Even with the founding of America, it was starting to become obvious that the world military hegemony of Britain was too expensive and destined to fall apart. Empires came and empires went, as was clear from a reading of history. So what to do?
Instead of trying to rule everybody, create a form of government, republican-democracy, where there is far less inclination to hostility and aggression between nations. The democratic revolution.
Many US presidents have been firm believers in this idea, that the only nations the US can ever fully trust are democracies, and that kings and tyrants are inherently our enemies, precisely because they cannot ever be trusted. And so the idea of “exporting democracy” was born.
This is not colonialism, but it is so effective that the remaining dictators of the world have to pretend to be democracies and keep to democratic values. The revolution conquered the world, more or less.
Does that mean that all nations are equal? Certainly not. And why does the US still pay for military hegemony?
For the reasons that there are still tyrannies. But America has been more successful because it has been using a different philosophy.
We are not the world’s policeman for our own profit, but to keep tyrants down. And if we make money from peace and trade, that is all well and good.
Eventually, we strongly hope that whoever takes the reigns after us will have the same attitude. We can hope.
What have you NeoCons accomplished?
You brought Hamas into power and you gave Iraq to Iran.
"War on Terror," my @ss.