ABSTRACT
Since the 1940s, the United States has been transformed from one of six or seven world powers with a standing army of under 200,000 and few foreign alliances or military bases into a country with a military machine of 1.5 million men and women under arms (over 250,000 of whom are stationed overseas), alliances with nearly fifty countries, and unrivaled military and diplomatic status and capacity. From being isolationist and contemptuous of the “corruption” and imperialism of the old European powers, the United States is itself, in spite of recent reverses, now in a position to exploit and dominate other countries and, unlike the prewar powers, literally to determine the fate of all humankind.
