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I would say the US would fit the mold. Take the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq as an example. The US gathered together a coalition of mostly incompatible nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UK, etc. for the short-term goal of pushing Iraq out of Kuwait. The US prefers to have the support of the UN and work through coalitions of allies even when most of those allies provide only token support.
What nation do you imagine to be the clay or baked clay as you wrote?
(This is my first attempt at creating a thread with a poll, so I hope it works.)
I'm going to list some books of the Old Testament, and you can select those that seem historically factual.
You can select more than one option, and there is a "none of the above" option too.
Jesus doesn't think so. He quoted from them often.I believe the books listed are a mix of fact and mythology and especially Genesis which is largely myth.
I would say the US would fit the mold. Take the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq as an example. The US gathered together a coalition of mostly incompatible nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UK, etc. for the short-term goal of pushing Iraq out of Kuwait. The US prefers to have the support of the UN and work through coalitions of allies even when most of those allies provide only token support.
Oh This is only the beginning of sorrows."The problem with imagining the US in this role is that the US is on the decline as a superpower.
Brazil for example will probably surpass the US in a few decades, and China has already surpassed the US.
The US has a lot of military capability, but it no longer has the financial strength to maintain and upgrade what it has. Gradually the US will become more like the UK - a superpower in retirement.
The iron / clay combination must be assembled and led by some nation who believes in coalitions - even when those coalitions are weakened by joining incompatible nations and nations with barely any interest in the mission of the coalition. Typically the US gathers nations into coalitions by bribing them and asking nothing from them except their token presence in the coalition. As the US loses power it will have less to offer in bribes and it will no longer be able to shoulder all the burdens of a military effort alone while its coalition partners do nothing.You said in your post 17: "I would imagine the final kingdom of baked clay mixed with iron would be an alliance of incompatible nations...", so, based in your post I quoted , I would ask you: Where is the kingdom? I see there is not any kingdom in your reply.
Do you think that "the US would fit the mold", as iron or as a clay? If you think US is iron, then which is the clay? If US is the clay, which are the iron? By the way, what about Israel? where would you fit Israel in this biblical riddle? Would be Iron or Clay?
The iron / clay combination must be assembled and led by some nation who believes in coalitions - even when those coalitions are weakened by joining incompatible nations and nations with barely any interest in the mission of the coalition. Typically the US gathers nations into coalitions by bribing them and asking nothing from them except their token presence in the coalition. As the US loses power it will have less to offer in bribes and it will no longer be able to shoulder all the burdens of a military effort alone while its coalition partners do nothing.
In the immediate future, China would be the only nation who could gather a coalition of unenthusiastic and incompatible allies as fig leaf to cover what is actually a unilateral military effort. However, I don't think China cares as much about fig leaves and appearances as the US. China isn't a democracy, so they don't need to persuade their own population by creating phony coalitions.
So I'm not certain who would be assembling this sort of iron / clay kingdom after the US is pushed aside by China and other rising powers such as Brazil.
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