Dwayne, I am glad that you (and Chris) picked the not-so fine point of my argument that it pertains to liberal democracies rather than a-historical "Western states" (whatever that is) - which is commendable in the light of the apparent reading comprehension problems others seem to be having. I can only say that I am well familiar with the Third Worldist trope wanting us to believe that the world lived in peace in prosperity until the emergence of Western Europe and the US, which introduced war, poverty and misery. I also understand that this is a religious belief that is immune to empirical refutation, so why bother.
I would thus want to limit my reply in this thread to the point you specifically raise, namely that liberal democracies failed to completely eradicate violence and poverty within its borders and the to the existence of the vast military force created by these democracies that is capable of a large scale destruction.
Both points are factually true, but in order to evaluate their gravity we need to put them in the proper comparative perspective. If judged against some abstract ideal of democracy and prosperity that never have of will exist - then yes, liberal democracy is a failure. But if judged against any other empirical societies and political systems - liberal democracy scores much better in eradicating poverty, income inequality, interpersonal violence, and international conflicts and wars. Not prefect - but better.
What is more, liberal democracies are far better in showing restraint in using force than any other social or political form. By your own admission, the destructive capacity of the liberal democracies is unprecedented in history - yet that capacity has never been used to the degree coming even close to its full potential. That in sharp contrast to other that liberal democracy states or political entities that not only were more likely to engage in an armed conflict or violence, but also more likely to use their full destructive potential - nut just military but paramilitary genocide as well.
So I would like to reiterate that the world would be a much better place if all countries became liberal democracies Western-style. Far from being perfect, to be sure, but considerably better than the status quo.
Another point, you seem to grossly overestimate the capacity of the United States to influence international politics and events. This, I believe is the flip side of the US exceptionalism - US has to be exceptional;, either exceptionally good or exceptionally bad, but always exceptiojnal. The truth is that while the US has considerable pull due to its sheer size, its capacity to actually control international events is rather limited. Emannuel Todd (_After the Empire_) made that point quite eloquently, and those interested can read his book. What I would like to add is that while the US influence seem larger than that of other countries in absolute terms, this is not true when we control for the size of the US resources (financial and political). I would go as far as saying that the US does not get as much international bang for the buck as some smaller countries.
Wojtek