Hegemony or Survival

I finally got around to reading Noam Chomsky”s Hegemony or Survival, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to make sense of US foreign policy and the legitimizing discourse that surrounds it.

Chomsky exposes the US’s “Imperial Grand Strategy” that has been in place since before World War II and implemented in a bipartisan manner by both of the entrenched political parties for the benefit of the ruling elites. Hegemony, that is unchallengeable US domination of the world, works for the immediate aggrandizement of the ruling elites at the expense of the survival, let alone prosperity, of the rest of us. The best part for the ruling elites, in my view, is that they make the rest of us pay for their hegemony with our blood and treasure while they reap the rewards and despise us for the dupes that we are.

Chomsky holds out some hope that popular movements in favor of human rights will mitigate the impacts of the Imperial Grand Strategy and perhaps even lead to its being discarded in favor of something more sensible for the masses. In my view, the arrogance of the Bush administration was such that they felt less of a need to cloak the Imperial Grand Strategy in the guise of humanitarian intervention. Their contempt for the popular will led them to expose the workings of the strategy to more of the public than has been customary despite the almost worthless media. Perhaps this greater transparency will strengthen anti-imperialist popular movements and make the Imperial Grand Strategy subject to discussion.

As the 2008 campaigns progress, however, I am not optimistic. Ron Paul is the lone dissenter, the single candidate in either entrenched party who openly questions the Imperial Grand Strategy. The rest are falling all over themselves to establish their bona fides to the elites who will ultimately decide the outcome of the elections.