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Unlike you I don't believe that the Cold War "explains" much at all except for ideological mobilization. The policies of the Cold War were simply extensions of the policies of imperialism. The Soviet Union had extracted itself from the capitalist market and the U.S. wanted to make sure that the Soviet states became available to international economic exploitation. Again the story of the Cold War is just an ideological justification, a mere excuse, for the normal kind of exploitation.
It is also true that where as imperial goals are the same in Latin America, the Middle East, etc. before and after the Cold War, the means may change. It may become true in the future that a significant portion of the rulers and owners of our society realize that Israel should be cut loose. In that case where would Israel seek sponsorship. >>>>
WS: Your certitude is truly amazing. How do you know all this? Do you have some special connection to the US elites who inform you about their thought processes and motivations, or you are just guessing?
Besides, who is the US anyway. You speak here about a very complex entity with not clearly defined sets of players who constantly change over time, unclear and incoherent goals, not well informed and often clueless decision makers, and a great number of stakeholders influencing these decision makes in every which way - and you treat that amazingly complex phenomenon as a single omniscient individual that always know what he wants and has absolute power to implement his goals. This is par excellence anthropomorphization of systemic forces - a key element of religious imagination (everything that happens does so by the will of an omniscient, omnipotent human-like entity).
I understand that this kind of anthropomorphism is quite pervasive in poli-sci and economics - but what is the need for it? Do people really think that they "understand" things better when they attribute them to omniscient, omnipotnet human-like entities? Or is it emotionally disturbing to admit that things often happen for no particular reason at all, simply becouse of the force of inertia, because they were set on a certain course long time ago and nobody has the power, willingness or motivation to change them, that the key decision makers seldom know what they are doing, they are bluffing, guessing or simply follow those who are bluffing and guessing but apper to be in the know, that there are no overarching goals and long term policy objectives, only short-term opportunism, bluff, inertia, slack and th elack of crucial challenge - that this supposedly superior imperial behemot is in fact an enormous-size ameba moved by currents and its own inertia and, like an elephant in a china shop, making things happen or crushing them by the sheer volume of its size.
I am really curious. I am perfectly happy with the notion that there is no order in the universe, no logic, no purpose, no meaning - just random motions and coincidences, and the frantic efforts of the human mind to make sense out of them. I am perfectly happy with chaos at very level of being from individual to cosmic and anything in between. Why is it that so many people have this need for omniscience and omnipotence?
Wojtek