> I think the concept of "hyperpower" doesn't represent objective
> omnipotence so much as it does the advanced state of megalomania the
> US has fallen into since the end of the cold war. The US is far more
> reckless and trigger-happy now than when the USSR existed. The US may
> indeed be a hegemon in decline, but its fantasies of limitless power
> will remain a rich source of misery for the rest of the world and for
> Americans themselves.
I think this may be because US leaders realized that they couldn't pick a fight with the USSR, because it might end life on earth. Now that the enemies these leaders have in their sights are much less powerful than the former USSR, they are correspondingly "reckless and trigger-happy." I don't think it's a case of megalomania -- they haven't suddenly gotten any crazier than they were. It's just a pragmatic readjustment of their estimation of the consequences of using military force.
Still, however, that doesn't mean that they can just tromp on anyone they want. Firstly because the forces available to the "hyperpower" are not infinite; the U.S. military, as it itself admits, is already dangerously strained. Secondly because there are a number of situations in which even dropping some bombs, which it could technically do, would produce a disaster, e.g., on the Korean Peninsula.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax