The last page of this thread seemed most reasonable until Skippy posted his anti-US propaganda:
given the US' historic tendency to make use of nuclear weapons if they feel they have to
Seems to me pretty obvious the US has no tendency to make use of nuclear weapons given they have not used them for more than 6 decades and lost several wars in that time.
Churchill's concern was about war as the result of nationalistic tensions, and ideological conflicts such as what caused WWII. The prime motivator of that was was certainly fears that communism would spread by force through Europe. Germany was one of the block nations that armed specifically to create containment, and once it was armed it decided for various reasons to go to war. We have not had conditions like this since WWII so we have not had such a war. If anything, the fall of the Soviet republic, the acceptance of socialism throughout most of Europe and a complete unwillingness to go to war since WWII has characterized the European nations. This is indeed why French Presidents have the gaul to instruct American Presidents publically about how they ought to respond to having their buildings burned and people murdered--because the Europeans generally believe themselves above ideological conflicts inflamed by things like nationalistic tension. Good for them. It's a shame they're so arrogant when it comes to judging themselves as opposed to others and as we've seen, it is indeed the Europeans who will push for war over oil--blood for oil as in Libya--and then carry spineless American presidents who care too much for their image overseas, along for the ride.
Does anyone think all the killing in Libya did more than secure Europe's oil and who is going to pay us for all those cruise missiles?
There is little likelihood we'll ever see a war like WWII again. The conditions do not exist to give rise to it and have not since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Instead, the Pentagon only prepares for "asymetric" conflicts. If the US were to go to war in the next decade, and I mean a real war, not some military intervention in an Arab Spring state; then this would likely come from use of a nuclear weapon by a bunch of religious nuts such as in Iran. While it's possible Iran will force someone's hand as they continue on with their weapons development, it's just as likely that the nations of the world will never use military force and we'll see a nuclear armed bunch of whackos sometime soon. When that happens, it will be specifically because the US has not used nuclear weapons for all these decades, and most believe will never again, that these insane Mullah's will strike against Israel, and the US will have to decide if it really is the protector it pretends to be.
Skippy is an anti-US propagandist, but we already knew that.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
