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Originally Posted by JoeRedskin
It's huge blow to the trend to globalization - which may not necessarily be a bad thing. I have always been a "free market / free trade" guy, but that only really works when all the partners buy in and I am not sure some of our trading partners do.
Part of me thinks the world is in one of those important transition periods. The US economic hegemony is being seriously challenged by China's growth. While militarily we may be unchallenged, our military really only makes sense if it is protecting our economic interests in Europe and the Pacific. Alter the economic balance significantly and our militarily becomes much less relevant as a policy tool. [Country A says "No thanks. Please close your bases and go home. Our new trading partner doesn't want your aircraft carrier task force clogging up our harbor." I just don't see us ever forcing, through military might, a country to open their markets to us.]
The last world war / conflagration ended approximately 70 years ago. The next generation will have likely have no familial links to relate first hand the real life horrors of total war. It will become simply pictures on a screen and something that happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I don't think its a coincidence that, prior to WWI, the last major European war was 100 years prior (Napoleonic) and that occurred about 75 years after the prior major European war (the Seven Years War - of which our French and Indian war was a side theater of operations) and then about 80 years before that was the Hundred Years War was wrapping up. It takes a few generations to forget the privation, misery, loss, and sacrifice that warfare on a massive scale creates / causes. As a global society, we are entering that time frame.
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Great points. But this time the key difference is the world powers have nukes that keep everybody else in check. Result: guerrilla terrorism vs special forces infiltration.