Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
It's very easy to answer: Greeks, Frenchmen, Englishmen, probably even Germans.

The power of philosophical and conceptual advances originating from these countries is much greater than whatever feeble attempts of good-willed and at the same time not utterly inept foreign policy the U.S. can bring up to compete.
As a U.S. citizen who lived in Central America in the mid-90s I am not apt to defend the foreign policy of my nation, but on the topic of philosophical advances in particular, my country did have something to do with the birth of representative government in France. It is an understatement to say that the French Revolution was a mixed bag, but it (and the philosophical advances leading to and emanating from it) did have some power.