United Kingdom—

Hundreds of millions of people who are alive today would be dead without the help of Americans.

Many foreigners and even American leftists portray the United States as the “evil empire” that has brutalized the Earth. The truth is that, while Americans have of course been guilty of failures, evils and acting on human nature like those of every nation, the way their nation has wielded its immense power and wealth has, from a material perspective, for most of its history, been an overwhelming net blessing to almost everybody on the planet.

How could this be? Is this extremely unique 250-year period of world history just a fluke? Has it been the result of the generosity and virtue of the American people? Or is there another, better explanation?

Feed the World

First, let’s look objectively at the blessings Americans have spread to the world.

America has been blessed with incredible natural resources. The U.S. Grains Council called the U.S. “the world’s primary grain-trade superpower.” America exported food to the world continually for a 60-year period that ended in 2019. At the end of the 20th century, one third of all internationally traded wheat and 70 percent of all corn came from America’s farmers.

Much of this has been trade for profit, meaning that both sides of the exchange benefited. But Americans have also been charitably feeding distressed nations for over a century. Their willingness to share their incredible agricultural resources literally saved hundreds of millions of lives during the 20th century. Some examples:

Starting in 1914, American businessman Herbert Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium. It fed around 9 million civilians for five years and prevented mass starvation in a war zone. It was the world’s first large-scale international food relief operation.

After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which brought 34 million tons of American food, clothing and supplies to Europe. Congress approved $100 million for the effort, with private donors contributing another $100 million. In today’s money, this would total about $3.5 billion. Meanwhile, Americans “Hooverized,” cutting back on food so they could send more.

After the trauma of World War i and a revolution, the new Soviet Union faced catastrophic famine in 1921. Russian author Maxim Gorky pleaded for aid. America answered the call. At its peak, the U.S. effort fed 10.5 million people per day, while America’s medical efforts helped stop a typhus epidemic.

World War ii risked another global famine. In 1943, America led the Allies to create the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (unrra), the first “United Nations” organization. America provided 70 percent of its funding. Over the next four years, it spent nearly $4 billion (roughly $60 billion in today’s money) to distribute 24 million tons of food and agricultural supplies, saving millions of lives around the world. It also provided shelter and aid for the tens of millions of refugees across Europe.

After unrra wound down, the Marshall Plan took over, providing food shipments, loans to buy food, and industrial aid to Europe as part of one of the biggest aid plans in human history—the equivalent of over $100 billion in today’s money. Europe’s food production and industry went from utter devastation to actually exceeding pre-war output by the early 1950s.

In 1954, the U.S. set up the Food for Peace program, selling American food at low cost, with cheap loans, often in local currency, so poorer countries with limited access to dollars could buy. Food for Peace also created a permanent system for America to give emergency food aid. It grew to account for the majority of all global food aid.

India has been one of the top beneficiaries of the program. In the 1950s, the country was newly independent and struggling to feed itself. The U.S. allowed India to pay in rupees, which the U.S. then spent in India. At one point, U.S. imports equated to 40 percent of India’s entire wheat production. Without it, India would have experienced mass starvation and tens of millions of deaths.

The U.S. continued to give food aid through usaid, the World Food Program and the Food for Progress Program.

During the 1970s and ’80s, the U.S. even saved its greatest enemy, the nuclear-
armed Soviet Union, from starvation. In a one-year period between 1972 and 1973, the Soviets bought one quarter of the entire U.S. wheat harvest.

Freed the World

American arms have repeatedly played a decisive role in the major conflicts of the 20th century.

In World War i, 2 million soldiers arrived on the battlefield after four years of war had exhausted the much larger European armies. America was at war for much less time than the other powers, but it still spent about the same amount of money as France, Russia and Austro-Hungary, and sacrificed more than 116,000 of its sons. America shortened the war and saved at least hundreds of thousands of lives.

In World War ii, America’s contribution was decisive. Historian Andrew Roberts writes, “Grossly to oversimplify the contributions made by the three leading members of the Grand Alliance in the Second World War, if Britain had provided the time and Russia the blood necessary to defeat the Axis, it was America that produced the weapons” (The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War).

America spent $341 billion on the war—more than the Soviet Union and Britain put together. It produced half of all Allied aircraft and more than all the Axis powers combined.

Then came the Cold War, which the U.S. effectively won singlehandedly.

American cash rebuilt Europe’s industrial base after the war and gave the shattered countries of Western Europe the ability to rearm, alongside a promise of military reinforcements if the powerful and proximate Soviets attacked.

British scientists began the push to build an atom bomb, but the project was finished in the U.S. This one invention prevented the Soviet Union from taking over Western Europe. The ancient states of Western Europe were saved from a totalitarian dictatorship that killed 20 million of its own people.

Of course, providing this aid and fighting these wars was in America’s interest too. In the case of the Cold War, had the Soviet Union conquered Western Europe, it would have been in a position to strangle the U.S. But that doesn’t take away the benefit everyone else received.

Billions of people around the world have benefited from the British-launched and American-led economic, military and ideological victory of free societies and free markets over oppression and communism. The ability of individuals to choose how and where to live their own lives is hard to quantify. But the prosperity this freedom unlocks is clear. Free markets are the most powerful tool for combating poverty mankind has ever invented. In 1950, about 60 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, it’s less than 10 percent. Between the end of the Cold War in 1990 and today, around 100,000 people per day have escaped extreme poverty.

Today, U.S. military personnel remain the most powerful international first responders on the planet. A nuclear aircraft carrier, for example, can function and has functioned as a search-and-rescue platform, a hospital and a logistics hub, all with its own independent power supply independent from the local power grid. Within days of the 2004 tsunami off the coast of Indonesia that killed a quarter of a million people, the uss Abraham Lincoln and its strike group were on the scene, with the U.S. Navy distributing nearly 3,000 tons of food. Their ships produced hundreds of thousands of gallons of drinking water per day, while American helicopters brought survivors to safety, which was sometimes an American hospital ship.

When a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, American military medical personnel treated 9,000 patients and performed 1,000 surgeries, and American military engineers repaired the airport and port facilities. When a 9.0-magnitude earthquake caused a tsunami that hit the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, killing 19,000 people, the uss Ronald Reagan and its carrier strike group arrived the next day. Approximately 24,000 sailors helped deliver 260 tons of supplies and 2 million gallons of water.

More could be written about the economic, humanitarian, diplomatic, scientific and other contributions that nine generations of Americans have made since their nation’s independence, but one other deserves to be highlighted.

Lift Your Eyes

“That’s one small step for man—one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon was a triumph for all humanity. Time magazine noted at the time, “Although the Apollo 11 astronauts planted an American flag on the moon, their feat was far more than a national triumph. … It was appropriate that the event was watched by ordinary citizens in Prague as well as Paris, Bucharest as well as Boston, Warsaw as well as Wapakoneta, Ohio. In practically every other corner of the Earth, newspapers broke out what pressmen refer to as their ‘Second Coming’ type to hail the lunar landing” (July 25, 1969).

“It was as if the whole world was united for a brief moment in time,” wrote Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry. “Somehow, 3 billion human beings were able to lift up their eyes 250,000 miles above the surface of this Earth and view something that was literally out of this world!” (theTrumpet​.com/4414).

Still, this accomplishment was funded by the U.S. Any great scientist stands on the shoulders of giants, and of course scientists from many nations contributed to the feat. But there is no denying that America has done the world a massive service through its space program.

America’s contributions to science and technology are both inspiring and practical, from the Saturn v rocket to the gps system to the airplane to the assembly line to the telephone to the light bulb. America has produced more patents and Nobel Prize-winning work than any other country. Half of all Nobel Prizes in the sciences since 1950 have been awarded to Americans, and America is the world’s largest spender on research and development. nasa has led the world into the space age. Bell Labs has played a decisive role in the information age. The Internet was mostly invented in the United States. So much of the world we live in is “Made in the U.S.A.”

A Prophesied Blessing—and Curse

Why has America been such a source of global good fortune? Is there something unique about America or Americans? Or is there some other reason?

The Bible describes a group of modern nations that would provide the world with exactly this set of blessings.

Micah 5 discusses “the remnant of Jacob”—descendants of ancient Israel. It states that they “shall be in the midst of many people [nations] as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men” (verse 7).

“Remember that dew and showers are absolutely necessary to agricultural productivity and are a symbol of national blessing and wealth from God,” Herbert W. Armstrong explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. This verse describes a group of people who at the same time they were “receiving God’s blessings … were a tremendous blessing to the other nations of the Earth,” he wrote. “… Anciently Joseph saved up the wheat and food and made it available to others. Modern Joseph did also.”

The same chapter states the world would benefit from these nations’ military victories: “And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver” (verse 8).

Doesn’t this describe modern America?

Mr. Armstrong explained in his free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy that Britain and America are descended from ancient Israel.

Look at the statistics and facts of the past 250 years, and imagine how events would have unfolded if not only was the British Empire declining, but America did not exist, or that America chose a different action at any of several crucial turning points. America has been a massive benefit to the world!

In all human history, the United States of America is second only to the British Empire in directly benefiting the most people in quantifiable terms of health, safety, prosperity, education, information, science, technology, engineering, enterprise, institutions, governance, justice, principles and beliefs.

These blessings to mankind did not come from Americans. They came from the God who blessed the Americans. The Bible extensively documents this fact, beginning in Genesis, as The United States and Britain in Prophecy powerfully explains.

God gave the ancestors of the British and the Americans His promises, His blessings and His laws: the principles that would save billions from poverty, destitution, deception, dissipation, waste, heartbreak, betrayal, sickness, killing and despondency. The ancestors and their descendants, right up to now, have failed to spread those principles—summarized as obedience to God’s law—and have failed to even keep them! Less because of the modern Israelites in Britain and America and more despite them, the God of Israel has nonetheless used these nations to bless the world and point them to the ultimate source of blessings.

The rest of Micah 5 contains a powerful warning: “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots: And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds” (verses 10-11).

Why? Because of our “witchcrafts” and “soothsayers” (verse 12). The problem is not with our material goods, it is with our lifestyle and false spiritual instruction. The nation worships idols (verse 13). It used the material wealth to benefit the world, yes, but then it worshiped those material blessings and failed to give the spiritual instruction that needed to accompany them.

God covenanted with the ancestors of the Americans to demonstrate the immense blessings of keeping all God’s law (Deuteronomy 4:6-8). In mixing its material wealth with spiritual poverty, America has led the world into perverse immorality and societal devastation.

It will take correction of city-destroying magnitude to get the nation there, but America will soon be a greater blessing than ever before.

The correction coming on America now is intended to prompt the nation to finally fulfill its purpose: to aid the world materially and, more importantly, spiritually. Finally, the city upon a hill will shine.