ABSTRACT
The United States is far stronger in relative military and economic terms than any previous state in the modern international system, yet it feels itself to be highly vulnerable to external threats in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This paradoxical combination of omnipotence and vulnerability creates a nearly irresistible temptation to use its might to root out these threats at their sources and to organize the world in a way that will make it safe for democracy—or at any rate safe for the United States. 1 This temptation is magnified by a set of assumptions, which I call “myths of empire,” that exaggerate the prospects of success for a strategy of security through military expansion. 2 Because terrorism directed at a democratic occupying power is often effective, a more sustainable strategy would be to establish a system of consensual domination in which the United States’ coercive power is used selectively for purposes that enjoy a broadly accepted legitimacy and are laundered through co-opted local, regional, and multilateral institutions. 3
