A STRONG UNITED STATES: IS IT GOOD FOR THE WORLD?
By Kevin Anthony Stoda, Short-Speech at the German Academy for Foreign Service (AKADEMIE des AUSWAERTIGENAMTS), Berlin on 4 May 2010,
i.e. on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII
In order to answer this question--à ‚¬Å¾Is a Strong United States Good for the World?--,one nees to define clearly what one means by the word à ‚¬Å¾strong".
If strength is defined only in terms of military strength, the answer is obvious--à ‚¬Å¾Military strengt his insufficient in itself to qualify as a social or political good in our globalized human societies in 2010." Just look at the costly and debilitating debacles in Vietnam, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq over the past half-century!!! Military strenght does not mean that a Nation is healthy or strong.
Even in the wake of a USA-led victory over Japan and Germany at the end of WWII, the USA military and ist American-based military industrial and economic capabilities were not sufficient for the establishment of any post-WWII world order, i.e. a world in which global security for even half the planet was offered.
In addition to its military power and ist military technologies, at that time the USA required great acts of diplomacy and an honest concern for the development of other nations and societes around the world over the subsequent years and decades. Moreover, a guiding vision of transnational cooperation and develolpment was essential.
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