I think the lesson from the past fifty years is pretty clear: If you try to occupy someone else's turf, you usually lose. Viet Nam, Vietraq, Afghanistan (twice), Grenada, Cuba, what did I forget? Chechnya? Tibet is a counterexample, but I can't find many more.

'Course, the locals whose turf you occupy usually lose even more. But that's beside the point from a Grand Chessboard perspective.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.