Sunday, October 12, 2003

THE LATEST CHOMSKY
Dominance and its Dilemmas


Noam Chomsky via ZNet on the problems with the new American empire:

The new "imperial grand strategy," as it was aptly termed at once by John Ikenberry, presents the US as "a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a world order in which it runs the show," a "unipolar world" in which "no state or coalition could ever challenge" it as "global leader, protector, and enforcer. These policies are fraught with danger even for the US itself, he warned, joining many others in the foreign policy elite.

What is to be "protected" is US power and the interests it represents, not the world, which vigorously opposed the conception. Within a few months, polls revealed that fear of the United States had reached remarkable heights, along with distrust of the political leadership, or worse. As for the test case, an international Gallup poll in December, barely noted in the US, found virtually no support for Washington's announced plans for a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies": in effect, the US-UK "coalition."

The basic principles of the imperial grand strategy trace back to the early days of World War II, and have been reiterated frequently since. Even before the US entered the war, planners and analysts concluded that in the postwar world the US would seek "to hold unquestioned power," acting to ensure the "limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs. They outlined "an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States" in a "Grand Area," to include at a minimum the Western Hemisphere, the former British empire, and the Far East, later extended to as much of Eurasia as possible when it became clear that Germany would be defeated.


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