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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (36830)	8/10/2002 8:14:17 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi kumar_rangan; That it may be economic seems likely. There has never, in the history of the planet, been a case where an empire was able to hang onto a piece of territory that was far removed from its center. That is, countries with widely separated parts tend to separate into separate parts. Examples would be the European countries and their various colonies, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Germany and East Prussia, etc. I agree that that tendency is undoubtedly at least partly economic / military. (That is, it costs too much to send troops long distances.) But it also is the case that nations care more about stuff that is happening in their own backyard. And there is no doubt that a territorial animals fights harder the closer he is to his home. The overall effect is that countries are always more powerful in defense of their own territory than they are in attacks against other countries. The Iran / Iraq war was a beautiful example of this tendency. (See #reply-17856463 ) Man is by nature territorial. While that implies that he fights hard to conquer territory, it also means that he fights even harder to defend territory he already controls. This is the way towards peace, the fact that the defense is naturally stronger than the offense. There is a natural human tendency to ascribe to great men (like Ghandi) or to nations (like the US) attributes of strength or wisdom when a simple analysis of the natural territorial nature of mankind would suffice. Ghandi could have been of much meaner stuff and still India would have gotten its freedom from Britain. Similarly, the United States, by its distant separation from Britain, combined with its great expanse and population, was doomed to separation from its birth. But we still call that birth a miracle (which is in the nature of patriotism). -- Carl