Quote:
|
Originally Posted by sperry
History will go to show that our current government handled the challenges of 9-11 in a way that marked the irreversible decline of America as a superpower.
|
Irreversible? That's a strong sentiment. If you look at American history is much more of a rollercoaster of power than you would think. One of the large reasons we have been a superpower so long is that we were physically isolated from the world. There is no legitimate threat of war from Mexico or Canada. Whereas most other countries share their borders with other nations that are more than happy to push a little. The Soviet Union was constantly in border skirmishes and had a ton of troops permanetly stationed on the Chinese border. The man power and the money to do that is enormous. I think one of the problems the US is running into is that in a Globalized world our physical isolation no longer means all that much. An isolationist policy would destroy our economy and not make us any safer. I guess my point is that while I agree America is on the decline as a superpower, I don't think it's necessarily because of 9/11.
I honestly feel like a lot of our currents problems are a large result of globalization as much as anything. The US economy is largely moving away from it's traditional blue collar jobs and you can believe that pisses people off. When a family has worked at a factory or a mine for generations and it closes down, what do they do? I don't agree with Iraq at all but frankly we have had plenty of botched wars in our history that have cost us a lot more and we recovered just fine. The real threat to the US IMO is failing to adapt to the new face of the world both socially and economically. While American people are worried that gay marriage is destroying the "institution of marriage" or that evolution is blasphemy, China is graduating something like twice the number of PhDs we are and dumping billions into modernizing their economy. That's a much larger threat to us than any war IMO.