ABSTRACT

The United States unquestionably has the raw economic power to build an empire, more, indeed, than the United Kingdom ever had at its disposal. There's 'soft' power too, the endlessly innovative consumer culture that Joseph Nye argues is an essential component of American power, but at its core, in Afghanistan and now in Iraq, American power is far from soft. Besides the presidential time frame which is limited by the four-year election cycle the most obvious symptom of its short-windedness is the difficulty the American empire finds in recruiting the right sort of people to run it. For young men growing up on the rainy, barren and poorer fringes of the United Kingdom, the empire offered opportunities. It's just possible that African-Americans will turn out to be the Celts of the American empire, driven overseas by the comparatively poor opportunities at home. The British, however, were always wary about giving the military too much power in their imperial administration.