While I believe in American exceptionalism as much as the next guy, you guys do have a tendency to forget that we in Europe (and the rest of the world) have been doing this for a <i>very long time</i>.<p>&quot;Militarism has intellectual consequences&quot; - is probably true, but the British and French (and Dutch and Prussians and Spanish et al) were doing it for 500 years, a period which gave us the birth of The Royal Society, Proust and Voltaire, Leibniz, and so on. The Islamic Golden Age happened under an expansionist empire. The Romans weren&#x27;t short the odd intellectual as well... I&#x27;m sure someone more familiar with Asian history can give many examples too.<p>&quot;It&#x27;s all PR, of course: the veterans end up as broken husks that are left to rot as soon as they get home&quot; - while true, this is nothing new, either.