The Guns of August
Chalmers Johnson, sometime CIA consultant and author of a series of books on the American empire and the American security state—Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), among others—has a new book out, Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope. Tom Dispatch, A blog on the website of The Nation Magazine, features what appears to be Johnson’s preface to the book. It’s worth reading.
Johnson argues that the days of American hegemony are drawing to a close and that we would be better off withdrawing from our hundreds of overseas military bases now and spending the money on pressing domestic needs, rather than throwing it away on bases that we will ultimately give up, anyway:
Read the article and the introduction. If you click on the link above and buy the book from Amazon, the commission will go to Tom Dispach, which is worthy of your support.If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. Peering into that foggy future, I simply can't imagine the U.S. dismantling its empire voluntarily, which doesn't mean that, like all sets of imperial garrisons, our bases won't go someday.
Instead, I foresee the U.S. drifting along, much as the Obama administration seems to be drifting along in the war in Afghanistan. The common talk among economists today is that high unemployment may linger for another decade. Add in low investment and depressed spending (except perhaps by the government) and I fear T.S. Eliot had it right when he wrote: "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."