Hi geode00; Re: "At that point, hastened on by the training ground of Iraq, will everyone stand down because big countries will no longer be able to send big forces into other countries? Everyone will simply have to stay in their own homes and work things out without the military. Gee. What an idea."
In effect, that is what is happening. The trend has been clear since the power of the West peaked around 1895. With each passing decade, the 3rd world catches up just a little.
By the way, I disagree with you when you say "big forces". The US has not sent big forces into Iraq. (And of course Israel has never had "big forces" in its entire multi thousand year history, and has sent only a few thousand into Lebanon on this go.) If Iraq really mattered to the US, for example, if Iraq were on the border where Canada is, the US would have sent "big forces" there. But as it is, there is not a draft in the US, and US commanders never got the forces they asked for. Iraq is basically a "don't care" for the US, so there's no way that we would expend a lot of blood and treasure there.
If we ever got involved in another "real" war, you would see the usual wartime experiences in the US. A draft, a conversion of the civilian economy to a military oriented one, probably foreigners put into concentration camps (as before), a very strong public inclination to not care in the slightest about foreign civilian deaths, etc. You'd recognize it as a war right away.
-- Carl |
