The Iron Chancellor was a Pacifist Compared to U.S. Neocons

Otto von Bismarck, Germany's "Iron Chancellor". 

Can't you tell what a sweetheart he was? 

“The Balkans aren't worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier.” ― Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck was known as the "Iron Chancellor" of Imperial Germany. He often scoffed at politics, and declared that some issues would not be resolved by majority votes but rather by "iron and blood." By his own admission, he led his nation into three wars in which 800,000 people died. He lamented that these actions were a barrier between him and God. The Nazis loved him so much that they named their best battleship after him!

He sounds like a pretty ruthless character, and history usually judges him as such. Though that may be true, I find Bismarck to be a judicious, humble, and even a populist figure compared to the neocons who presently run the foreign policy apparatus of the United States in both establishment parties.

Both they and Bismarck show contempt for democracy. Americans have voted for whichever Presidential candidate promised them peace since the early 1990's but all we seem to get is more war no matter what they campaigned on. See this video where Gore and Bush literally changed positions on foreign policy after the latter was elected. They care even less for what voters want than he did!

Bismarck's moral superiority to today's neocons really shines when you consider the amount of hubris each displays in using the military might of their nations. Obviously, Bismarck was no shrieking violet. But at least he understood that there where areas of the world which were not worth intervening in, even areas as close to Germany as the Balkans. In their extreme arrogance today's neocons have sent our nation's soldiers to just about ever mud hole on earth with absolute confidence in their ability to re-order those societies in what they consider "our" interests.

That these grandiose and bloody adventures have uniformly failed to achieve their visions has not deterred their enthusiasm to play God with the life and treasure of our nation. They act like they have some kind of Divine right to rule the world, using as an excuse fighting the "terrorists" that they themselves, along with their allies in the Arabian Peninsula, created.

The other area which shows the Iron Chancellor to be a much more moral man than the typical neocon today is their respective attitudes before God. Bismarck at least understood that there was a God to which man would be accountable. In the over-whelming hubris of today's neocons God is not a factor, but they don't hesitate to use the name of God when it advances their aims. Unlike him, they seem unrestrained by the fear of God. They act as though God is only an information warfare tool at their disposal!

Obviously the central state is very useful to such warped minds. Our goal should be to decentralize the military to such an extent that it becomes impossible to embroil the nation in endless, ruinous, and pointless foreign wars. The blue book on localism below outlines how such a nation's military might be constructed, as well as identifying all other ways in which power is centralized and what ought to be done about it. The red book defends the view of government proposed in the blue book on a philosophical basis from the two extreme political ideas which might oppose it- anarchy and the central state.