well it happened to me before that someone beat me to posting which makes it unclear to whom im replying. lets just say that me and many like me do it our way and you do it your way, and that it is not such a big deal really.

Soviet Union was always behind, it always had to rely on spying, stealing technology and spreading fear. I think it could have competed militarily with US if management was more competent - the problem was the old communists were so fearful of revolutions they didn't allow younger ones to participate so in 1980s they ran out of steam. But it couldn't have competed in many fields though - lack of freedom of individual being the main cause. They simply reached their limit while US continued to grow. And now as you say, Russia is back with KGB in power and learnt from its past mistakes. But if you consider it was still a feudal country more than 100 years ago its not that bad.

This is true, but if we go back further then the dying communists who elected Gorbachev should take the credit.

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No loyalty towards the EU.

In Russia is freedom of speech. In America is also freedom after speech. -- Yakov Smirnoff

Okay, I see, The Lying Dutchman. Peace.

By the way, notice that I reduce the quoted text to size=1 which shrinks the length of the overall post.

How about considering the USA were only born a little more than 200 years ago?

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"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" - Ulysses, James Joyce.

ok here's another;

note i even included a link to the source

nice try zzz, but you failed to address my premise;

"we are talking about the united states of amnesia, and it's empire is already in decline probably won't last my lifetime."

let alone 1000 years

Sorry,calmobserver
I have to disagree with your premise about the United States being an empire.
Wishful thinking at best.lol
Here's why America goes to war with a country knocks shit down, and then after they win spend money to build it back up, and then turn it back over to the people that started the war.
If that's not enough there's foreign aid I doubt if anybody has the real numbers but lets just say a pretty good chunk of change,and the kicker some of these countries hate the United States they burn our flags they make signs about us being wrong,ect
I'm not saying I'm a history major but I thought a conqured country would surrender it's government to an empire not ask them to rebuild and then get it back
I thought countries was supposed to pay tribute to an empire not an empire pays tribute to countries.
And the nail in the coffin so to speak any country that has a national disaster who shows up with money and suppies good old United States.
Which is all good but no EMPIRE I assure you.

You are 100% correct. I couldn't have said it better.

WE TRY,WE TRY.lol,lol

Wow where to begin.

On American being an empire:
The U.S. is an empire if not militarily then at least economically. We invade countries militarily for many reasons some noble others not. But economically our society has invaded nearly every nation. Source: The McDonaldization of Society by George Ritzer.

On Rome's relevance to America:
The founding fathers did based much on the Classics so i agree with that point.
zZz point b though: "B) America is an empire. 725 military bases in 130 foreign countries."
Wrong: The entire U.S. war effort almost came to a screeching halt over Turkey's conflict with the Kurds. American is an empire but not simply because it has bases in hundreds of countries.

And the Pax Romana? Do you know what Augustus did to establish the Pax Romana? He warred with about half the know world, evicted about almost all of the native Italian peasants from their lands because he promised his soldiers lands in Italy (adding to vast #'s of poor in Rome's cities), oh and most importantly eliminated the senate's role in the government and started a huge string of emperors to include the ever popular Nero and Caligula.

On military strategy:
Pedex is correct. We may have the strongest military in the world but...
Iraq is the biggest mistake of U.S. military politics/strategy yet. Thank god its at least a good testing ground, but we proved that in the Gulf War by testing the Maverick missile out there anyways.

On military spending:
This is what should be our main concern. I believe defense spending is critical but we waste so much money on these absolutely useless run around contractors that spend millions of dollars to pick their nose and stamp a paper. Now R&D is critical but what happened to having thousands of scientists or analysts on government payroll. We've downsized our influence over the R&D side of the game and we are losing money because of it. We have big business fighting for contracts and every inch of the way they are hiding costs. Fuck the F-35 is ready to be made but we've wasted so much time and money that just now we are coming to terms that we have to spend more money cause simple additions such as maintenance or base renovations or carrier deck protectants?! Christ you think something with a billion dollar budget could afford to spend less money on a bunch of nimrods and more time on finding intelligent human beings capable of thinking past their last breakfast. Christ we even had to buy the technology from the Brits that is now going into the "next gen fighter".

Oh and on whether the U.S. is the best military:
Yes. Sorry I forgot that was such a realization to some.