On 9/10/2010 4:43 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Sep 10, 2010, at 4:29 PM, SA wrote:
>
>> To extend your analogy, the problem is how do you construct a consistent time-series for this? In 1945 the number of countries whose asses the US couldn't kick was 1. Now it's zero. Yet people still talk about decline. So it seems like there was a break in the series somewhere.
> Has the U.S. kicked the ass of Iraq or Afghanistan? We've fucked them up, but we haven't "won."
Well, we didn't win in Korea either. That didn't mean the US wasn't number one.
On Iraq, the balance sheet for the US is ambiguous at best. For Saddam Hussein, though, it was a total loss, and that counts for something. In Iraq and Afghanistan combined we've lost 600 soldiers a year over nine years. In Korea we lost 12,000 a year over 3 years. Vietnam was much more of a clear loss for the US than Iraq was - and yet even there the damage was very temporary.
If you think about the threats and challenges US policymakers faced in, say, 1961, it makes 2010 look like a light comedy. Then they worried that Washington might be incinerated, Communism might sweep Latin America, an emergency might force a national mobilization complete with price controls and millions of working-age men drafted. What are they worried about now? Hugo Chavez making rude gestures? China signing a soybean agreement with Cameroon? Some vague notion of not being "in control"?
SA