re:Imperialism
The French and the British were very much using the same kind of arrogant arguments, a little less than a century ago and it lead them to the loss of their respective empires.
I've heard from 2 radically different sources the same kind of thing:
The US is building itself up through war. the EU is building itself up through peace.
Isn't it fantastic? Former arrogant empiralistic colonial countries waging wars after wars against each other, losing their colonies even though they won their wars, re-uniting to construct a common future!
Raoul