History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 21

History - Essay Example Stephen Kinzer in book â€Å"Overthrow† argues that America could have avoided most of these violent military confrontations spending billions of dollars and causing bloodshed and pain by more patient and effective use of diplomacy and its tools of persuasion. â€Å"Modern history makes it eminently clear that when United States engages with oppressive and threatening regimes, using combinations of incentives, threats, punishments and rewards, those regimes slowly becomes less dangerous† (p.320). This statement sums up what the US has to understand if they truly want peace on earth rather than using the military might to overthrow the other countries governments. The author cites the examples of China, the former Soviet Union, South Korea, South Africa as the success stories of effective diplomatic strategy. At the same time one look at the countries that US militarily intervened like, Philippines, Afghanistan, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran and Iraq the results were terribly wrong. In Iran for example in the early 1951, US at the request of the British, removed a fully functional democratic government only to install a dictator. And in Iraq several decades later they did exactly opposite. Both have not worked. Iran became a completely anti-american country with religious leaders as head of state that looks to oppose any American ideas at the world level. Iraq is still smoldering from the chaos of war with violent reactions every now and then. The resentment against US is ever increasing with strong Anti-US propaganda. The author argues that in most of these cases diplomatic and political approaches would have been far more effective. More often than not, the think tank of the US gets impatient and jumps to the conclusion that a â€Å"regime change† is the only answer. What do they do?. They forcefully invade the country with their military might and advanced weaponry, remove the leader of that country and hand its power to someone who will dance to their tunes.