>On the other hand, the difference is that I don't think the US is the unique
>evil in the world on this score, unlike folks on this list who think the
>defeat of the US state is somehow synonymous with the defeat of global
>capitalism, as if those capitalist would not happily just pump up their
>alliances in other countries as a substitute with barely a shrug.
While it may be possible for a next hegemon to replace the USA, just as Pax Americana replaced Pax Britannica, it is rather hard to imagine that any state or even a combination of states like the EU can assume the imperial responsibility of policing the world "with barely a shrug."
This from the Center for Defense Information:
***** Consider the following...
^ At $325 billion, the U.S. military budget request for FY'02 is nearly six times larger than that of Russia, the second largest spender.
^ It is more than twenty-two times as large as the combined spending of the seven countries traditionally identified by the Pentagon as our most likely adversaries (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria).
^ It is more than the combined spending of the next twelve nations.
^ The United States and its close allies spend more than the rest of the world combined, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all military spending. Together they spend over thirty seven times more than the seven rogue states.
^ The seven potential "enemies," Russia and China together spend $116 billion, less than one-half (36%) the U.S. military budget.
^ Global military spending has declined from $1.2 trillion in 1985 to $809 billion in 1999. During that time the U.S. share of total military spending rose from 31% to 36% in Fiscal Year 1999.
<http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/> *****
Keeping an Empire is expensive, & ruling classes & governing elites elsewhere would find it difficult to organize consent to up the military spending to the tune of US military expenditure.
Yoshie