Official Washington is fuming over Russia’s expanded military role in helping Syria fight the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (as if the U.S. has been doing such a crack job). Instead, the U.S. should retreat from the unpopular job of global policeman, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
By Graham E. Fuller
Washington has jealously guarded the role of global policeman for over half a century. But is the game still worth the candle?
World War II left no power standing other than the United States. Washington was in a unique position to lead “the free world” against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. But after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. found its true moment in the sun, perceiving its new emergence as the “sole global superpower.”
A U.S. Army soldier provides security at a school in Farah City, Afghanistan, on Aug. 1, 2012. (Photo credit: U.S. Navy Lt. Benjamin Addison)
Prestige, respect, economic and cultural “soft power” had all been originally vital complements to American military superpowermanship. But 9/11 eclipsed all that. In today’s world the U.S. has increasingly diverted its true national and international voice into the field of national security, where military means become the prime instrument of statesmanship and diplomacy. The State Department is now largely overwhelmed by the Pentagon in the formulation of foreign policy.
This militarization of American strategic vision emerges directly from possession of the overwhelmingly largest military machine in the world, supported by over 700 military bases scattered across the globe and the biggest military budget of all other competitors combined.
As then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright complained to then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell in the 1990s, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”
This souped-up security role is likewise the chosen instrument for explicit assertion of American global dominance, or “global leadership”, nominally giving us the dominant voice in determining the “architecture of the global order.” Those whose actions defy that architecture have been labeled “rogue.”
And this global security burden accordingly led us into extravagant expenditure of our own treasure and the spilling of blood of upwards of a million people directly or indirectly in recent military arenas, nearly all Muslim.
But where do these costs come up in what passes for national debate on foreign policy? Are we perhaps still jealously guarding a role in which there are no other willing competitors? In a situation where other nations prefer to seek their global prestige in other terms? And, as we focus on preserving our national security power, are others perhaps starting to eat our lunch in other arenas?
China is unquestionably building its military power, a rapid rise for a nation that for long decades possessed little other than massive manpower and lots of nukes. Russia too has a strong military. But the U.S. still leads almost all of the rest of the world combined in the size of its annual military budget.
So what is China doing? Indeed building its military from scratch, and expanding its range of interests, but rather than focusing single-mindedly on the military, it is busier in making massive investments, for example, in African agriculture and Central Asian infrastructure projects among its many projects that span most of the world. These activities leave far more positive and enduring monuments and influence, not to mention good will, than do military bases, military training or even war-fighting and counter-insurgency.
In a state-to-state war we will of course prevail. But if it’s not a war, we fare less well. So the list of contenders for the role of global policeman is not crowded. Indeed, China is probably quite happy to have the U.S. serve as global policeman at this point, bearing the primary burden of international counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency.
Thus in the eyes of our global competitors, our policies serve their interests in several ways. When we go to war, conduct numerous regime changes, launch drones, engage in assassinations and anti-terrorist operations we are wasting our treasure, eliminating many of the same bad guys that most people in the world might like to see eliminated, while all the while building up reservoirs of anger and feelings of revenge among the many victims of “collateral damage.”
For China and Russia these are strategic gifts, sparing them the job of doing the heavy lifting in counter-terrorism, while weakening our economy, and leaving their reputations unbesmirched, their reservoirs of good will untouched. Indeed the large reservoirs of good will the U.S. once possessed began to dry up once Washington launched the Global War on Terror and asserted the unilateral right to go anywhere, do anything, and kill anyone in the interests of American national security.
Some realists may not mourn loss of good will, but mounting opportunity costs to U.S. society and economy bite deeper. And our writ abroad counts for far less now.
“Somebody has to do the dirty work”, after all terrorism must be combated. But its international acceptance hinges heavily on the success of the program. And by now many top U.S. military figures including retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal and other strategists have suggested that our counter-insurgency tactics have largely served to create new reservoirs of terrorist recruits eager to fight the U.S.
Indeed, it’s a frustrating war in which the enemy, on its own soil, resembles a Hydra that grows two heads with each one severed. Projecting military operations into the Muslim world has produced little success and sowed mass chaos in most of the losing wars over the past decade: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and other locales. The Kuwait war (in 1990-91) is the sole exception. Indeed, many observers of the Middle East doubt there is any true military solution to countering terrorism when the chief by-products seem to be more hatred and instability that fosters still greater radicalism.
So do we truly still want this role as global policeman and anti-terrorism chief? Does it make sense when global solutions now require many players, many not even allies, to accomplish the goal?
I am heartened that the Obama administration more recently seems to be willing to share with China the role of creating a security structure in Afghanistan and Pakistan. China after all borders on both these states. And Obama/Kerry now seem willing to consider working with Russia in Syria instead of seeking to deprive Russia, dog-in-the-manger posture, of any meaningful role there, even as we thrash around in a no-win situation.
Future global strategy demands a new working plan for global security in which other great powers, whom we may not like, play major roles. Washington can neither afford, nor fulfill, the role of primary global security provider, which, if anything, now seems to detract from America’s reputation and well-being.
Instead, sadly, we witness the absurd posturing of presidential candidates each seeking to out-macho the other on how they would lay down the law to the world, utterly out of touch with shifting global reality.
It would be sad if American talents have now become primarily relegated to the security and military field. Such goals are eating up our country, raising our opportunity costs, stifling it in crushing and muscle-bound national security institutions whose growing weight, cost and power dominate the foreign policy field. American genius for creativity, know-how technology, even the former reputation of its citizens for being liked and welcomed, is being sidelined in the endless quest to maintain global dominance for “our security.” We are not gaining either.
Is it naive to suggest maybe we should be cooperating internationally in helping build a new global economic infrastructure? Roads, hospitals, schools, clinics, industries, as the best security investment for the present trillions now spent on military and security-related institutions and projects, especially in the face of the gathering global refugee tsunami? Otherwise we are opening the field to the Chinese and even Russians who are not even seeking to compete in our chosen policeman tasks, confident that we are likely making their quest for influence all the easier.
Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American’s crisis of conscience in Pakistan. (Amazon, Kindle) www.grahamefuller.com.
What? “Giving Up the Global-Cop Badgeâ€
Try instead :“Giving Up the Global-Thug Badgeâ€
What police department kills it’s own and blames others and comes in for the kill and robs blind? Over 3000 Americans were blown to bits (as if you don’t know when) and more than 2.5 million innocent slaughtered.
I deplore the use of the word “policeman†in conjunction with U.S. foreign policy. Though the domestic police forces are a tarnished commodity and may be little more than cogs in the vast machinery of an every growing tyrannical state, the term “policeman†still connotes something positive, the maintenance of order and the enforcement of law, the antithesis of U.S. foreign policy.
U.S. foreign policy promotes disorder, chaos, misery and spits on all law, international and domestic.
Our United States had a very different ethos after WW2. We had a President who understood war as Great Destruction. We had a President with great vision, who warned future Presidents against the growth of this Military/Industrial (War) Complex.
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Cross of Iron Speech (excerpts)
Address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower “The Chance for Peace” delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953.
The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.
First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.
Second: No nation’s security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only ineffective cooperation with fellow-nations.
Third: Any nation’s right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Fourth: Any nation’s attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.
And fifth: A nation’s hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations.
In the light of these principles the citizens of the United States defined the way they proposed to follow, through the aftermath of war, toward true peace.
This way was faithful to the spirit that inspired the United Nations: to prohibit strife, to relieve tensions, to banish fears.
This way was to control and to reduce armaments.
This way was to allow all nations to devote their energies and resources to the great and good tasks of healing the war’s wounds, of clothing and feeding and housing the needy, of perfecting a just political life, of enjoying the fruits of their own free toil.
(Skipping down)
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms in not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.
I guess Roddenberry liked Ike’s speech.The Prime Directive.
Thanks Mortimer. I was in Mrs. McNeill’s class in the third grade. I loved that woman. She had the attitude of a great leader, stern but loving. I can almost see or hear Ike giving that speech or possibly I remember it from the Saturday matinee with Movietone News (Fox at a better iteration). I mention this only because I now maintain that our young generation, the generation JFK appealed to as the one facing a “New Frontierâ€, was coopted by people in the White House basement, namely Nixon (think Cheney), Alan Dulles, and Curtis LeMay. I suspect that Eisenhower knew the threat but also knew that it was one for another generation to deal with. Well, ultimately we did, at a very high cost, and we’re still paying. Time for a re-set if possible. Time to try to get it right, time to find out exactly what happened.
Moving toward a foreign policy of international aid with mutual benefits requires understanding how US institutions have been corrupted by the right wing and how to repair them.
Humanitarian aid to improve health, education, and industry in impoverished areas deserves the vast budget given for military aid. If we had built the roads, schools, and hospitals of the developing nations since WWII, we would have would have lifted half the world from poverty, and would have very few enemies. But US military aid and action since WWII has had neither the intent nor the effect of improving security, human rights, or forms of government elsewhere, and has resulted in injustices for which the US is quite predictably and properly hated.
Nearly all US “aid†since WWII has been designed either to suppress the socialism needed by the developing nations to provide for basic needs, or to advance the cause of the wealthy or of large companies, or to provide aid to Israel despite its utterly vacuous claims of merit or value to the US. All of this selfish bullying could not have been better been designed to create enemies around the world.
There is no history of successful “democracy promotion†by aggressive war. Democracy does not work among warring factions, as shown in Iraq, nor where there is a major issue on which the factions ignore each other’s essential interests, as shown by the US Civil War, and by the war in Ukraine. Those who claim democracy as a benefit of war are the lowest saboteurs of democracy, and seek only to fool their betters by wrapping themselves in the flag.
Aristotle warned millennia ago in his Politics of this practice of the tyrant over a democracy. The rationales of warmongers are never accompanied by fact and argument, because their goal is domestic tyranny, practiced by creating a foreign enemy so as to demand domestic power as protectors and to accuse their opponents of disloyalty. The false enemy of “terrorism†is a war technology, not an ideology, and serves to obscure the lack of any admissible rationale for war. The warmonger never has a history of, or a plan for humanitarian results, never cares about the cultural or historical context, but merely shops for propaganda fragments and shouts them while waving the flag, an infantile bully, the lowest imitation of masculinity. His intended audience is the timid and the ignorant: those fearful of bullies and the irrationality of their own kind.
Advocates of war, other than repelling invasions, should be jailed for the resulting war crimes, and because the Constitution allows no warmaking powers but these: suppressing insurrections and repelling invasions. Only a treaty can modify that, and NATO was intended solely for mutual defense. The treaty must be rewritten to prevent right wing tyrants from once again betraying the people by pretending to be protectors against imaginary enemies. Foreign wars started by the US are economic wars against the US, and warmongers should be convicted of treason.
The US Constitution was written before the emergence of economic concentrations and provides no protection of mass media and elections from money. Amendments to protect them are needed NOW, but with those essential tools of democracy controlled by money, there is probably no way to restore democracy without civil war. But the people have become cowards, paying the mass media to tell them that they are heroes for murdering innocents far away, and that there are no problems in the US.
In the US, power is only available to bad people: selfishness and hypocrisy, bullying and collusion are the sole means to corporate power, and thence political power and media power. So the worst have the power, and the people and Constitution are their enemies.
We live in the empty suit of armor left us by the rot of unregulated business, which now blunders around the globe, swinging its sword madly at enemies which are either imaginary or of its own making. Our best hope is that its enemies will finally topple or corral the beast, as with the Roman Empire. But even the resounding defeat of US imperialism will not destroy the seed of rightwing selfishness, hypocrisy, ignorance, and malice, which as in the rise of Naziism will blame its defeat upon its moral superiors, and blunder forth again to wreak injustice for the private gain of the right wing.
Well said John B. You’ve been thinking about this for a while. I agree.
“Somebody has to do the dirty work†— after all terrorism must be combated.
If you want to end terrorism…stop committing it…
The author’s premise is false. The US hasn’t acted as a global policeman–bringing something like law and order–since WW2, and even that is arguable.
A policeman would have stepped in to stop the Rwandan massacres, instead of dodging the responsibility as Clinton did. Or the massacres in South Korea, or Indonesia, or Central America, which the US actually supported or caused. An honest cop would stop a close ally, like Israel, from committing war crimes, or at least act as an honest broker to the opposing parties.
A government invested in law and order wouldn’t overthrow democracies. It wouldn’t commit massive war crimes. It would prosecute the criminals in its own government.
The United States government isn’t a policeman, it’s judge, jury and executioner in its own kangaroo court. It acts in its greedy, blinkered self-interest. It doesn’t do law, and it doesn’t do morality. It is the largest rogue state. It’s impersonating a policeman.
Now, fewer and fewer believe the “global policeman” story. Europe is increasingly revolted by US support for the Azov Battalion and ISIS, and other world powers are aligning against the US. Diplomacy by drone and sanction is failing. The empire is unwell. So apparently it’s time to try a new story.
By the way, Mr Fuller, have you been in touch with “Uncle Ruslan”? Did you ever meet the Tsarnaev boys yourself? That must have been a shock.
I believe you’ve answered your own objection.Just because the US of A has been playing “global policeman” doesn’t mean it has been any kind of honest cop.
Tarpley(.net) explains it all on his website, with a detailed analysis of the American Deep State or Rogue Network. The tendency was always there, since the powerful and wealthy Tories (those opposed to The Revolution/Rebellion against the Brit Empire) never went away. They established themselves irrevocably in 1895 when the London-backed J.P. Morgan Syndicate blackmailed President Cleveland, wrestling away control of the public debt from his government. Consolidated & formalized in 1913 with the Fed Reserve Act. Begun re-entrenching themselves after FDR’s death in 1945. Gained the upper hand after they killed JFK in 1963. Are unstoppable now…only their own stupidity will undo them.
Brad Owen, I read Tarpley’s piece too and was fascinated by it. I have been a long time reader of C. Wright Mills, who was mentioned in Tarpley’s article. Mills was doing research in Cuba in the late fifties and had many insights into “The Power Elite”. I think Mills was the kind of scholar who might have had the verbal skills to describe the real time dynamics of the nineteen fiftys and sixties (a crucial period for our democracy under capitalism). We appear to be at a similar juncture where we can decide where either or not we’re all in this together…
Sorry……Should read____whether or not we’re all in this together.
It’s a great comfort to have websites like Consortium, Tarpley, E.I.R., Common Dreams, Alternet and such, so we can at least know what-the-he!! is really going on, even if we can’t do much to change things. It’s not realized by many folks that The Revolution never ended; that our ENTIRE history, after refusing to be colonies, has been one, continuous, long, Resistance-to-Empire; to keep alive The Republic; a continuous effort to keep from getting sucked back in to subjugated colonial status. In this we have failed. This is all going to crash, and soon. I just hope enough “flotsam & jetsam” is left floating around, so the innocents can be saved. It’s so dreadful that it’s already too late for so many innocent “victims-of-Empire”, in the World.
Mr. Fuller’s article raises hope, that America could emerge anew, if it were to shed it’s cop badge. I would be more than greatful if the U.S. were to approach the problem spots of the world in a more intelligent way. The U.S. might also shed some of their so called ‘allies’, and get some new ones. Here’s an idea; team up with Russia and China. Be the First Nation to actually kick off a nuclear disarmament plan, which may work. Use our armed forces to cloth, feed, and hospitalize war refugees and the poor. If we can only think of ourselves then imagine the ‘Good Blowback’ this type of humanitarian action would breed. There is so much more, but I digress. Good subject matter Mr. Fuller, now how do we make this a reality?
A few days ago a senior official of the U.S. called a senior official of Russia to “warn” Russian to stay out of the Syrian thing. Somehow it struck me as so presumptuous…and so obnoxious. But more importantly, it is a microcosm of the U.S. misguided world involvement.
Well for me, the self appointed role of “global policeman” is arrogance and based on imperialist desires just like any other empire that has preceded it. If we talk about terrorism, would the world be facing such a great threat of terrorism had the United States not played a major role in arming and training said terrorists. I believe it was John Pilger who said that the US, under President Carter, spent $500 Million to create the Mujahideen six months prior to the Afghan/Soviet War. The Mujahideen went on to morph into the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda attacks the US and subsequently the US illegally invades Iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11 nor did it have weapons of mass destruction which then opened up the door for Al Qaeda expansion (and it was in Iraq that ISIS, or ISIL, became an off-shoot of Al Qaeda). Then we can add in Libya. Of course the US did not learn from that and subsequently, along with Britain and France, were arming and training supposed “moderate” Syrian rebels in Jordan 2012 which went on to join the Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) and ISIS. We even now have, I believe, General Petraeus suggesting that the west should support the Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) in Syria. Now we also have this massive migration of people from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan etc. trying to get into Europe to escape the consequences of 14 years of war in their region. My question is would the world be facing this huge threat of “terrorism” had the US not funded and trained terrorists for decades? What would the world look like today had the US not interfered in “democracies” all around the world for its’ own economic interests? What would Iran be like today if 1953 never happened or Guatemala etc.? Makes you wonder if we could actually be living in a better world, a freer world…
So I’m sorry but there is no reluctance on the part of the US to be the world’s policeman. It has acted as the “world’s policeman” since WW2 and it has not been to be some good guy fighting for “democracy” and “freedom” otherwise it would have been unconscionable to train dictators, overthrow democracies, and removing freedom from so many countries for America’s corporate interests (United Fruit Company etc.). Yes, the US should stop being the world’s policeman and NATO needs to stop acting to expand or try to maintain the American Empire. In future, if the world faces a dire situation, it should be handled by countries on both sides of the fence so that it is not done solely in one countries, or group of countries, economic or geopolitical interests. I just want to see a US that joins the rest of the world rather then trying to rule it where no one is exceptional…
I appreciate your comments, very well stated. And I applaud this former CIA official for acknowledging the obvious. But soft words decades late are little consolation for the immense suffering we have led the world in creating over many many years.
What would have happened after WWII if we had instead spent our resources training the world in infrastructure, school and democracy construction, not power-grabbing and ruling at the point of a gun, as described in your eloquent comments. Would that we had used our power in these ways, we would be largely absent the horrible discourse now presented to us daily in what passes for news today – the never-ending violence, turmoil and hatred. Shame on us for not being a world leader for peace.
Daniel… thank you for the comment. I guess that I just want to see a United States that joins the world and rejects the “exceptional” mindset learning to work with the rest of the world. Frankly, I would love to see all nations respect the laws of the UN and all nations brought to justice if they break international law – this includes the US, Russia, China, Canada, Britain, Australia etc. Maybe there should no longer be a UN Security Council but rather all decisions should be taken before the UN General Assembly. I think if that happened then we would not see war or on a far smaller scale and there would be repercussions for starting wars for all nations. Think of what a great world we could live in especially if the great powers could learn to work together. I look at things like the “international” space station as a wonderful thing. I just imagine if we worked together, as countries did during the ebola crisis, what we could achieve together instead of the childish rhetoric of “good guys” and “bad guys” meanwhile constantly trying to undermine each other. Could we really tackle pollution or green energy or drought or hunger or disease etc. I just hope that the United States is the last Empire and instead we see an end to imperialism, colonialism, and exceptionalism. I think the world is crying out for it as so we are seeing people like Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership in Britain or Bernie Sanders to a certain degree etc. Sometimes couldn’t we just forget our borders and do things for the good of humanity and the world in general?
Hear, hear. Our only chance at reversing the West’s decades long march toward global corporate fascism is to back folks like Corbyn, Sanders, etc. – anyone willing to speak with perspective, challenge the insanity of the current narrative, and present a peaceful/rational alternative to the current might-makes-wrong system.
Corbyn yes,Sanders?
Can you bend his ear to say that spouting MSM propaganda is not helpful?Or does he actually believe them?The serial liars?
Is he a dupe,or a duper(Zionist)?So far,it seems the latter.
WHAT IS POWER? THE COLD WAR?
There is the “history” many of us been been taught. Again
and again and again. This “history” has become internalized
and has become a starting point. It is forever unquestioned.
Joyce and Gabriel Kolko jar us into re-thinking that “history”,
that narrative. In THE LIMITS OF POWER (Harper & Row,1972
p. 31 and throughout) they observe:
“The so-called Cold War…was far less the confrontation of
the United States with Russia than America’s expansion into
the entire world—a world the Soviet Union neither controlled
nor created…”
It is important too to remember that the US totally failed to win
many of the wars in which it was initially confident of
victory. The list is too long but suffice to mention Viet Nam,
Korea, China (the US supported Chiang), and in Europe only
“succeeded” by bribes, economic threats and the like in our
“altruistic” Marshall Plan…
(Digression: One such threat from the White House—Harry
Truman–assured the acceptance of the Balfour Declaration
in accordance with Zionist wishes.)
Then there are the US more recent adventures( wars) about
which we are somewhat more familiar.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Need to remove Washington then as that is the nexus of empire like Rome was to the Roman empire.
Thanks so much Joe L, your last paragraph is a classic. I got this link today from The Times Commentary section and was unaware of that this was published. Just to show that nothing has changed:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/22/world/cia-bares-its-bungling-in-report-on-bay-of-pigs-invasion.html
Bob Van Noy… thank you for the article, I read most of it. Yeah it is sad to see the heavy handed militaristic approach. Frankly, I think that this approach has been most detrimental on the Cuban people. I don’t see Castro as any threat and healthcare in Cuba is an example for the world. I think if the US stopped constantly trying to overthrow and undermine Cuba that it would have gradually become a democracy but instead I think Communism is still alive to act as a deterrent against US NGO’s who would manipulate a democracy for the US’ benefit. Even with the Communist system in Cuba, I believe it was in 2010 or 2012, USAID created a Cuban Twitter (ZunZuneo) to try and undermine the government to create a Cuban Spring for regime change (http://www.thenation.com/article/washingtons-secret-cuba-twitter-program-same-old-policy-regime-change/).
We need to have an “American Spring”.
Abbywood… well I think the whole of the western world needs a reset, a change in mindset. I am Canadian and we are about to have an election in October where hopefully we will rid ourself of the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper who is a warmonger, bigot, corrupt, and union busting Prime Minister. For me, the rise of people like Jeremy Corbyn in Britain or Bernie Sanders, to some degree, in the US or the movements in Greece, Spain etc. is an indication that people are getting really tired of the militarism and corruption of the western world. I frankly don’t think that the US will change on its’ own and that it is going to take a shock from the outside to change it which I think is going to come in an economic form and hopefully not WW3. With the rise of China, already the world’s largest economy according to PPP and the world’s largest marketplace in many aspects, along with the BRICS nations are bringing a new reality to the world. I think many European nations realize this shift and I think that is evident with European nations being some of the first to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) etc. even at the behest and protest of the United States. I think the next decade is going to prove very interesting and my belief is that we are seeing the decline of one empire and the rise of another, though I really hope that China will not be an Empire to undertake constant invasions and war – as we are seeing now with the US. Only time will tell…