The New American Empire?

The phrase ‘‘American empire’’ has reentered the popular lexicon but remains contested. What does it mean to say that the United States is an empire? Why has this term resurfaced after so many decades to describe the United States in the new millennium? What does this mean for American foreign policy? I attempt to answer these questions by making three interrelated points. First, empire is a particular authority relationship between two polities constituted by extreme forms of both security and economic hierarchy. Second, the United States today is not an empire but it does exert substantial authority over other states in a range of hierarchical relationships. Third, although not an empire, the United States is acting in an imperialist fashion and, paradoxically, is undermining the international authority that it has cultivated and nurtured over the last century