Professor Koppell writes that American greatness has been dependent on the willing sacrifice of thousands of American soldiers. That is of course true but sometimes those sacrifices were unnecessary and resulted from the failure of politics. War in and of itself is the failure of politics. The Vietnam and Iraq Wars are examples of the unnecessary use of American military power. Today Afghanistan is a quagmire as it was for the Russians and devours both blood and treasure. Having an army, however big and well equipped doesn't necessarily win wars.
As a society with its roots in hundreds of years of European conflict, the United States has never been wedded to the idea of peace. We have been at war with someone officially or unofficially for more years than we have been at peace. Nor do we appear to spare much thought for the soldiers and civilians we have killed, 2 million Japanese in WW2, 2 million North Vietnamese, in Korea around 600,000 civilians and 406,000 soldiers died. As a nation we spend more per year on our capacity to wage war than all the other nations of the earth spend combined. Is this our greatness? If greatness is built on the ability to kill people, then we are indeed great.
As far as forging alliances and investing in shared security, the current President seems happy to tear up treaties which are supposed to keep the peace and to withdraw from alliances and world organizations set up after WW2 to nurture peace and co-operation. Many in America unfortunately see the United Nations, formed to keep the peace, as some liberal plot. Where is the cooperation and the engagement the Professor writes of? Some nations, even those friendly to us, now perceive us as dangerous fools. Even loyal allies like Singapore are caught between their historical friendship with the US and the reality of Chinese warships and bases in the South China Sea and their own burgeoning trade agreements with China.
It is fine to have a set of ideals but when the symbolic value of the Statue of Liberty is no longer appropriate because America doesn't mean it and now tell the "poor huddled masses" to go home because we are full up, people around the world begin to question just why the US has been so attractive. A list of abstract ideals explaining American greatness is like the statue, only a list. Our "greatness" so far has depended on our economy and wealth and more importantly how we treat others. It is no coincidence that the number of foreign students wanting to study in US universities is declining and this should worry us. The flame of freedom, which attracted so many, is flickering. The freedom to be yourself, to make meaningful choices and to discover who you are, in the richest and freest country in the world has been and is the dream of young people worldwide. Our ideals testify to our greatness but they should not be abstractions but about how we actually treat each other, how we treat the old, the young, the sick, the poor, those in prison, and those who flee to our country for safety. Those are the benchmarks of greatness, which will keep students arriving on our shores and sustain the American Dream.
The Roman Empire lasted approximately 400 years, the British Empire 200 and so far our American century has lasted 100 years. The great Irish poet WB Yeats wrote that civilizations perne in a gyre, a spinning wheel, forever changing shape. Our sense of self and ability to move forward depend on understanding ourselves, our past, our priorities, and where we failed and what we did well. For that we must live with an image in our heads of the future based on the true understanding of the past not an image of ourselves based on what we "think" we are. Greatness is subjective. Whitewashing history will only continue a lie. Societies, however successful, do not survive if they lie to themselves.
The Romans, expanded too far and the money ran out. The British Empire spent all its wealth in two World Wars and had to turn to America for help. The Empire on which the sun never set morphed into the Commonwealth, which still works a bit. We will need to change. We need to stop being the policeman and the bully. We need to defend the values, which brought us this far in so far as these values support mutual respect, tolerance and freedom. As a leader of the world community the United States of America, can be the shining torch but we must decide now whether that means the whole world and its ecosphere or just North America. It will take some heavy lifting because the challenges are mounting worldwide. Going down the drain bickering and throwing nuclear weapons at each other while coastal cities drown and land becomes unusable because of drought and fire is a failing option. We need to show the way by setting the example, not threaten everyone with death and destruction.