The blatant nature of land empire of "grab all you can get ,never let go, lie through your teeth,assume everyone else is a lying land empire also " was visible even during the fall of the sovjet union in grosny , the various border raids of china into its neighbors (vietnam), and the various persian proxy wars. but the problem was that dove liberal future optimism incompetence infected a whole generation of politicians. including the "warmongery" group around bush junior . which removed one landempire containing another from the map and just ignored the other unreformables while they staged blatant psyops.