When I was playing and being the head coach of American football teams in Great Britain, two of my teams won the European Championship, including my Great Britain National Team when I was the head coach of the National Team. 

We also played against many countries from outside Europe and from across the World.

To play all these games against International teams, we were regularly traveling to play in countries from around the world. 

Within the first year of traveling to these countries, I realized that many of the countries had at one point in world history been the greatest world power. 

In their prime, each of these countries had been the most powerful and influential country in the world during their country’s finest moment in world history. 

However, although all of these countries are still outstanding, none of these countries in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s were still the number one world power. 

The 1980’s and 1990’s were the years of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, when America was at the peak of our power.

During this period, America was widely recognized by everyone as the most powerful and influential country in the world. 

However, even though America was so powerful that it seemed inconceivable for our Country to fall from this number one position, I knew that history and cycles of history almost always repeat themselves, and I also realized that all of those other countries had at some point felt just as invincible as we did in America during the 1980’s and 1990’s. 

Therefore, I often told my family and friends that although at that moment we could not conceive of America declining from our position as the primary world power, history would tell us and teach us that America will decline from our leading position at some point in time fairly soon. 

That decline in America is what we have been seeing in recent years, as our politicians have made many bad decisions that have put our Country into such a weak position in so many important areas that our politicians have sacrificed and mortgaged our children’s futures. 

I also noticed back in the 1980’s and 1990’s that the decline in some of those world countries had been so recent that the citizens of those countries did not realize how far their countries had fallen in the eyes of the world, and these citizens still thought their country was more powerful and more respected than the rest of the world thought their country was. 

Therefore, what this again teaches us is that since America has been declining in recent years, then it is very likely that we in America still think of ourselves as being a stronger and more respected world power than the rest of the world actually sees us as being. 

We see political leaders from countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, among others, often being very disrespectful to America and to our American politicians, and we wonder why. 

But as much as we may try to tell ourselves otherwise, this disrespect is an obvious sign that these other countries do not respect America and our American politicians in the same way that they used to. 

These other world leaders no longer see America in the way that we think we see ourselves. 

However, as we look to respond to what we perceive as disrespect from other countries and their leaders, we need to avoid trying to exert our military strength in an effort to force people to respect us. 

Unfortunately, almost all of our current politicians think that military strength is our only way to gain respect from other countries. 

This is the war hawk mentality that most of our politicians currently have.  A war hawk mentality that continues to make the mistake of getting our Country into wars around the world that we eventually choose to walk away from after a couple of decades, with us usually leaving these countries in a worse situation than they were before we arrived. 

Our politicians fill every foreign relations speech they make with a large amount of negative words about which countries are our enemies, about which countries are threats to us, and about what we need to do militarily to stop these countries. 

These politicians will always say what they think needs to be done militarily against our enemies. 

However, what our politicians do not realize is that when they think the only tool they have is a hammer of military action, then they make the mistake of seeing every problem as a nail. 

They only have a hammer because they do not understand how to compromise and work with people, and so they only see every foreign relations problem as a nail that requires our military action. 

There is no doubt that military strength is important for us to have so that our American People are always kept safe from any surprise attacks or threats. 

We need to have a military so strong and powerful that we can overcome any potential dangers that America ever faces. 

However, our efforts toward World Peace should not be led with our military strength. 

If we walk into a meeting with other countries to discuss Peace, and we bring our biggest guns into the meeting with us, laying our biggest guns on the table in front of us, then we may get weaker countries to agree with us on issues for as long as that meeting lasts.  

However, our meetings will never result in us building Friendships and Loyalties and Peace that will last for many years after that meeting has ended.

Because when those weaker countries get back home, then they will have negative feelings toward us, and they will spread bad feelings against us in their region of the world because they will see us as acting like and being a bully. 

Unfortunately, though, since our current politicians have always brought their guns to meetings, then bringing their guns is the only way our current politicians know how to attend a meeting.

And so, our current politicians do not realize that there are better ways to build World Peace. 

We currently have 750 U.S. military bases in 80 countries, and 172,000 active-duty military troops stationed in 178 countries around the world.

Do we really think that by us being in all these worldwide locations with our weapons and our military bases that we are helping to bring World Peace?

Or is it possible that the people from other countries just see us as a bully and as a threat to them.

Do we really logically think that countries like Iran would hate us from halfway around the world if we were just over here in America minding our own business and being nice to other countries?

To answer these questions, we only need to think about how we would feel if other countries placed weapons and military bases in Cuba and Mexico and Canada, with their missiles aimed directly at us from a hundred miles away.

We know that we do not want other countries’ missiles aimed at us from near our borders, but we allow wars to begin and last for years because we do not understand or appreciate that countries like Russia do not want NATO missiles aimed at them from near their borders, either.

Just think about all the Ukrainian Lives and Russian Lives we would have saved if our politicians had opened their minds to understanding and appreciating the viewpoints and concerns of Russia.

Just think about all the Ukrainian Lives and Russian Lives we would have saved if our political leaders had traveled before the war to Russia and to Ukraine to help to negotiate a Peace agreement that was fair for both countries.

In the same way, do we really think that we are going to solve the Israel, Palestine, Iran, and Middle East wars by using weapons and our military?

We have been trying to use weapons in the Middle East for the past 50 years to solve this violence and these wars, but the Middle East situation is worse now than it was 50 years ago.

Therefore, weapons and military threats have done nothing except increase and escalate the anger and the violence of the situation.

If something does not work for 50 years, then maybe we should try a different approach.  

It sure would be logical for us to try to bring Peace by showing Peace, instead of us trying to bring Peace by threatening war.

A personal hero of mine and a hero of us all, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

I completely agree.  

For the past 50 years in the Middle East, we have been trying to drive out the darkness of violence and war by using the darkness of military action and war.

By our politicians attempting to drive out darkness by using darkness, then this has only made the situation much worse.

We should be using Light and Love to drive out darkness and hate, instead.

There is absolutely no reason for us, or for any country, to ever fight or have a war again.

Surely we have progressed and modernized our world past needing to fight each other, and surely we have learned from thousands of years of world history that wars are never a win for any country, and that they are always a loss for every country that is involved.

Therefore, we should do everything in our power to avoid war and to Make Peace with Every Country in the World.

Our President George Washington wrote in his Farewell Address in 1796 that America needs to stay out of war, and that we need to stay neutral with other countries because by us staying neutral then we keep ourselves from creating enemies against our Country.

President Washington wrote, “Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.”

Another advantage to us staying neutral is that by being neutral we do not create anger and division between our own American people like we are currently seeing because of the positions that our politicians have taken with the Israel and Hamas war.

President Washington was very concerned in his Farewell Address that if we did not stay neutral toward other countries, then it would cause internal anger and divisions to occur between our own Americans who had different loyalties to each of the two countries we had chosen between. 

Because our politicians have not stayed neutral toward other countries, then this anger and division between our American people, like Washington warned us about, is exactly what we are currently seeing happen across America. 

America is also paying a huge financial cost when we station our military troops in more than 178 locations around the World.

Our military spending was listed as $916 billion in 2023, and every year the actual total amount spent on our military budget is two times the spending number listed.  Therefore, the money we actually spent on our military budget was close to $1.8 billion in 2023.

We spend more on our military budget than the next ten highest-spending countries in the world. 

Do our politicians realize that we are wasting our financial resources when we are spending three times what China spends and ten times what Russia spends?

A very large amount of our military budget is spent on our 750 U.S. military bases in 80 countries, and on our 172,000 active-duty military troops who are stationed in 178 countries around the world.

Do we really think that other countries like us more because we have 172,000 active-duty troops stationed in 178 countries, or is it logical that they might like us less?

And if they understandably like us less, do we really think that having 750 military bases and 172,000 troops in other countries is helping us to create World Peace and Goodwill, or do we realize that having such a large American military presence is helping to cause some of the anger and violence that other countries feel and show toward us?  

Therefore, if we decided to bring our soldiers home and begin taking a Peace and Light and Love and Respect approach, instead of us taking the hammer and nail, flexing our muscles around the world approach like we have been doing, then can you imagine how many people we could help in our own Country with that money?

It has been shown that if we saved what we are spending on our military budget for just one year, then we could build 80 million public housing units.

If we saved our military budget for one year, then we could also solve our homelessness crisis, our childhood hunger crisis, and our family poverty crisis.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.  When we waste so much money on following our hammer and nail military approach, instead of creating and building Real World Peace by Shining Light on the darkness and Shining Love on the hate, then we are not able to spend all that money on our Fellow Americans who really need our help.    

Our politicians should not be trying to show strength by degrading and diminishing the content of every foreign relations speech to our military threats and our planned military actions against other countries.

Our politicians should also not be trying to show strength by reducing and degrading all of America’s foreign relations decisions and actions to the very low-level hammer and nail thinking of making military threats and taking military action. 

Strength is not shown only by military power.  Strength is also shown by being a Country that Stands Strong in our own Beliefs for World Peace. 

In addition, Strength is shown by being a Country that Leads Our World to Build Peace and Abundance for All the People and All the Countries in Our World. 

When America Leads with Peace, Light, Love, Thoughtfulness, Respect, and Caring Toward Our Fellow Men and Women.

When We Lead By Changing The World For The Benefit of Everyone.

And When We Lead By Bringing Our World Closer Together in Brotherhood, Sisterhood, and Peace.

Then America will again be Respected At The Very Highest Level by Every Country in the World. 

True Respect is not earned by forcing it onto people through military threats. 

True RESPECT is Earned by How You Treat People.

LET US BUILD A WORLD OF PEACE AND RESPECT AND LOVE FOR OUR CHILDREN