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CHAPTER 5 America in the Post–Cold War World The Cold War came to an end around 1990: America’s Soviet adversary first freed its empire and then essentially dissolved itself. The threat of international Communism—the dominant theme of American foreign policy practically since the end of World War II—had collapsed. This transformation in the international political scene might presumably have spurred dramatic changes in US foreign policy. For Chomsky, however, the essential continuity in American foreign policy objectives was far more striking than the inevitable but relatively minor changes occasioned by the new international realities. Chomsky’s assessment is consistent with his understanding of what the Cold War was really all about. As we saw in Chapter 2, Chomsky regarded the Cold War as basically a smokescreen. It served both superpowers as an excuse to consolidate their control over their respective empires. In Chomsky’s view, the disappearance of the United States’ Cold War adversary thus created both an opportunity and a challenge for US leaders. The opportunity lay in the exhilarating possibility of further expanding the reach of US power across the world. Whatever its motives, the Soviet Union had stood in the way of American global ambitions; it functioned as a deterrent, albeit not always effective, to American imperialism. With the Soviets out of the way, the United States could pursue its aggressive international agenda undeterred by concerns of colliding with a dangerous foe. The challenge lay in finding new justifications for the global primacy of American power in the absence of the ostensible Soviet threat. Accordingly, US leaders contrived new pretexts to substitute for the anti-Communist crusade in justification of an aggressive foreign policy. Three themes in particular proved to be serviceable: the need to counter the threat to international peace and security by “rogue states” and their leaders; a new justification for military interventionism as a response to possible humanitarian catastrophes; and the international war against terrorism. Often, two or all three of the themes were invoked to justify one exercise of American power or another. In Chomsky’s account, US leaders’ continued assertion of America’s global primacy repeatedly demonstrated an arrogance and brutality that compare with the worst American behavior during the Cold War. The arrogance was reflected in the assumption—sometimes implicit, sometimes openly proclaimed—that the United States was uniquely entitled to pursue its overseas objectives without regard to the constraints of international law and world opinion observed by ordinary countries . The brutality was reflected in its readiness to utilize lethal force to achieve 160 desired outcomes and in its continued complicity in the crimes of client regimes that willingly slaughtered large numbers of their own people when necessary to maintain political control. Chomsky’s critique of post–Cold War American foreign policy, like much of his earlier work, is almost invariably skewed to point to the immorality of American power. His use of evidence is typically selective, and his consideration of counterarguments superficial at best. Sometimes he makes factual assertions that simply don’t follow from any evidence he presents. Occasionally, he makes himself look silly in his determination to paint the blackest possible picture of the motives and consequences of American policy. Obviously, these are serious shortcomings. Still, his arguments often have substantial merit, credibly challenging official claims and the narratives that support them. Empire Redux According to Chomsky, the second Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq was emblematic of “the declared intention of the most powerful state in history to maintain its hegemony through the threat or use of military force.”1 This is not an extreme claim. That the Bush administration was seeking—or should be seeking—something akin to international hegemony is an argument that has been advanced by both critics and supporters of an aggressive US push for world leadership.2 Chomsky quotes the Princeton political scientist John Ikenberry, who describes the Bush administration’s “grand strategy [that] begins with a fundamental commitment to maintaining a unipolar world in which the United States has no peer competitor . . . a world order in which [the United States] runs the show.”3 In his post–Cold War writings, Chomsky more often uses the term “hegemony ” than “empire” to describe the worldwide reach of American power, but the change in terminology does not signal any change in his perspective. Chomsky nowhere specifically defines what he means by “hegemony”; he clearly recognizes that global hegemony falls well short of actual domination—he repeatedly points out that...

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