Considerations

About the U.S and pertaining to "actions to be taken against perceived threats be they realistic or not."

Chalmers Johnson in a review wrote:

Another subject about which Holmes is strikingly original is the subtle way in which the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the United States' self-promotion as the sole remaining superpower clouded our vision and virtually guaranteed the catastrophe that ensued in Iraq. "Because Americans…. have sunk so much of their national treasure into a military establishment fit to deter and perhaps fight an enemy that has now disappeared," he argues, "they have an almost irresistible inclination to exaggerate the centrality of rogue states, excellent targets for military destruction, [above] the overall terrorist threat. They overestimate war (which never unfolds as expected) and underestimate diplomacy and persuasion as instruments of American power" (pp. 71-72).


http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/44019.html

Because Americans…. have sunk so much of their national treasure into a military establishment...

This also involves the same ideas I liked from Martin Luther King's speech "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" which I first read here http://demosuniverse.blogspot.com/2007/09/beyond-vietnam-martin-luther-kingbeyond.html%20
among many very useful remarks, he said,

"So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. "



I'm looking into more historical commentary on our governments policies... how they may or may not relate to some interesting trends of other nations..

the idea of bringing democracy
rogue states
persuasion and communication
are going to be built on briefly, but there is much more.