An Immature Hegemon

Abstract

The Bush administration's controversial foreign policy and its ongoing travails in Iraq form the backdrop for current debates about the exercise of US power abroad. In certain respects, these debates recall those of the late nineteenth century, when the United States embarked on a phase of “self-consciously progressive imperialism born of Americans' sense of secular and religious mission” (McDougall 1997:114). Thankfully, formal empire in the nineteenth-century sense is no longer possible. But when considering the present situation in Iraq, it is not hard to be reminded of the United States' experience in the Philippines. Reflecting some decades ago on that experience, George Kennan observed that “there are many things … Americans should beware of, and among them is the acceptance of any sort of a paternalistic responsibility to anyone, be it even in the form of military occupation, if we can possibly avoid it, or for any period...