ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes that in the present circumstances there are few lessons to be learnt from the past, certainly not from the interregnum between the two world wars. The same is true for the United States and European nations when they are called upon to intervene militarily to end a civil war or defeat terrorism or help the cause of democracy. One might infer from Tom Hayden characterization of the West that capitalism is its exclusively defining feature. Capitalism is not the only thing that defines the West; there is also Western democracy. Nor is Western capitalism the unitary phenomenon that Hayden makes it out to be; it has many variants in the United States and Europe with benign as well as malign attributes. The chapter discusses the differences among the United States, France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Scandinavian countries.
