Flat or flact, I don't understand your comment.

The one thing I've learned from the past millennia is that wars and bankruptcy have brought down more governments than any other causes, and with our government $17 trillion in the hole and with another $125 trillion in unfunded liabilities, history may very well repeat itself here.

I don't understand what you've tried to say.

Switzerland has not been attacked because of their strict policy of neutrality and because geographically, Switzerland is a fortress exceeded only by the US (we have Swiss-scale mountains, but unlike the Swiss, we're also protected by two rather large moats). The Swiss also take the duty of self-defense very seriously; invading Switzerland would be a fool's errand. We could learn something from them. Essentially, I'm advocating George Washington's foreign policy. If you consider 9/11 an attack, a pretty good argument can be made that it was blowback for several decades of intervention in the Middle East.

I was responding to Lucky's post, about how "hard it is to resist the rescue of victims..." Like I said, the Swiss have resisted for centuries, so it can be done, and it should be done, here in the US. Since World War II, we've intervened in, among others, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and what do have to show for it?

Rand would certainly understand a foreign policy based on US self-interest. How has it been, and how would it be in the future, in our interest to intervene on either side of the never ending Shi'a-Sunni conflict? So far we've spent over $2 trillion and thousands of lives, and what do we have to show for it? I say that since both sides consider themselves to be our enemies, it is in our own rational interest to let them kill each other. When both sides are immoral, it is not moral to intervene on either side.

Bank secrecy worked (I use the past tense) both ways. The Swiss protected a lot of legitimate fortunes from despots. They sheltered European and Russian money from Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini.

and Switzerland has been quite happy to protect blood money from despots. moral relativism is immoral.

Switzerland was not attacked

"PLAYBOY: What about force in foreign policy? You have said that any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany during World War II . . .RAND: Certainly.PLAYBOY: . . . And that any free nation today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?RAND: Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no rights.PLAYBOY: Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?RAND: Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott, I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both of those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life."

We no longer hold the wealth power or the might power

I am good with this tactic so long as our intelligence agencies keep a close eye on them. If they attempt any aggression towards us then we should annihilate them. This piece meal, half measure, containment strategy of late has only made us look weak. If they initiate an act of war then we should exterminate the vermin and all of those that aid and abet. The lessons of WWII should not be lost. The "governments" where the tyrants and terrorists of today reside should be granted no more quarter than the active actors they aid and abet with their inaction. War is messy and the consequences should be known. For too long we have been played for the paper tiger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaSXTk4KL...

Yes, but until that eventuality, which may well be far in the future, why not let them weaken each other, instead of picking a side?

The Swiss have resisted being dragged into other nations' wars for centuries.