We’re on the same page there. I agree with you.
We’re a victim of our own success. Our military did such a good job, folks think the peace will magically continue when the military is no longer involved around the world.
China will break out, and people in that region will pay a heavy toll in our absence. You alluded to that sort of thing, and you’re exactly right.
On a different, but related topic - the “nation building” failure in Iraq - why do you think we were successful at it in Japan, which also had a far different world view of human life, as well as a different religion than us - yet we succeeded? While in Iraq, we spent billions on infrastructure and working with the Iraqi people to move their government toward a more democratic nation, yet failed?
In both cases, Iraq and Japan’s infrastructure, industry and government were destroyed by the war’s end, yet Japan recovered while Iraq didn’t. Was it because we didn’t have a realistic post-war plan, and we didn’t properly prepare for security and governance of Iraq? MacArthur was literally a military dictator over Japan for several years and I can’t imagine him allowing the looting and pillaging that followed Saddam’s fall in Iraq to occur in Japan.
Or, was it simply because or Islam? Is Islam, as it exists in Iraq just too much of a barrier? Also, Japan had an industrial establishment prior to the war that wasn’t based on just one resource, as in Iraq’s is with oil. Just wondering what your thoughts would be on this.