Now Soviet Union is history entity replaced by fiercely nationalist Russia, maoist China is being gradually transformed according to ancient treaties, therefore there is no chance of the book to be translated in near future. Some would think - let's leave Americans to discuss whether "the checks and balances of Madisonian Republicanism cannot exist under the almost permanent state of war an empire finds itself in" or can.
What's more interesting is the constant use of history of Roman Empire (I do not count Holy Roman Empire of German nation), the only one durable European empire in ages, as an allusion and inspiration for such writings.
Once I said that the modern West seems to me as reincarnation of ancient Rome and Greece with their economy based on slavery. Of course it was oversimplification - the Western civilization is surely the heir of them but is not merely the new edition.
There were many revolutions and the heir does not resemble his ancestors in numerous ways.
However one thing Western states could not change - geography. Europe is a big peninsular attached to grandios landmass of Asia indented by vast gulfs and internal seas. That's why the West (including America after WWII) had to muscle its ways to precious resources and protect vital communicating lines. That's why militarism (or imperialism) helped the West to become what it is these days in bigger measure than romantic paleoconservatives or madisonian democrats would admit.
Holding sea power is very attractive idea but history teach us that it's vulnerable from inside - when expences on muscle power to protect communications exceed benefits (even potential) marital empire falls apart as cardhouse. That's exactly happened with Roman empire when it was flooded by alien aggresive German tribes running wild.
America has advantage over ancient Rome as she has natural big landmass but overconsumption of natural resources lead her to waging expensive wars overseas without lasting (in historical sense) legacy in invaded countries. It remains to be seen what American leaders upto when the moment of truth will come.
It is like trying to explain a point using somehting that everybody knows.
In this case case, the point that during the Roman ERepublic with a slight power-sharing produced less dark times that during the Empire is a valid point.
I mean.. it is basically like your point about the trasnformation of the west from little corner of the worl to world preeminence...it is very complex and complicated.. but m you can get soemthing useful about it by using your metaphor about maritime routes and geography as important to the militaristic impulse .. but at the end is also a big simplifications since religion, and symbolic changes (science as agood recreatonal sport for a sector of the society as an example, or economical structures) were also fundamental.
In a word.. I would not be that tough :)
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
But as you noticed I tried to intoduce geopolitical angle in analysis of common point of view - geography and desire of peripheral islandish or peninsular states first to survive then proceed to world domination using militarism as a useful tool.
Mr Chalmers Johnson is a known critic of American militarism which he sufficiently unmasked with all its secret prisons and personal armies, black budgets and dictatorial executive power.
But my point was to invite all of you to think about - whether militarism pursued by executives was caused by poor state of checks and balances or had other reasons to exist.
Here's one for you: ant colonies have an incredibly well defined sense of hierarchy. But recently there has been evidence that certain ants with a hierarchical societies (usually these hierarchies tend to keep the population explosion in check because ants tend to do each other in, battle it out, etc.) tend to change behavior in new climates and environments. One such South American colony was imported into Australia, and there the ants got along better, more civilly then they ever had before. They became a supercolony that spread for miles, ended up doing damage to the sediment of an Australian city, and even destroyed a great many of the insect species in the region. I just think this is a supreme irony. We seem to be hard-wired this way.
