Soren wrote on Apr 10
th, 2012 at 2:09pm:
I do not think that the US is an empire in the usual sense. It is certainly a dominant power, but it has no territorial claims on anyone. It doesn't have client states paying it tribute. It has client states for its militart bases, but it pays for them at market rates and within the terms of the contracts that are drawn up for these bases. And the contracts expire and the US withdraws and goes somewhere else.
As a superpower, as any country, it is naturally interested in not having powerful enemies. But that doesn't mean it wants 'friends' at all cost. You can be a successful country, largely indifferent towards the US, even mildly antagonistic, and the US will not be interesed in you. (Switzerland, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, France).
You think? That's not what I heard when the French played difficult in the Security Council on Iraq. Didn't Amerikan businesses rename their French Fries?
What about when Japan became the world's number-two economy in the 1990s and rivalled US manufacturing? George HW Bush was not exactly a friend to Japan - certainly not as close as he was to the Saudis.
How about China? The US have a few things to say about the pegged Yuan - things they can't say without a new military base in Darwin.
Still, the reason the US military doesn't obliterate any rivals is this: its friends have contracts. US power does not exist for its own sake. It exists to support its friends' needs.
Are you suggesting that the term "client state" refers to the lease on military bases?
I see you've been studying International Studies in Bradford, old chap.
Jolly good show.