Obviously, no one else in the world could suppose that we’d exert ourselves to maintain the level international stability established in the Post WWII era in areas of the world. We’d abandoned our ally from the Second World War, a vibrant democracy, a country with which we shared extensive commercial, cultural, and familial ties.

It is necessary for our well-being to prevent the arms races,, the pre-emptive warring, and the pretenders to regional dominance that would spring up immediately? Plainly.

The quasi-guarantee to Taiwan is a perfect example of the sort of unnecessary role I’m opposing. Of course the President need not make any announcement that the U.S. will not lift a finger. You don’t have to give away strategic ambiguity with respect to important trading partners to stop maintaining an outdated military presence in the rest of East Asia. This is not a case of dogmatism, but of stressing the American interest first and foremost.

Defending the liberty of millions of Taiwanese hasn’t cost many American lives and has delivered very good value for very little money. It’s probably even more than paid for itself in trade.

The same story is true of many (admittedly not all) US commitments elsewhere in the world. The danger lies with rigid dogmatism (both imperialist and isolationist) which stubbornly diverges from prudential reality.

Especially limited, given the 9+ trillion national debt, the $400 billion fiscal defecit, and the current trade deficit. Our “resources” to uphold this erstwhile Pax Americana are funded by foreign countries and investors.

“. It’s very irritating how they are so accustomed and comfortable with the un-challenged deployment of euphamisms like “national/strategic/regional interests”, without ever being compelled to explain what they mean, and why what they mean is worth Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s taxdollars and the lives of their children.”

That is put as perfectly as I have ever seen it. The alleged benefits of this hegemony are simply assumed, never articulated.

In addition to questioning how “ruling the world” actually benefits Americans besides swelling nationalist pride as a vicarious substitute for self-esteem, It’s also important to note the possible opportunity costs of being the world’s policeman, not only against the national security implications of NOT being the world’s policeman, but against how all those resources sucked into the Military Industrial Complex might be put to more productive use–use which may do far more to benefit Americans and humankind.

Arguments for American hegemony always come down to zero-sum arguments against other country’s potential hegemony. “If we don’t dominate them, they’ll dominate us!” Its the Cold War mindset, and is unlikely to dissapear at least as long as the Cold Warriors still run the show. Personally, I’d favor a USA that acted more like Switzerland–let China or Russia undertake the enormous self-destructive burden of empire. They’re unlikely to be more successful than us at “stablizing” the world at tremendous cost to their economies and political systems.

Finally, there should be some cosmic dictate that demands all advocates of interventionism sacrifice half their earned income and their first born child to the front lines of whatever violent cause they support. Leave the rest of us the hell alone.

The number of ongoing conflicts has declined since shortly after the end of the Cold War and the severity of armed conflict has generally declied since World War II. This fact sharply contradicts many pessimistic perspectives bolstered by media headlines from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur. Research conducted by the Centre for the Study of Civil War at PRIO, using the most recently updated data collected in collaboration with the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University, indicates a more complex situation, with both reassuring and disturbing trends.

This report serves as a background paper for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ programme, Refleks,Globalisation and national interests. We focus here on global trends in armed conflict with special emphasis on civil conflict, since it is the most common form of armed conflict.