America Is The Number One

In The Long Run, Global Politics Are Bound To Become Increasingly Uncongenial To The Concentration Of Hegemonic Power In The Hands Of A Single State. Hence, America Is Not Only The First, As Well As The Only, Truly Global Superpower, But It Is Also Likely To Be The Very Last.

Never Before Has A Populist Democracy Attained International Supremacy. But The Pursuit Of Power Is Not A Goal That Commands Popular Passion, Except In Conditions Of A Sudden Threat Or Challenge To The Public's Sense Of Domestic Well-being. The Economic Self-denial (that Is, Defense Spending) And The Human Sacrifice (casualties, Even Among Professional Soldiers) Required In The Effort Are Uncongenial To Democratic Instincts. Democracy Is Inimical To Imperial Mobilization.

Speaking Of A Future At Most Only Decades Away, An Experimenter In Intelligence Control Asserted, “i Foresee A Time When We Shall Have The Means And Therefore, Inevitably, The Temptation To Manipulate The Behavior And Intellectual Functioning Of All The People Through Environmental And Biochemical Manipulation Of The Brain.

Like So Many Empires Before It, The Soviet Union Eventually Imploded And Fragmented, Falling Victim Not So Much To A Direct Military Defeat As To Disintegration Accelerated By Economic And Social Strains.

The Legitimacy Of The Leadership Depends On What That Country Thinks Of Its Leaders. When We Lay Off, More And More Iranians Tend To Be Critical Of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The More Abusive We Are And The More Pressure We Put On Them, The More Nationalism Fuses With Fundamentalism In Iran.