The U.S. position today is similar to that of Great Britain in the latter half of the 19th century—an empire that had seen its best days and was on a downward slope. From SLL contributor William Gudal:
To understand developments in Ukraine we need to go back in time to somewhere unexpected, England in 1900. It’s not really a stretch; stay with me. As the 19th century rolled into the next one, England was as the height of its supremacy, at least on the surface. Its navy truly ruled the waves. The City was the leading source and allocator of capital. From Jamaica to Bangalore the Sun never set on the Queen’s flag. However, ominously, a tide was beginning to turn. It was during this period, 1880 to 1914 that the British share of world trade shrank from 23 percent to 17 percent. By contrast, during the same period Germany’s share rose from 17 percent to 27 percent. Germany’s steel output for example, 17.6 million tons, was larger than the combined output of Britain, France and Russia. Perhaps other than the US, Germany was the fastest growing country in the world, vibrant with energy and leadership in chemicals, electronics, agriculture and infrastructure development. German tentacles were reaching all around the world, much like Russia and China today.
The result of course was that Great Britain had a mental breakdown. It could tolerate the vibrancy of the economy of its US cousin, in part because there was little it could do about it. But a Continental challenger was a completely different matter. Significantly underpopulated by comparison, 42 million in Britain, compared with 68 million in Germany and 53 million in Austria-Hungary, something had to be done, fast. So Britain launched armed war against Germany. Notwithstanding the absence of any ideological quarrel with Germany, the British propaganda machine was wildly successful in creating massive hate for Germany and the German people. WWI was the most meaningless war ever, with millions of young boys and men, age 18 to 26 killing and maiming each other all over the most unexplainable ideological nothingness. Economic rivalry completely explains the cause and conduct of the war. WWI changed world civilization and society more significantly than all wars combined during the past 200 years. Everything – everything – changed.
