Well there's state building and there's state building. I'd argue we know more about and have been a lot more successful with the American Project at home in these borders than we have been elsewhere in the world, for that almighty taxpayer ROI. Maybe it's a grand failure on both fronts, but whom do we bear the greatest responsibility for in the long run? For the good we've been able to do in the last century, we still have a very long way to go. What moral superiority do we have to go nation building around the world with the world's largest prison population, with millions of homeless and jobless and hungry, with unending medical and student and financial debt? Just our good name and a W in the last big war? Even our own democratic designs intended to make Congress authorize wars; we're just going to forever fight proxy and shadow wars behind keyboards and with private contractors now as the last bastion of Empire, democracy or public will be damned. That all ended when we went to an all-volunteer army, the vested stake we had as a nation in our foreign military affairs.
