Correction: Julian Assange has been motivated by lack of choice

One very important point to clarify: contrary to what many people believe or want to believe, Bradly Manning and Julian Assange and his supporters in Wikileaks decided to publish all the US diplomatic materials about war in Iraq and Afghanistan NOT because his stance is radically anarchistic or because he want to overturn all governments at once, but because he didn't see any other choice within the existing very obsolete and next to absolutely ineffective system of democratic control over what governments are up to on the international arena. That is the problem. Wikileaks 'bomb' is not a product of some super-radical beliefs, but a mere symptom, a sublimation of the objective force of people's desire to know and control what their 'big brother' does after there has been accumulated an unprecedented corpus of evidence that what the governments do internationally is more often than not goes DEAD AGAINST the interests and lives of their citizens. Wikileaks has just played the role of a safety valve, the last circle of defense. IF the government of the US had started before a comprehensive and deep reform of the control mechanisms, it's quite possible there would never have been such dramatic revelations and leakages. Just there comes a time where there's no choice left, because governments of so called democratic countries just legalize the secrecy of any of their action and the secrecy and unaccountability for their actions. They grant themselves virtually with total immunity, which means in practice impunity.
Democracy MUST BE DEMOCRATIC, not democratish like in the US!! And that means not parliaments, not elections once per 4 years, not some media that may criticize something, not changes of government from time to time once per 4 years, but it means REAL AND EFFECTIVE TOOLS AND MECHANISMS OF CONTROL BY THE CITIZENS OVER THEIR GOVERNMENTS ON ANY FRONT ranging from any negotiation and any candy bought from or sold to another country, and to the last piece of paper the government officials use to wipe themselves!
Wikileaks in this sense is an NATURAL phenomenon. It is not the Wikileaks project that became a major problem for some Western governments, but it is a huge pile of problems accumulated and publicly realized during decades that have lead to Wikileaks 'disruption' in the end in the atmosphere of total reluctance on the part of governments to leave at last the 20th century and move into the 21th.

Why do people want to become soldiers and kill?

'Why do people want to become soldiers and kill?' - this was one of the question I had to answer in one of the public 'ask a question' projects. I see quite fit to double my answer in the blog.

They do it first of all because in their 20s (at their young age) they are still very poorly educated about the history of their country, of the whole world, about politics and about human life in general. Politicians (who are educated very well) actively exploit this circumstance, and paint a good attractive 'heroic' picture for those fledglings, alluring them into the army, promising a worthy cause for their life and all that.
Mind you, they themselves (politicians) don't go to the war oh no, and not because they are too old too weak, but because they value their lives, only the young children of the nation who don't have enough education to fully understand the value of life (their own and life in general) - they are directed by their 'parents' in power to fight wars.
But it's not all about this simple mechanics. After you have served several years in active war zone and killed some 'enemy', even despite all those horrors of war, psychologically it gets much harder for you just to confess to yourself that you made a mistake and walked into a trap set by your own government. It's very hard for a man (especially young one) to recognize that he killed several people 'just for nothing', that he killed people incorrectly, because it's a huge psychological pressure for one to recognize that he, though by mistake and by fault of the government, voluntarily killed people in other part of the world. Very few people are capable of acknowledging this hard truth to themselves and quite army and begin a real war for peace. More often than not governments are successful in setting the guys and girls on the 'crooked path' cause most of them after serving and killing have only one easy way-out: to convince themselves that those killings were right, that they served the right cause and helped their country etc, and, as a result, stay further in army and continue to kill.
In this sense governments apply a very old but effective technology of converting children into inveterate and irreparable killers and feeding them into the mincer of war, latter those guys and girls (who could have become good doctors lawyers, rights activists etc etc) return into the civil life and themselves become active 'carriers of mental infection' convincing others about the bliss of being a soldier and helping the government to get new 'meet' for its war games. The main trick is to force or con an uneducated young man into doing something so bad, that latter he would not have the psychological power to recognize it. So the main thing for a soldier is to learn to feel that he is always right, and that morality of his actions is regulated solely by his government (or commander). If the Counsel responsible for the Nobel Prize really wants to meet the declared conditions and aims of the Award, it must establish a special Nobel Prize Squared for the people like Bradly Manning or Julian Assange, because, de-facto, so far nobody's come even close to the record of war-mongering and mass murder as national governments, and those, who at the expense of their entire life, like the young Bradly, in good conscience tell the whole world about the true deeds, intentions and face of the governments, are the bravest and the most selfless and sacrificing heroes, let alone the most effective one in the way of actual advance of piece on our poor raped Planet.

See also:

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CVRWNP6MUFXGNDQJ…

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CVRWNP6MUFXGNDQJ…

Bahrain, Yemen: just another litmus test to reveal the ethical crisis in the US foreign policy

Situation in Bahrain and Yemen is just another excellent litmus of the US loyalty to its own declared principles and values of Democracy, of its choice between true values and so called 'interests' - a buzzword (belonging to the second-class demagogic vocabulary of the 20th century) that has lately begun producing a nauseating feeling in many educated people at the mere mention of it.
While America and the rest of the West are procrastinating over the nauseating red-herring of 'no-fly zone', only to do absolutely nothing of the pile of things they could and should have done many weeks ago to help the people of Libya, the situation around Bahrain government trying to kill and violently suppress its own people has reached an unprecedented scale and degree of cynicism. Authorities asked and let in a huge corpus of military force from a foreign country to help them to shoot and cripple their own people!! Unbelievable indeed! One country not only kills and beats its own people, but help another government to help with some extra butchers in order to more successfully and reliably dispose of the demonstrators! That's 21th century indeed! In Yemen protesters are killed by their dozens by the government's force in the form of special services and military. They open fire on their civilians in Yemen without any qualms and scruples. But Yemen too, to great disappointment and horror of Yemeni people, is a country of 'the special strategic interest' to the US!
And what could we hear from the US on this score? Just: 'Please, show respect to your citizens'. Respect indeed... 'Tut-tut', - said the US to Bahrain bloody butchers, wagging its finger.. Even Caddafi, whom the US exhorted to leave and accused of criminal actions against his own people several days ago, was not as directly unprincipled and defiant a butcher as to ask OFFICIALLY a FOREIGN COUNTRY to help him to kill its people to retain their freedom in his fist. I wonder: what would the US say if Cuba, whose 11 m people (not leadership by any means) have been tortured by the US sanctions for decades, had openly and officially invited foreign troops to help to beat and kill people and defend the regime? But of course, let's not forget, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (the latter is the biggest financier of terrorist activity against the US itself) are.. of course 'strategic interests'! All in all, those absolutely terrifying and unlimited in their cynical cruelty events in Bahrain have been just PASSED OVER by the West in general and by the US in particular. They have been passed over regardless of the fact that they have evolved in full view of the amused public 'in broad daylight' for several weeks on end now, and came to something that would constitute a new personal record even for such a miraculously anti-human maniac as colonel Caddafi.
Just another of the recent glaring examples of the huge, unbridgeable and unconcealed chasm between the American values and the American interests, the American words and the Americans deeds, the American external political declarations and intentions. Does the US fight socialism (or protect capitalism) or does it defend democracy? Does it fight religious extremism or does it defend its oil interests? Does it fight against real criminals guilty of genocide against their own people, or does it protect 'special interests' and special rights of special countries like Israel? Does the US government political establishment fight to protect their own interests and interests of some other special countries at the expense of the American people or does it fight to defend the real interests of the nation? Does the US fight to provide a good pension, dividends and cloudless future for some bloody adventurists like Chaney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld etc, or does it fight to insure that those conscientious people of the young generation get more hope and less disappointment and that there is less need of such selfless desperate figures like Bradly Manning in order to tear the fiendish veil behind which the US Government with 120% guarantee can hide any true motives and crimes against the true interests of the American people as well as other nations without a single mechanism of democratic control on this front.
Just one more blow to already totally destroyed moral reputation. The continuing megacrisis of zero ethical credibility of the US in its foreign policy has just reached a point where there is no avoiding big decision and real changes (promised by Obama, but unfulfilled so far because of huge accumulation of a huge amount of 'historical junk of unprincipled and morally irresponsible actions'). This is just an additional note to what's been said earlier:
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-must-decide-whether-to-support-its.html
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/america-refused-to-teach-arabs.html
http://dr-world.blogspot.com/2011/03/west-re-lybia-seems-intentionally-slow.html

America refused to teach Arabs democracy, then Arabs will teach the US democracy!

During all the second half of the 20th century not only did America support the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East but actually nourished them, financed them and protected them, because, so called 'national interests' (special label under which governments tend to guise governmental and political interests) as ever topped the values and principles, despite the fact that there's no 'special interests' in the American constitution and those ethical values and philosophical visions that had been established by the Fathers-founders of the country and of the nation. To put it simply the US has been absolutely unscrupulous and unprincipled in its opportunistic and often extremely cynical foreign policies and has shitted on its own declared moral principles and values like no one else - those moral principles, which are really extra precious and universal, which, without being taken hostage, really could become 'the weapon of mass instruction' if the US had been firm in following them. All of these bitter truths are no secrete: they have been many times recognized in full and openly at the highest political level, e.g. by Secretary Rice (http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2008/September/20080918155132eaifas0.4152033.html) and others.
Yes, over the Cold War era it was much easier to mask political and governmental interests and unscrupulousness, substituting and passing them off for 'national interests' - this art and mastery of the fraudulent substitution the US adopted from Russia in less then no time. The paradigm 'ends justify means' became an integral part of everything done by the US, though historically and culturally it had never been inherent in the nation's politics before. But what's even worse in this situation is that: AFTER the Cold War had ended the US didn't bother to change anything in this sense. Just business as usual.
The direct and understandable result of this has been such a huge, truly ASTRONOMICAL loss of any moral authority of the US and all that that country is preaching - especially after the Iraq war and open support of Caddafi regime in 2000s - that even after the coming to power of such a humanist and intellectual as Obama, the real capacity of America to do something good in terms of protecting democratic values and human rights (on the rare occasions when it really became necessary) turns out to be close to ZERO! America do need to restore at least partially the 'store of credit' that it used to command far in the past, but never will the US be able to do so before open, honest and whole-hearted recognition, if not contrition, of its own betrayal of its own values. The US needs some serious sole-searching, self-reflection, contrition and renouncement once and for all of the methods and demagogic techniques it largely used in the past.
There are natural processes and natural aspirations to democracy in the world, and if the US continues to work against them for the sake of.. 'special interests', then, in the end it will be America, not those countries, who falls behind. America does need to solve this arguably the biggest moral and ethical crisis - accumulated crises - in its entire history!
If America refuses to help Arabs to win democracy, than Arabs will teach Americans about democracy and the real responsibility of the government and political elites.
If the American government doesn't develop democracy in controlling its own action beyond the borders of the country, than Bradly Manning and Julian Assange (and many many other 'usual people' who happens to be 1000 times more honest and conscientious than the so called elites) will develop it in their own good way without being given any choice from above. But the second way - to wait until someone else teach the US about its own democratic values - will be the most painful, stupid and humiliating. Is there any point in just waiting till the eggs teach the hen? Isn't the time ripe for the US for a big review of foreign policy ethics and straightening-out?

The US must decide whether to support it's "interests" or its "values"

Spokesman of the State Dept retired, because he convicted Pentagon of stupidity and lack of humanity in treating Bradly Manning - Wikileaks Man. Because this spokesman was guided by his conscience and real moral principles: that's the Darwinism of the US: honest people retire or fired, Hilarie Clinton and Rumsfeld, Volfovits or Chaney stay and get promotion! That's the main ethical and in the end therefore political crisis. Bush and Chaney after having added thousands of killed American boys and girls in uniform to the 'trophy bag' of terrorists, are on good State pension and have dividends from their companies from exclusive activities in Iraq, and people like Bradly, who in good conscience reveals truth to the American people and the rest of the World about their governments, trying to prevent in future such absurdly senseless, illegitimate and freak wars, is tortured in solitary confinement. That's the moral equation of the American politics. That's the gist of the deepest crisis ever. Obama confronts the unavoidable choice: who and what is right and good and and who and what is wrong and bad. There is a very clear distinction crystallized between so called 'external interests' of the US Government and its structures, and NATIONAL interests, that is the interests of the American people. Never ever in the whole history of the US have those two notions been further from each other and more mutually exclusive. Political America must decide who reflects her real values and interests - interests of her people - villains like Chaney or Rumsfeld or Volfovits, or people like Bradly and that spokesman. The so called 'state secrets' and 'external state interests' fundamentally DON"T REFLECT any interests of the American people - that's the essence of the moral crisis.
Problem around Libya, which has been supported and rehabilitated by the US and the whole of the West in the recent past, is just one more manifestation - a fault line - of the very same HUGE moral crisis. "Interests" were prioritized as ever over and in conflict with the declared values. Now it's come a moment when it is no longer possible to reconcile those two, and continue assert that black is white and white is black. American political establishment must make a revolution inside itself and recognize its immoral approaches of the past and crimes. Only then the US could again, with time, gain any reputation as a protector of any special values. The US, as it is, has just turned its own declared moral values into 'a slave-girl' into a 'surf-prostitute' which is used as need arises, like a plug for any whole in so called 'INTERESTS'. I don't know about any interests in the Constitution of the US. Unprecedented moral degradation and degeneration of the morality and ethics of the US policy, especially the foreign one!

The West re Lybia seems intentionally slow and utterly hypocritical!

Everything done by the West at present seems intentionally as slow and as practically ineffective as possible - just saving the face and making a show.
The help should have been provided immediately. Now the US are trying to allude to Iraqi experience - good one. But no one's asking the US to do a direct military invasion. The first things to help are obviously these and some others: 1) absolute blockade of any potential weaponry and mercenary supplies to Tripoli by sea (should have been done weeks ago) 2) facilitation of and, if need be, help with the supply of foods and basic goods to the won territories 3) necessary financial help 4) CONSULTING HELP (!!) for rebels - advise by a bunch of specialist in the fields such as effective administrative maintaining of the captured territory, logistics, effective creation of the chain of command, creation of power leadership, the right way of winning hearts and minds and retaining civil population on their side, sharing some of intelligence information about Cadafi moves etc etc. First thing the rebels need is not direct military invasion as in Iraq, but BRAIN HELP AND EXPERTISE - that's what they need from the West apart from words of formal support. Also some special non-military equipment. And anybody understands, that the West could have really helped very much to Libyan people without any military intervention - very many things that could have and should have been done long ago, but that have not been done. One more evidence for me of an unbelievably cynical position and pretense of the West, especially the US, in its relationship with cruel dictatorial regimes. Everyone knew more than 40 years who Cadafi was - no secret. But just at the same time as a court trial was going on of Sadam Husein, Muamar Cadafi was increasingly saluted and accepted by the West. No only the West has been ever more involved in trading and business investment in Lybia, but, what is the most important for me, the West started shook hands, GIVE HUGS to Cadafi, invite this 'cannibalistic' Cadafi to some special festive events as a guest of honor. No substantial difference between Cadafi and Hussein - no secret! Only one phrase is in my head when I observe the way the West and the US in particular are treating various regimes: unprincipled SELF-INTEREST and HYPOCRISY! Shame!
If nothing is changed, there will soon come a time when not a single word from the West is taken seriously by anybody in moral aspect after this unending string of hypocritical lies and utter commercialization of the most profound values and principles on which the very US and other Western countries were built in the past. Shame!

Is nationalism really worth anything real?

What is the nature of nationalism? What's objective and what is subjective part of it?
Very deep, old, and so far under-resolved question continuing to occupy the minds of intellectuals and scientific world. There is a heck of a lot of books and theories made on this theme.

In my humble opinion, It's a sort of religion, psychological phenomenon, the end result of which is a mass identity replacement. Many people do have a 'damaged identity' and the morbid anxieties related thereto. But when those people unify themselves under the flag of some similarities (even if those similarities are completely ephemeral) they feel some kind of relief of the pain, created by the identity vacuum. It like a club of people who were born on Monday and who pride themselves on this fact, ascribing to Monday some 'special' even mystical (religious) qualities.
The anger and potential war (in broad sense: war of words, war of trade, military war in extreme cases) with those belonging to 'other world' is one more way to vent the identity deficit anxiety. As with all self-fulfilling forecasts, the state of war with 'bad others' allegedly threatening their special national belonging, is, in the eyes of nationalists, one more evidence that they are really 'special and different', and, hence, do have a fairly firm identity. All of this doesn't mean, that the degree and activity of nationalism cannot be controlled or 'activated'. There are more and less acute forms, and even 'sleeping nationalism'
Historically, nationalism began really strong and really felt only from the end of 18th - beginning of 19th century. Then the Governments got the real power over their nation-states and learned how to exploit and even create this identity-crisis. Nationalism became a weapon of mass destruction, a perfect masterpiece of demagogy - super-duper socio-psychological medication, allowing Governments to hold power and to gain those ends, which before they could have gained only with the help of the direct force against their own peoples.
So nationalism in the shape we know it now was to a large degree an invention, a lever developed, improved and 'polished' by the political power after the nation states were created and the means of controlled mass communication and broadcasting were developed. So now we more often than not deal with an artificially induced 'boosted' nationalism (in overdrive mode), 'genetically modified nationalism'.
But the fundamental causes of it lie in the identity crisis and the venting of the relevant anxieties and psychological pain.
Do I believe in the reality of such a notion as a cultural nations? Emphatically NOW - in my judgment not only is it a myth but also a very dangerous one. I don't believe in nationality of culture or in 'national cultures', but, on balance, I do belief in cultured nations! Political nations which are for some or other reasons are less or more culturally advanced and capable of further progress - reasons having nothing at all to do with nationality as such. I also believe in cultural barriers the true causes of which having nothing to do with nationality too, as well as in the universal possibility of overcoming those barriers and making initially immiscible and critically antagonistic cultures compatible and able to be parts of one common and larger culture (diverse but not self-contradictory in itself, with a common universal ethical and aesthetic foundation)

Spike in oil price will batter China much more than Western economies

The latest revolutionary events in the Middle East in general and in Libya in particular have already lead to a sharp rise in oil price, raising the bar above the key level of $100 per bbl just in a matter of days. But many analysts are now warning about a further increase which could bring the whole situation to a third oil shock in the event things take a turn for the worse. Some of experts are already anticipating a new astronomical target of $220 per bbl.
In my judgment even so sharp a spike in oil prices in the near future would hit China and some other industrializing economies by far the worst. Of course, $220 per bbl would be no birthday gift for Western developed economies, but it would be an 'apocalypse now' either - nothing even mildly comparable with the oil crisis 1973.
Pundits in their gloomy forecasts are pointing to 1) extra inflationary pressure associated with the corresponding oil price jump and 2) the fragile post crises period of recovery in the West which still continues down a bumpy road, slowly and painfully making its way through a jobless phase. They are also pointing out the fact that Western governments up to now have spent all their special stimulus packages, so there is little one can do in terms of extra emergency measures.
But, I don't think it's all doom and gloom. In the US inflation is still very low due to still low demand - structurally low demand. While a sharp increase in oil prices will draw discontent of the American consumer and rise the costs of the American producer and trader, the overall consumer price hike will be much less than many would expect. The problems of Western economies are structural in character including the tenacious joblessness and sluggish demand. On the other hand productivity continues to rise despite already very high oil prices and rather sharp dynamics of their growth in the recent past in the recent past. Oil does seem to take a very small part of the added value created in the wealthy economies of the West now.
On the other hand every cloud has a silver lining: in case of a major oil price spike, the positive processes of transition to a greener, less oil-dependent economy due to investment in new technology in the West will gain extra momentum and urgency. The world is close to the energy revolution as it is, and any lack of urgency and political will here is going to be eliminated by another oil crisis. Additional redistribution of cash flow into the alternative energy sources industry would come in handy indeed in case of oil crisis.

On the other hand China have already started testing long term sustainability of its industrialization model. Before the Middle East events inflation in China had already reached rather dangerous levels and continue to rise. The part of oil and other raw materials expenses in the creation of the Chinese GDP is already huge and the pain threshold is not so very far. I am sure, that the biggest danger that potential 'oil shock' presents to China, whose export dependent, heavily subsidized and energy extremely ineffective economy would be dealt a hefty blow and lose much of its competitiveness. Consumer demand in China also depends incomparably more on the price oil and other raw materials than that of Western economies.
For China an oil shock would be a real test and a real shock. How China will be able to handle it remains to be seen.
And last but not least, quite contrary to what many sages like to foretell, I am sure, that an economic crisis in China would do much more good than harm for the global economy in general and for the Western economies in particular in that it would make the long awaited and much talked-about 'rebalancing' of trade, monetary and investment unbalances, much closer and realer. Contrary to what is thought by many experts I am sure, that at this point quasi-market China does more damage than good to the developed economies and to the whole global economy in general, in effect parasitically "stealing" from other really market economies growth (including her closest neighbors).
Having said that, I still think that the current jump in oil price is more a reflection of speculators' grip on commodities market and their wish to bull and capitalize on the moment, than of real fundamental problems of an inadequate supply.

The West should have reacted much earlier and stronger to Lybia events

The Western community MUST do more, not just express their 'concern' or 'amaze', or to say, like Obama did, how 'indecent' it is to kill civil population on mass (such a naughty boy this Cadafi). Freeze freeze freeze any assets of the regime bloody kleptocrats and at least in the strongest terms possible give give and give moral promises all the democratic forces who at the expense of their lives now try to dethrone the bloody usurpers. They must be sure that the West will help them at least after the overturn of the regime in terms of establishing new and fundamentally better relationship. Moral support from the outside world is now the most important thing, because it gives an additional amount of confidence to the liberators. The West at the first signs of violence should have taken the hardest position possible and express its attitude and support for democratic forces in Libya (...as well as in other Middle East countries for that matter) in the strongest terms possible, and it's shame that Obama pronounced any words only a weak after the start of the events.
All in all the West in general and the US in particular have demonstrated rather lukewarm support and taken a unacceptably soft and formal position. Nothing surprising, however, if one remembers that the US to the this day for the sake of Israel and themselves have not only tolerated but actually supported a whole bunch of dictators in the Middle East - the way things continued to stand even when any objective necessity for such support expired. As ever the West put its political interests and dubious friendship far above the much touted fundamental values of democracy - so much so that it actually put a break on the natural democratization processes in the Middle East (e.d. there are reasonable grounds to suspect that democracy in the Middle East would have advanced much further up to date but for the actual policy of the US in this region). One more landmark in the continued process of ideological discrediting of the West in the recent history. One more piece of evidence for developing countries to suspect that in reality democracies are not interested in promoting democracy in the rest of the world at all... Is it not time for the Western Powers at last to learn their lessons?! Hey, there's no Cold War any more and it's all long over with all the excuses belonging to it. The systematic continuous loss of principles and credibility of the West (in exchange of oil or gas or benefits of trade and corporate business) has already did a hardly estimable damage to the democratic countries.

A couple of words about the US wars in Vietnam and Korea

Unfortunately there are still many Americans who prefer talking about Vietnam war in terms of counter-factual history and in terms of 'ifs and woulds' - 'if we won then this and that then we would...'. Korean war still continues to be used as a kind of positive example and justification of other things, which otherwise look ugly, feel ugly, sound ugly... because they are ugly.
Among the recent typical questions on this topic I tried to reply to was the following: 'If we had won the Vietnam war, do you think Vietnam would be like South Korea? In other words...very developed, technologically advanced, awesome, etc? Such a shame the North was so brainwashed, and such a shame we were so afraid of communism'
Here I considered it my duty to publish my answer to this and many other similar questions (or conditional assumptions):
In other words, would there be two Vietnams, one of which would live more or less well and free, and in another one people would die in their millions like in North Korea because of starvation and state repressions and whose militarism - like that of North Korea - latter would strike terror into all other countries and peoples in the region sapping their resources up to this day? Interesting question.
I would say no, because Vietnamese type of civil was unlike Korean to my mind is not winnable in full. Korean war was a political war organized "from top" and controlled from center by 'official' political forces. In this respect it was not truly 'civil', rather too governments tried to carve up the country and nation for a number of reasons. But in case of Vietnam, at some stage the war became truly civil in the sense that it was organized 'from bottom', external American forces and their presence became absolutely illegitimate in the eyes of a critically huge proportion of population, and the practical methods the US allowed itself to use only too well served the purpose shifting the war irreversibly from ideological plane (in which it was wrongly represented in the American media) into nationalistic plane - one nation invades another and in reality fights with its people. The war was unwinnable in ideological and political sense.
Even if one assumes that some kind of purely military 'magic' success could allow the US to recapture the whole territory and even formally hand over a sort of political control to some kind of Vietnamese government, the war wouldn't have stopped and this political control would have existed more on paper than in reality. The war would have gone to a kind of smoldering phase, and returned in its full bloody strength to a full fledged state just as American military presence had been wound down.
There's no if, cos this war at a very early stage was lost both ideologically and politically. Power is not everything.
About South Korea: in place of many Americans I wouldn't be too much proud of this achievement. While fully recognizing the well-being of S Korea, it is worth remembering that the relative success of this half of the nation has been built on the bones and flesh of millions upon millions upon millions of killed people of the other half of the nation. The problem is still there, and now the whole region is a victim of Korean military and nuclear blackmail. America is also negatively affected. Communist totalitarian regimes could be veeery different in terms of their detrimental effect. Cuba is one thing, and North Korea absolutely another story. But it was the war and the division of the nation that would have predetermined North Korean regime as being in future the bloodiest and most dangerous on earth as well as most isolated and stable among all others much softer communist autocracies. Also let's not forget those millions of lives that were claimed by the Korean war, supported actively on the Western side by the US. The memory of this played and continues to play in the hand of Korean regime.
I know Americans like to claim rewards for their Korean involvement but at the same time they are not that much willing to recognize their responsibility for another 'gift' they at least partially were involved in making to the Korean people and the rest of the world - North Korea.
This again raises the question about the methods and successes of the US in the Cold War, which, to be frank, in reality was not so much about communism against capitalism, as about Russian militaristic and political aggression and 'influence' (in the guise of communism). Unfortunately it was Russia who partially taught America her ugly methods and her intrinsic cruel cynicism - not the other way around. Russia remained what she has always been - the land of terror, but the US became much more 'Russian' in its ways, habits and judgments, and this is, I think, a true shame. Shame for a great nation which before the end of World War II historically had been a very wise and pacifist nation, none the weaker for its pacifism. A nation which could produce such intellectual and political giants like Franco Delano Roosevelt, a nation that because of the Cold War mentality - ends justify the means - was in the end intellectually reduced to such a condition, that would become possible to elect people like Bush and Chaney. That's a shame, and this is a mental legacy of all those wars in the past. I could only imagine what would the late Roosevelt, or other American intellectual politicians of the past for that matter have said about all these Cold War mental transformations of the US. That's a shame. Trade blockade of the minuscule and non-dangerous nation of Cuba - that's a shame! And the last two wars, which are direct result of 'Cold War mental national degradation' - that's a shame. When a former intellectual giant behaves like a petty militaristic dwarf - that's a shame!
Let there be no mistake and misunderstanding, I believe in America and I am sure that the new generations of American people and politicians are already starting to 'recover' this great nation back on the normal trajectory - pacifist intellectuals of the 21th century like Obama. But it is precisely my worries and my wish of good to this country that forces me to criticize and deplore its inordinate mistakes and some times criminal mistakes of the second part of the 20th century and the first decade of  the new one. Of course the context of the Cold War helps us to understand many of those mistakes, but not justify.
I am myself Canadian but I love the US and what is more I believe in its good-protecting and good-creating potential, but the US will not be able to move forward into the 21th century if American people won't learn to recognize the national mistakes. And it's difficult, very difficult to recognize national historical mistakes bordering on crimes against your own and other peoples. It's very difficult to recognize that the state sent to death tens of thousands of American girls and boys to death under the grandiose and blissful slogans of help to the nations that would actually have been ravaged or even split as a result of those messianic lies. Moreover, all of what I say here, now is increasingly recognized by American top politicians themselves. Let's deal with the history honestly, draw the lessons, get wise again, and start moving mentally and culturally into the new century, into the century of peace and Enlightenment, not of war and cheap militaristic Messianic. Into the age of Christian values according to Christ and not according to Bush, Islamic values according to Muhammad and not according to Bin Laden, etc. Let's grow up, cos the mental and political health of America is a critical condition for the piece in the whole world.

About nationalism

What is nationalism? What is the nature of nationalism? What's objective and what is subjective part of it?
Very deep, old, and so far under-resolved question continuing to occupy the minds of intellectuals and scientific world. There is a heck of a lot of books and theories made on this theme.

In my humble opinion, It's a sort of religion, psychological phenomenon, the end result of which is a mass identity replacement. Many people do have a 'damaged identity' and the morbid anxieties related thereto. But when those people unify themselves under the flag of some similarities (even if those similarities are completely ephemeral or trivial) they feel some kind of relief of the pain, created before by the identity vacuum. It is like a club of people who were born on Monday and who pride themselves on this fact, ascribing to Monday some 'special' even mystical (religious) qualities.
The anger and potential war (in broad sense: war of words, war of trade, military war in extreme cases) with those belonging to 'other world' is one more major way of venting the identity deficit anxiety. As with all self-fulfilling forecasts, the state of war with 'bad others' allegedly threatening their special national belonging, is, in the eyes of nationalists, one more evidence that they are really 'special and different', and, hence, do have a fairly firm identity.
All of this doesn't mean, that the degree and activity of nationalism cannot be controlled or 'activated'. There are more and less acute forms, and even, what could be called 'sleeping  or latent nationalism'
Historically, nationalism began really strong and really felt in earnest only from the end of 18th - beginning of 19th century. Then the Governments got the real power over their nation-states and learned how to exploit and even create this identity-crisis. The very term 'nation-state' was invented by European politicians as demagogic conception  (let many pundits disagree with me on this one) to legitimize their political power sharing and power holding over multitudes of people. Nationalism became an ideological weapon of mass destruction, a perfect masterpiece of demagogy - super-duper socio-psychological medication, allowing Governments to hold power and to gain those ends, which before they could have gained only with the help of the direct force against their own peoples. Of course that's not to say that they (politicians in power) themselves did not get sucked in the self-induced ideological whirlpool of nationalism: of course it was flattering and pleasant for their ego to 'realize' that they were kind of heroes and good helpers who were 'kindly asked' by their respective 'nations' to rule over them, as if those nation were single subjects with a single will. Of course this self-reflection was 'just what the doctor ordered' for those powerful people in authority - such conception would help even the most hard-headed politicians, sending thousands upon thousands of people to war and death, to sleep tight and well (though even before those ruling elites had not suffered too much from a bad sleep). Needless to say, this concept of state-nation was 'nationally relativistic' and politically conveniently split the moral (what is bad in general could be good if France or Germany needs it; what is bad for England and her people could be good and ethically justified for Russia etc - regional fragmented moral, that serves not the universal ideals of the Enlightenment, but 'nations' and in practice the political elites of those 'nations')
So nationalism in the shape we know it now was to a large degree an invention, a lever developed, improved and 'polished' by the political power after the so called nation-states were created and the means of controlled mass communication and broadcasting were developed. So now we more often than not deal with an artificially induced 'boosted' nationalism (in overdrive mode), 'genetically modified nationalism'.
But the fundamental causes of it lie in the identity crisis and the venting of the relevant anxieties and psychological pain.

A few words about the EU: good idea, but in reality a big fraud

Long ago. Looong ago it already started look like a very bad, and, to be honest, politically and economically unsustainable idea. But for the general public it began to be increasingly evident 1) politically when the so called Constitution (later to be replaced with Lisbon treaty) was failed several times 2) economically when the specter of communism in its modernized guise again started haunting Europe: Germany and some other countries produced and paid, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland etc just borrowed and consumed.
The problem is that EU, in the form it is now, is a kind of Union of European governments, not of European Nations, and it's not controlled by peoples, that's a sad reality that goes fundamentally against the political tradition and self-consciousness of the nations 'misunited' under the EU flag. In practice it is a purely bureaucratic structure, and maybe it would be OK IF it would not be sold at the same time as a kind of 'true product' of the total unification of peoples, which could be possible only and only under the condition of true democratic control. It is just a club of the governments that use this machinery rather often to avoid control on the part of their respective nations. So not only is this 'Federation' undemocratic, but also it makes less democratic in practice those nations included in this sweet project.
Economical problems partly emanate from the political ones, cos you cannot make a unified currency zone (eurozone) without making a unified fiscal zone. But the latter, obviously cannot be done without a serious 'blurring' of the sovereignty of the participating states, that's, without some kind of tectonic political merger with the formation of some kind of united states of Europe. From the very first it was obvious for many many critics that you cannot essentially deprive countries of their right to print its own currency, giving them instead the right to borrow without restriction the new common currency, but at the same time allow them to control their budget totally on their own. You don't have to be Einstein to understand that every Government in those poor countries will just borrow as much money as it wants just to stay in power its 4 or 8 years, shifting the burden to the next people.
Change the EU in a better way and then it might be worth for other nations to be part of it