Thirdly, he emphasised America's urgent need to scale back and then eradicate the intertwined military, industrial, security and economic foundations that have both driven and underpinned the growth of US empire for far too long.
Of course just the prospect of any of these suggestions being taken seriously would be enough to send the principals and the defenders of the National Security State into paroxysms of apoplexy.
But if these actions are not taken, Johnson argued in his book's introduction, the "long-standing reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it", will lead to "a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union." Although Johnson rightly observed that this outcome is not inevitable, he noted pessimistically, "it may be unavoidable given the hubris and arrogance of our national leadership."
The World is Never Enough
For anyone following recent events from outside the realm of the corporate media's reach -- the proxy 'cold war' with Russia over the Ukraine, along with the provocative sabre rattling over the downing of MH17, Israel's genocidal incursions into the Gaza strip, the deteriorating situations in Iraq and Syria and the rise and rise of ISIS, just to name a few of the volatile global ructions to which America is a party or has some vital stake in -- these conclusions should be obvious. The hubris is palpable, and hubris is always a precursor to imperial decline.
Moreover, if we accept Johnson's proposition that America's unerring desire to impose political and economic dominion over the rest of the world is driven largely by economic (read energy) imperatives, then the irony that in doing so, the US may end up bankrupting itself, must also be blindingly obvious.
And what of the Great Black Hope? For all President Obama's 2008 election promises to bring America back from the brink of imperial overreach, and to dampen its global hegemonic ambitions by relying more on the wielding of soft rather than hard power, America's place in the world order is even more precarious now than it ever was.
The current malaise is not all attributable to the Obama administration. Although his election rhetoric indicated otherwise, as with many presidents who take over the White House, they have to deal with the accumulated baggage left behind by their immediate (and not so immediate) predecessors. Obama was locked into pursuing what neo-conservative historian Max Boot defined as the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada.
But a lot of it is the present administration's cross to bear, and has been for some time. In fact it seems that not a week goes by without this contention becoming even more apparent. At best Obama seems to be trying to be all things to all people -- whilst placating the neo-conservative hawks in his administration and in the broader Beltway. Yet after almost six years of Obama as president, the imagined scenario of imperial collapse becomes all too plausibly undeniable. For those who might scoff at this suggestion, it is vital to remember that there were plenty of folk who actually predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc - after it all went pear shaped!
As for the likes of Johnson and Bacevich and their fervent hope America will pull back from the strategic brinkmanship it has been engaging in, it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. This becomes even more evident when one reads author F. William Engdahl's Full Spectrum Dominance -- Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, published in 2010. Engdahl delivers an unsettling account of the evolution of US global military strategy since the Fall of the Wall and especially that which has prevailed since 9/11.
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