Historically, aggression usually pays.
“Historically, aggression usually pays.”
We change history. What other country treated those it defeated the way we treated Germany, Italy and Japan?
When the Berlin Wall fell, and we moved the borders of NATO eastward, what happened to Poland, Romania, etc.? Did they suffer, or did they blossom into thriving democracies?
Today, the democracies of the world totally dominate the authoritarians in terms of people and esp. in terms of GDP. We have our problems (and, actually, we will always have problems), but we should be confident of our ability to defend ourselves.