Gwynne Dyer once described the United States of America (USA) as "The Schizophrenic Empire".
For those trying to understand what the USA looks like to the rest of the world this is a very insightful comment.
Bill Maher called his country imperial last week on Real Time with Bill Maher. He's pretty honest about everything. How many Americans think they have an empire?
As a nation, it both denies it wants to interfere with others, yet has more bases worldwide than all other countries together. It denies it has imperial inclinations, but it gets sucked into every regional dispute. It promotes the cause of peace, yet Department of Defense spends more on its military than the next 8 countries combined:
It has a policy that changes every four years, or every two years, or every time it is politically expedient to do so. Getting the picture?
So the black box analysis of what the USA thinks, says, and does becomes less about what their long-term philosophical beliefs are but which USA are we talking to at this moment? And which personality will be around for the foreseeable future?
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