Editor's note: This is part III of my review and reflection upon Bennett's book on the Anglosphere. This part covers SDI, Anglosphere technical superiority as well as the Anglosphere impact on Africa.
SDI and Anglosphere Technical superiority
In 1988, I managed the campaign of then-GOP candidate Mary Ellen Lobb, who was running against Democrat incumbent Alan Wheat in Missouri’s 5th District One of the issues that we highlighted was Ronald Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative”, known in the media as Star Wars. When discussing SDI, Ms. Lobb would tell me that “we must remind the voters that within the next decade, we'll need strategic defense not just against the Soviet Empire but various Third World Regional powers such as Iran.” We would not always be in a world, separated into two armed camps led by the Soviet Union and the United States. Within a year after the election, the world that Mary Ellen Lobb foresaw became a reality. The Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire imploded. Over the past decade, we’ve seen the rise of Regional powers that threaten our own national interests-including Iran in the Middle East and possibly China in the Far East. Missile technology is no longer “high technology”, and it is spreading to rogue nations such as North Korea, making them become “superpowers” on the cheap.
In the 19th century, Great Britain was the dominant world power based on her Navy, which allowed the English to project force throughout the globe. England maintained bases on every continent to defend her status and empire. Britain’s population was relatively small, precluding a dominant standing army, and her statesmen understood that her superpower status was delicately poised. British defense plans were based on maintaining Naval superiority supplemented by continental alliances against whatever nation was threatening to dominate the European continent.
When the Hohenzollern German monarch decided to challenge British Naval hegemony, English statesmen took this as a challenge to British world dominance. Throughout the 19th century, Great Britain maintained technical superiority over all opponents, taking advantage of its industrial might as the world’s strongest and freest economy. This allowed Great Britain to maintain its military superiority.
The collapse of the British Empire after World War II ended the British dominant role in world affairs. The United States, through the Marshall Plan and the GATT system of trade, inherited England’s mantle as the defender of Western Democracy while the Soviet Empire assumed Hitler’s role as the exemplar of socialism. The Soviet Union dominated the Eurasian landmass, with the largest standing army in human history and by the time Ronald Reagan became President, the Soviet Empire stretched from the Berlin Wall to the Pacific Ocean, with satellite nations on every inhabited continent, including North Vietnam, Angola, Ethiopia, Cuba and Nicaragua. The threat was real.
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