ABSTRACT
What a difference a few years can make in the evolution of ‘buzz’ words and concepts in the popular media and imagination, policy-making circles, as well as what one might hope would be the more sober writings of public intellectuals and social scientists. Parker’s Introduction in his role as Editor of this thought-provoking collection notes the rise of and at least relative decline in the currency of New World Order, New American Century, War on Terror, the Democratic Peace and Globalization. (I take his point, although as a longtime analyst of globalization, I believe that we are going to be viewing it as a multidimensional/non-unilinear process and debating its various pros and cons for many years to come.) The Nexon and Musgrave chapter in this book uses as a springboard the fact that ‘American Empire’ was also a hot topic during the early years of the George W. Bush administration in the United States. Many neoconservatives relished the notion, as did Marxist and radical critics of the United States. How silly all that now seems, when US control over its closest allies in NATO is at a post-World War II low ebb, the shaky Afghan and Iraqi governments (such as they are) regularly thumb their noses at Washington, and domestic political gridlock has recently been so paralysing as to threaten US default on its sovereign debt. Sic transit gloria, although surely there was always a lot more gloria than imperial substance. Imperialistic – or better, imperious (Motyl 2006) – behaviour, outrageous hubris, militant unilateralism and delusions of grandeur do not themselves an ‘empire’ make. Nevertheless, it should be equally obvious that it would now also be a serious mistake to underestimate remaining US political/economic/military assets and influence in the contemporary world.
