No Nation is a Saint as a Superpower

Nations of the earth have been in constant struggle over who will control the world economically, politically, socially and militarily. But , I have come to discover through the study of the world history that all the nations that attained super- power positions are all interested in the pursuit of their own interests to the detriment of other nations. This has sometimes resulted in conquests, enslavement, direct and indirect wars, sponsoring of rebel groups to stage coups in third world countries, and the result of this negativism is international terrorism which is carried out by the countries that have been affected over the years of unequal relationships between the so called superpowers and the less powerful nations.

When the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans were at the height of their hegemony, the world experienced series of wars as a aresult of selfish desires of these powerful nations to expand their territorial boundaries. In order to achieve this selfish desire, they carried out military conquests against less powerful nations at that time of history. The direct effects of these military conquests were hunger and loss of lives. These nations brutally oppressed other nations that stood in their way. They had less regard for human lives. Expansion through every possible means was the utmost priority for these nations to the detriment of weaker ones. In the case of the Great Roman empire, the emperror" s words were law. As long as the Romans were concerned, no world existed outside Rome.

When the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the British, the French and the Germans were at their peak of greatness, slavery and colonialism were used at different periods to subjugate and oppress other nations who were militarily weak. With the discovery of the new world (Americas), these nations resorted to the enslavement and further sale of their fellow human beings in a bid to get more hands to work in their plantations which they acquired in the new world. This act of man"s inhumanity to man could not have stopped, if the industrial revolution did not come up. On the other hand, when these great nations needed raw material for their industries, they used military expeditions to conquer and forcefully rule the less powerful nations.

At the end of the second world war in 1945, the defunct Soviet Union and the United States became superpowers, and their quest to battle for supremacy in world politics resulted in indirect wars which were fought in the territories of weak nations referred to as the third world countries. That period was referred to as the cold war era. The two superpowers carried out military interventions, sponsored coups and rebel groups in third world countries just to make sure their ideologies (socialism and capitalism) are being adopted.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union into different republics in the early 1990s, United States emerged as the sole superpower. and they refused to drop all the vices they used in the cold war era till date. The United States have gone from one form of intervention to the other. They have continued to use the term war against terrorism to forcefully enter territories where they want to protect their economic interests.

With these instances, one could easily notice that no nation that attained superpower position had the interest of the world at heart, but maintaining their dominance and protecting their economic interests were their priorities.