ABSTRACT
Central to understanding the contemporary globalisation of the world economy is the role of the United States in the process. In general terms, it is necessary to understand the objective and provenance of globalisation because they mirror the habits of mind and attendant practices with which the record of US strategic leadership in the Cold War is replete. The objective – invulnerability – actually predates the Cold War and can be found as far back as the War of 1812, while the habits of mind and practice which constitute provenance – deciding in isolation and acting unilaterally (which frequently involves leaving allies and friends with little choice in the circumstances but to follow) – though developed since that time also, have been increasingly prominent this century, becoming defining characteristics following World War II.1 Not surprisingly, this creates a United States that is, essentially, estranged from the world it seeks to order and to lead, and it cannot be any other way. The ideas from which it draws its identity and mission are the result of a self-defined exceptionalism which is then used as a rationale for, first, intervention, and then, the liquidation of alternatives, be they ideological, philosophical, political, economic, or strategic. Given the objective, security can only proceed from universalising the exception, a contradictory project if ever there was one.
