The Empire of Illusions: America and the Eternal Temptation of Hegemony

There are truths we prefer to silence, or at least sweeten behind the flattering guise of “democracy” and “human rights.” But the attentive historian, the rigorous economist, and the seasoned diplomat know how to read between the virtuous proclamations of the United States and discern the workings of a constant strategy: the expansion and preservation of global hegemony, from 1945 to the present day, regardless of the human, financial, or political costs.

Noam Chomsky has demonstrated with chilling clarity: Washington does not merely seek to defend its interests—it aims to prevent any rival power from challenging its status, even at the cost of systematic use of force or manipulation of international law. Emmanuel Todd, in After the Empire, warned as early as 2002: behind the façade of American omnipotence lies a system in crisis, surviving only through militaristic and ideological escalation.

The Doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” and Its Modern Avatars

As early as the 19th century, the United States proclaimed itself the bearer of a civilizing mission, justifying its territorial expansion and later its international interventionism through the famous “Manifest Destiny.” After 1945, this ideology evolved into a will for global hegemony, as Chomsky explains in Hegemony or Survival: “The United States has taken over Britain’s former role as the leading hegemonic power, with an unprecedented ambition to reshape the world in its image.”

American imperialism does not rely on classical colonization but on systemic influence across military, economic, cultural, and legal spheres. From 1945 onward, the U.S. established a global order to its advantage: the Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods agreements, NATO, the UN, the IMF, the World Bank. The dollar became the reference currency, international institutions were shaped to serve American interests, and international law became a selective tool.

Michael Mann defines this empire as a centralized system maintained by coercion, where the U.S. directs resource flows and relationships among peripheral countries.

War as Routine and Primary Instrument

Since the end of World War II, American military interventions form an impressive litany: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya—not to mention countless covert CIA operations in Latin America (Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala), Africa (Congo, Libya), and the Middle East (Iran). According to researchers at Tufts University, the U.S. has conducted over 400 military interventions since 1776, more than half after 1950, and no fewer than 251 since 1991 (read those numbers without blinking). Rarely in history has a self-proclaimed democracy used armed force so extensively beyond its borders.

Iraq exemplifies this model: in 2003, under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction never found, Washington plunged Mesopotamia into chaos. The cost? Over $3 trillion according to economist Joseph Stiglitz, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the rise of the Islamic State. Afghanistan—twenty years of military presence—ended in spectacular defeat and a shattered society.

A declining empire always resembles a compulsive gambler: the more it loses, the higher it bets.

Interference, Law, Trade, Currency, and Culture as Complementary Weapons

American interference has often meant overthrowing legitimate governments to install compliant regimes.

In Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, the U.S. supported dictatorships (Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, Mobutu, etc.) or rebel groups (Contras in Nicaragua, mujahideen in Afghanistan) as long as they served its interests. Jean-Pierre Filiu, a Middle East specialist, has shown how this policy fueled terrorism and regional conflicts.

America doesn’t just bomb—it legislates, sanctions, subsidizes, and seduces. Naomi Klein revealed how neoliberalism was imposed under the U.S. banner through “shock therapy,” transforming entire economies into open markets for American multinationals at the expense of local populations. Jeffrey Sachs, from a more institutional perspective, denounced the coercive use of development aid and the IMF as levers of dependency.

As for law, it becomes a tool of hegemony: Washington reserves the right to intervene wherever it pleases while refusing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court for its own soldiers. Preventive wars, arbitrary detentions (Guantanamo), drone assassinations, unilateral sanctions—all are violations of the norms it claims to uphold. As Chomsky notes, “The United States has arrogated the right to use violence to achieve its goals, while condemning the same practices in its adversaries.”

Cultural “soft power” (Hollywood, Netflix, NBA, elite universities, NGOs, Silicon Valley...) completes the picture: the massive export of cultural, academic, and digital products shapes imaginations and imposes an American standard of modernity.

A Colossal Bill

This hegemony comes at a price—paid by the entire world, but not sparing the American taxpayer. Vietnam: around $1 trillion in today’s dollars, for a lost war. Iraq and Afghanistan: nearly $8 trillion since 2001, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project.

Add to this the future bill: veteran care, debt interest, and maintenance of an oversized military-industrial complex. Between 2020 and 2024, the Pentagon awarded $2.4 trillion in contracts to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other arms giants. Meanwhile, diplomacy and humanitarian aid barely received $356 billion—a disparity that speaks volumes about American strategic priorities.

Peace is a side budget; war is a national industry.

The Scars Left on the World

American rhetoric of freedom and democracy is almost always accompanied by its opposite: political instability, civil wars, terrorism, mass migrations. In Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Western interventionism has produced more disintegration than solid institutions.

Economically, the imposition of the neoliberal model has weakened entire societies: forced privatizations, brutal market openings, dependence on foreign capital. Culturally, Hollywood, digital, and media hegemony homogenizes imaginations, imposes a consumerist and individualist ethos, and reduces other nations’ sovereignty.

But history is dialectical: every imperial gesture provokes resistance. China and Russia challenge the American order, Latin America seeks autonomous paths, Africa partially emancipates from its tutelage, and Europe has launched initiatives for autonomous defense.

Hegemony, far from stabilizing the world, fragments it.

Europe: Ally or Vassal?

Europe is emblematic. Since 1945, the Old Continent has lived under a double umbrella: military, with NATO, and economic, with the dollar as the global reserve currency. This dependence often resembles vassalization. Alignment with Washington during the Gulf Wars, in Iraq, or more recently in the confrontation with Russia, illustrates Europe’s chronic inability to define an independent foreign policy. Sanctions dictated from Washington sometimes hit European industry harder than America’s, while the supply of overpriced American liquefied gas after the Ukraine war reminds us that transatlantic solidarity often overlaps with asymmetric trade relations.

Yet voices have risen—from Jacques Chirac to Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Emmanuel Macron to Josep Borrell—advocating for “European strategic autonomy”: common defense, energy diversification, more sovereign currency, reindustrialization, and coordinated foreign policy. Without this awakening, the EU will remain a military protectorate and captive market—a docile appendage of an empire that recognizes only its own interests.

American Society Facing Its Own Empire

American hegemony is not only contested abroad—it is also challenged within the U.S. itself. A portion of public opinion, shaped by Vietnam and the Iraq-Afghanistan fiascos, expresses growing fatigue with “endless wars.” Pew Research Center polls show that a majority of Americans now want to limit foreign interventions and focus on domestic issues: deindustrialization, social inequality, opioid crisis, healthcare, infrastructure. Pacifist movements, following Chomsky’s intellectual legacy, and isolationist politicians denounce the exorbitant weight of the military-industrial complex once warned about by Eisenhower. But another part of society—fed by patriotism, a sense of exceptionalism, and dominant media—continues to see America’s global role as a quasi-messianic mission. America is thus torn between two visions: that of a tired empire that should retreat, and that of a chosen nation that exists only through dominance.

The Empire Unmasked

John Mearsheimer, theorist of offensive realism, puts it bluntly: every great power seeks to maximize its power. But the United States, by claiming to embody a universal model, has crossed a singular threshold: that of an empire believing itself ordained by History, conflating its national interests with humanity’s destiny.

It is essential to recall a simple truth: behind the rhetoric of “values” lies a relentless logic of domination. The numbers are there, the facts are established: endless wars, astronomical spending, weakened cultures, shattered nations.

The question remains: how long will the world continue to pay the price of this imperial illusion?

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References

Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival : America's Quest for Global Dominance ; Imperial Grand Strategy

Todd, Emmanuel. After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Mann, Michael. Incoherent Empire

Mearsheimer, John. The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities 

Sachs, Jeffrey. The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity