THE WISDOM FUND: News & Views
New York Times
April 27, 2003

American Power Moves Beyond the Mere Super

by Gregg Easterbrook

Stealth drones, G.P.S.-guided smart munitions that hit precisely where aimed; antitank bombs that guide themselves; space-relayed data links that allow individual squad leaders to know exactly where American and opposition forces are during battle - the United States military rolled out all this advanced technology, and more, in its lightning conquest of Iraq. No other military is even close to the United States. . . .

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[American hyperpower marks the end of the post-colonial era, little more than 50 years after it started. . . . In reality, the American invasion was about something completely different: the assertion of American power in this most sensitive of regions, with the added perk of control of the country's oil. Perversely, while the first Gulf war was fought in defence of the principle of sovereignty - Kuwait's - the second was about precisely the opposite, the rape of Iraq's.--Martin Jacques, "The power of one: Weak nations will succumb to American ambition unless we insist on respecting sovereignty," Guardian, May 26, 2003]

[In President Bush's inauguration speech, he pledged to support "the expansion of freedom in all the world", deploying the words free or freedom no less than 25 times in 20 short minutes. The neoconservative strategy is quite explicit: to bend the world to America's will; to reshape it according to the interests of a born-again superpower. There is something more than a little chilling about this. Even though the Iraqi occupation has gone seriously awry, the United States still does not recognise the constraints on its own power and ambition.--Martin Jacques, "No monopoly on modernity: American dominance is bound to wither as Asia's confidence grows," Guardian, February 5, 2005]

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