ABSTRACT
The war on terrorism is accompanied by a vast expansion of military and intelligence budgets and the threat of preventive strikes. It involves the worldwide projection of American military power and a new phase in fossil fuel geopolitics. A 2003 headline sums up the drift in U.S. media: “American Empire, Not “If” But “What Kind.’ ”1
If there is an imperial trend in American policy, what are the characteristics of this empire? If neoliberal globalization was a regime of American economic unilateralism, has this been succeeded by or combined with political and military unilateralism? This chapter probes the emerging features of a hybrid formation of neoliberal empire; a mélange of political-military and economic unilateralism, an attempt to merge geopolitics with the aims and techniques of neoliberalism. This is examined in relation to govern-
ment, privatization, trade, aid, marketing, and the occupation of Iraq as a case in point. A further, more difficult question is what kind of wider strategy is taking shape amid the turmoil of the new wars.
