Warlike US Battles Utopian Urges:

"The United States is a martial nation. It accounts for 5 per cent of the world's population, 20 per cent of the world economy, and fully 50 per cent of global defence spending. It is structured for war.

In the 228 years since it declared independence, the US has made 200 military interventions abroad, says the Congressional Research Service, an average of one every 14 months.

It has much less experience in introducing democracy than it does in waging war, incidentally. It has made 16 attempts, of which four have succeeded, says the Washington-based journal Foreign Policy.

The journal defines success as the survival of a functioning democratic system 10 years after the first US intervention. The success stories? Japan, Germany, Panama and Grenada.

Of the 43 presidents in the history of the US, about a quarter, 11 of them, have been former generals or military leaders. This is not a judgement but an observation: with this structure, this history, and this tradition of leadership, the US is a martial nation. And whoever is elected president on November 2, this is not going to change."