Considering the limits of American power
In
the American imagination, we are expected - demanded! - to be both
omnipotent AND supremely virtuous. But that is an oxymoron, not to
mention a childish fantasy and a lethal delusion. In human affairs,
power and virtue rarely reinforce one another since their ultimate purposes are
at odds. You can't have unlimited amounts of both.
What does it say about us if we are saddened or frustrated or angered by our inability to cause other nations to do our bidding, regardless of their own values, interests, and objectives? What does it say about us if we cannot tolerate, let alone respect, that other nations have a right to sovereignty over their own fates, and that their exercise of this sovereignty must in some sense represent a limit on the legitimate exercise of our enormous power?
If limited American power is unacceptable to us, then what is the desired alternative? UN-limited power? Really?
In strictly material terms, we have far more power than we are prepared to use. We have a nuclear arsenal capable of obliterating whole nation-states in a few minutes. We have chemical and biological weapons that can eradicate populations in a trice. We possess more than enough raw power to compel anyone to do anything we want unless they're prepared to risk being annihilated.
American power isn't limited because we lack the requisite force to impose our will, but because we are unwilling to exert the requisite force to control other nations.
It is a good thing, for the world and for ourselves, that this is the case.
America has its faults, but our unwillingness as a people to use the full extent of our power to impose our will on the world is not one of them. It is, rather, something approaching a virtue.
What does it say about us if we are saddened or frustrated or angered by our inability to cause other nations to do our bidding, regardless of their own values, interests, and objectives? What does it say about us if we cannot tolerate, let alone respect, that other nations have a right to sovereignty over their own fates, and that their exercise of this sovereignty must in some sense represent a limit on the legitimate exercise of our enormous power?
If limited American power is unacceptable to us, then what is the desired alternative? UN-limited power? Really?
In strictly material terms, we have far more power than we are prepared to use. We have a nuclear arsenal capable of obliterating whole nation-states in a few minutes. We have chemical and biological weapons that can eradicate populations in a trice. We possess more than enough raw power to compel anyone to do anything we want unless they're prepared to risk being annihilated.
American power isn't limited because we lack the requisite force to impose our will, but because we are unwilling to exert the requisite force to control other nations.
It is a good thing, for the world and for ourselves, that this is the case.
America has its faults, but our unwillingness as a people to use the full extent of our power to impose our will on the world is not one of them. It is, rather, something approaching a virtue.