You’ve uncovered the TRUTH, scotandrsn. I am [ul]
[li]The head of the Illuminati (I even understand the 17/23 correlation)[/li][li]The gnome of Zurich[/li][li]The secret master of Fandom[/li][li]The walrus, goo-goo-g’joob![/li][/ul]
For years, I’ve been plotting for the US to set up a military dictatorship with myself at the head. The world was my chessboard and at my whim countries rose and nations fell. When I set my puppet US government up as military masters of the world, I was planning on offering some of the more agreeable Dopers positions as toadies, lackies, bootlickers and whatnot.
Now?
Not so much.
Instead, for your impertinence, I’m going to have the entire USMC go on manouvers in your back yard. Just to piss you off and just because I can.
Fenris, Supreme-Ultra-Grand-Master of the Secret Illuminated Order of the Sons of the Golden Dawn
Absolutely, the aims are the same, but when the Brits were doing it, it wasn’t even particularly necessary to disguise it, as that was what all Western nations did to the best of their ability, and the rest of the world’s opinion mattered even less. Also, whilst the UK was around 1880 the strongest military and economic power in the world, the gap with the next contender (France, Germany, probably not yet the USA) was a lot smaller than it is now between the USA and whoever is in second place (economically the EU, militarily the comparison serves no purpose).
However, all empires suffer from the same shortcoming: the payoff is more or less constant warfare around the margins. For the Macedonians it was in Central Asia (funnilly enough in Afghanistan), for the Romans it was Germany, Dacia, the Middle-East, for the British, Afghanistan again, and coincidentally the Middle-East, and Burma, Malaysia, etc.
And the US is now engaged in a never-ending series of wars and skirmishes around… the Middle-East, Afghanistam, South-East Asis (North Korea). Bloody hell, you would think that people would learn after all this time.