Description
This article makes a contribution to the literature on the US empire and its contradictions. Scholars believe that geographical distance, alliances as opposed to direct rule, and military overstretch represent limits to US imperial power. Although this paper does not disagree with these accounts, it places more emphasis on a structural conundrum of US imperialism. While the strategy of liberal hegemony has been highly beneficial to the US, its mission to exporting capitalism tends to cause the rise of technological – and military – rivals. Furthermore, it leads to irreconcilable dilemmas between economic and security interests. If in the past the US managed to undermine challenges stemming from Japan and Germany, Washington, D.C. is at pain with finding a coherent strategy to tackle China’s rise. In its first part, the article provides a systemic analysis of why US grand strategy leads to an imperial “blowback”. Compared to Chalmers Johnson’s approach, the paper’s point of departure is the intersection between the international system of states and a transnational capitalist economy. The case-study shows that there is strategic continuity but tactical change between Obama and Trump in their foreign economic policy towards China. Discontinuities, the paper finds, are determined by the presidents’ diverging worldviews.
