From Robert Kagan’s book Of Paradise And Power, America And Europe In The New World Order:
America did not change on September 11. It only became more itself. Nor should there by any mystery about the course America is on, and has been on, not only over the past year or over the past decade, but for the better part of the past six decades, and, one might even say, for the better part of the past four centuries. It is an objective fact that Americans have been expanding their power and influence in ever-widening arcs since even before they founded their own independent nation. The hegemony that America established within the Western Hemisphere in the nineteenth century has been a permanent feature of international politics ever since. The expansion of America’s strategic reach into Europe and east Asia that came with the Second World War has never been retracted. Indeed, it is somewhat remarkable to reflect that more than fifty years after the end of that war—a period that has seen Japanese and German enemies completely transformed into valued friends and allies—and more than a decade after the Cold War—which ended in another stunning transformation of a defeated foe—the United States nevertheless remains, and clearly intends to remain, the dominant strategic force in both East Asia and Europe. The end of the Cold War was taken by Americans as an opportunity not to retract but to expand their reach, to expand the alliance they lead eastward toward Russia, to strengthen their relations among the increasingly democratic powers of East Asia, to stake out interests in parts of the world, like Central Asia, that most Americans never knew existed before.
This is the first paragraph of a section of Mr. Kagan’s book entitled “Adjusting to Hegemony.” It is a straightforward exposition of the US’s supposed global Manifest Destiny, the belief that American can and should dominate the world. SLL finds both the “can” and the “should” quite arguable and recommends a much less grandiose US foreign policy, one that recognizes financial, military, and political limits as well as the historical fate of would-be global hegemonies. However, Mr. Kagan’s short book offers one way to get into the head of an unapologetic and committed US global interventionist. Difficult as it sometimes is, it’s not a bad idea to try to understand your ideological foes. See also today’s SLL guest post from Michael S. Rozeff: “The War Party’s Death Couple: How Kagan + Nuland Peddle Neocon Aggression.”
