Helms acolyte, John Bolton and the delusional Richard Perle speak for this country and take us to the point of no return.

The failed attempt at Empire is going to cost us far more than doing absolutely nothing would have done.