It spends more on War than any other nation, by a large margin.
It has military bases in most parts of the world, ringing Russia and China.
A partial history US Wars
Military Conflicts in U.S. History
Indian Wars (colonial era to 1890)
Dominican Republic (1965)
Lebanon (1982–1984)
Grenada (1983)
Panama (1989)
Somalia (1993)
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc.All rights reserved. [Commentary delete
From 1619 until the end of the US Civil War, chattel slavery was legal in North America.
It's Wars with indigenous peoples of the North American continent and Hawaii were, in effect and in some cases by intention, genocidal. See here.
A small section near the end of The reasons for war, a survey, reported in this blog yesterday, is entitled "Democratic Peace". It suggests, indirectly, that we, the people of the United States, are the sovereign, and control decisions of War and Peace.
I am ambivalent about our gigantic War Machine. Spending tax money on War stimulates the economy, and the US has the strongest economy in the world, for now. There are other, more useful, ways to pend money to stimulate the economy, with more lasting benefits.
On the other hand, China seems intent on taking money and markets away form the United States and becoming the dominant power in the world.
If there must be a dominant power, I prefer the United States to China.
The United States is a mixture of many religions, cultures, and points of view, which gives it an information stream that uniform nations lack, increases flexibility to meet a changing world, and is a source of strength.
China, the current challenger, is dominated by a tribal culture, the Tribe of the Han, more intolerant of minorities that the US currently is. That allows for uniformity, which can be a source of strength, and bodes ill for a multifarious world, if it becomes dominant.
I prefer that the United States remain the dominant power, and the cost is vexing.
Something we, as the sovereign, could do is to change our income tax code so that the flow of wealth goes to the many.
The richest American is currently Bill Gates, with 77.5 billion dollars. That's enough.
A billion dollars is 1,000 million dollars.
The Koch brothers, together, have 80.8 billion dollars. They are using a small portion of that money to buy elections. That's too much power, in a democracy.
We the people need to make some changes.
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