If you go back to your original post, your thesis seemed to be--and correct me if I misread it--that an intelligent and benevolent nation could simply assume a non-aggressive defensive posture by projecting the image of overpowering force, and that aggressors would somehow realize that they had nothing to gain by attacking.

You're ascribing a cartoonish straw man interpretation to what I said. A little logic would tell you that the projected posture can't be non-agressive, but nor can it be aggressive. Rather, what works is to project the willingness to be aggressive when circumstances require it. "Speak softly, but carry a big stick" is correct; but since Bush can apparently hold only one thought in his head at a time, he remembered only the second part of that observation.

With all due respect, you seem to suffer from some of that yourself. I observed that interdependence and cooperative action on the international stage were novel features of the 20th Century, and you responded by citing several examples of just that as if to rebut what I said. A common thread is that when America works with other nations we often succeed at our common goals; but when America acts unilaterally, we've often come to grief. The crowded and interconnected world that emerged in the last century has a built-in bias that rewards cooperation and punishes aggression.

A couple of your comments reveal more about the Conservative worldview than about objective reality. Take "It is the arrogance typical of the left that insists that it stands at the peak of history." The imagery of a peak is part of the Conservative canon, not the Liberal canon with, at its edges, concepts such as "the dialectic of history", and in its mainstream the view that the curve of history is generally upward. It's Conservatives who tend to believe that we're perennially at the peak, and that it's all downhill from there.

"Crazy people will not be deterred." reflects the Conservative tendency to ascribe insanity to all who disagree with you. It's a huge blind spot, because it's a truism of human nature that all people have an internal logic to what they do, even if you can't see it. An alien point of view isn't insane just because it's alien. In practical strategic terms, an inability to understand an enemy's way of thinking is a terrible handicap, because it prevents being able to predict what the enemy will do and come up with effective countermeasures. It puts you always in the position of reacting to the enemy's moves, instead of planning ahead to counter those moves. That blind spot cedes the initiative to the enemy.

A truly insane person could not communicate that internal logic to the outside world. Yet, Osama bin Laden has published his manifesto, and while we may disagree rather violently with it, it does refect a point of view that makes sense from his side of the table. For example, we need their oil and feel we have the moral authority to demand the kind of Western stability in the Middle East that will guarantee that it continues to flow. But it's not insane for an Arab to feel exploited, nor to want to remain true to a religion whose basic tenets of obedience to religious authority over secular authority are incompatible with our tenets of democracy and self-determination. The merits of each position aren't the point; the point is that it's not insane to hold a belief different from our own.

Recognizing that is the first step to dealing realistically with the world. You can't deal with the demons of your imagining, you can only flail around blindly or run away; but you can face real people and deal with their real actions.