I am not opposed to defensive wars.
Like libertarians, I support a strong defense.
I know this. BUT,.....
I do not however support wars for hegemony, such as Vietnam and Iraq, and what the war in Afghanistan has become.
...this is where your idea of morality and support contradict. You are hung up on the word "hegemony" and are applying it wrongly. Nobody is preaching about a march across planet earth conquering everyone, planting flags, and declaring ourselves king of the hill. This has never happened. And since we have been the lone superpower (hegemony) since the Berlin Wall came down, can you really use the idea of "hegemony" and apply it to a quest in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan?
I assume you support our activity across Europe during World War II, despite Germany not attacking us. Like most, you wrap Germany up in the same package as Japan, despite America's leaders and citizens at the time being quite clear on their differences. Taking down Germany and Italy (as well as the Japanese) removed three more empires that blocked our path to this superpower hegemony status. It has never been about domination as much as it has been about security. I hate that you don't step back and realize this. I mean it literally bothers the crap out of me. This is the world without American hegemony.......
- Fighting under the British Empire's flag in 1759, colonists proved how easily a European Empire could fall at Quebec on the Plains of Abraham when the French were defeated.
- The greatest empire at the birth of America was the British Empire. Our Revolution didn't just rebel against distant masters. It championed the political and economic rights of man. It made a global statement to European colonies everywhere. First we drove them out with our Revolution and then we relegated them to the Canadian territories in the War of 1812.
- Flanking both sides of the War of 1812, was the Barbary Pirates Wars. At the advent of the 19th century, we secured our trades through the Mediterranean Sea with the Barbary Pirates War. Unable to pay the ransoms that Europeans had made habit of paying, Americans boarded ships and went to war along Northern Africa to fight against Muslims in the Ottomon Empire's North African regencies.
- The Mexican–American War, also known as the First American Intervention, saw that empire cut in half in order to secure a southern border.
- Our Civil War came next and this was an internal purge where we cleansed from our soil the last European notion of hereditary authority and human subjugation.
- Then we had to deal with the Spanish in the Spanish-American War in 1898. After addressing the harsh treatment of Cubans by the Spanish, we spanned the globe and dismantled the rest of Spain's brutal colonies. This time we not only defeated a European Empire, we destroyed it. Spain is still recovering from this.
- The First World War weakened the rest of Europe's Empires. Though we were late to recognize that an unstable Europe was important to our economic security, we launched across the Atlantic and stopped near Belleau Wood. This single battle did not win the war for the Allies, but it did prevent the Allies from losing. We were alligned against three more Empires: Germany's Second Reich, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomon Empire. Our presence guaranteed their destruction.
- Then came the biggie. In the Second World War we saved the world from absolute evil tyrannies. We destroyed the Japanese Empire and decided the outcome in Europe. Yes, Russia lost the most in the East, but it was America's oil and treasure that had been funding the Allies from the beginning and our Normandy invasion that divided and guaranteed the destruction of Germany's Third Reich. We can also add the Fascist Italian Empire to the tally. The British Empire and the French Empire simply collapsed from the continental devistation.
*** NOW, up to this point we see a clear path. How can you not? America's mission to secure economy, trades, and defense has manifested into a path of hegemony that wrecked conquering and dominating empires along the way.....
- Only the Soviet Union stood as an Empire in the world after World War II. With Turkey and Iran asking for America to make the Soviet Union leave their lands, and the Soviet Union gaining influence over most of the world by the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Empire kicked off the Cold War. This is where Korea comes into play. This is where Vietnam came into play. This is where the Cuban Missile Crisis came into play. Instead of invading Moscow, we fought in distant lands to block or prevent Soviet/Chinese communism from growing. We played the dictator game with the Soviets to prevent that powerful military building oil from flowing so freely to the "Evil Empire." We shoved our values aside in the shadow of nuclear holocaust to dal with this last empire that stood to threaten our securty. With the destruction of the Soviet Empire, we answered the question of the imperial idea and human subjugation. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, we achieved hegemony.
We destroyed or helped destroy 11 empires in the last 250 years and paved the world's bumpy roads along the way. List them:
01) France
02) Britain
03) Mexico
04) Spain
05) German Second Reich
06) Austria-Hungary
07) Ottoman Empire
08) Italy
09) Germany Third Reich
10) Japan
11) Soviet Union
This was the world without American hegemony and the world knows it. We won and the world is better for it. Despite the theme of institutional anti-Americanism within these former empires rising and dropping from one event to the next, the world knows the alternative. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, those who believed that man should govern himself from below had defeated those who believed that man should be governed from above. Man's entire previous history of governance had finally come to a victorious truth. And that truth is that with over 120 democracies being created since 1900, colonials in early America had finally put the old world behind. Despite the struggle of those who believed so earnestly in the great "isms" (Fascism, Socialism, Communism), the future belongs to citizens in Demcracies, hence even Arab Muslims now "springing" on the band wagon. None of this history would have happened if America didn't venture out to secure its own interests and make social and economic statements along the way. But attaching our "hegemony" to a conquering mindset is wrong. It defies the history. And since we achieved hegemony before Afghanistan and Iraq, doesn't it stand to reason that these two events fit in with everything else in our history? We deal with nations in order to stabilize regions because, historically, our security has always relied on the health of foriegn regions. With plenty of oil coming out of almost all regions, why do you think so much focus is given to the world's last remaining unhealthy region?
Where we have screwed up is that while destroying the old world, we lacked and still lack vision for a new order. The old order belongs to kings, kaisers, tzars, and military dictators. The new order belongs to populations, many of which are stranded in misery and violent tribal upheaval behind unnatural borders that those former empires drew. Due to our status as the victor of the "Age of ideology" we are
condemned to lead[Ralph Peters]. But our tool box contains outdated global organizations that seek to preserve the ancient laws of the old world and former empires still seeking a way to sooth bruised egos. Of course, this is a whole seperate gripe I have that you and I probably differ on as well so I will end this here.
Oh, and by the way, I am not branding America as perfect. The first thing critics like to do is jump to point out the slaughter of Native Americans and then slavery in order to dismiss our greater history and global role. These issues are acknowledged and they do prove our imperfection (Given the imperfections of the former empires, our imperfections could be far worse). But even these issues resulted in positive global spanning statements.