Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (American Empire Project) [Hardcover]

Walden Bello (Author), Tom Engelhardt (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Empire Project | Publication Date: February 10, 2005

From the acclaimed globalization critic, a far-reaching analysis of America's military, economic, and political vulnerability

The empire seems unassailable, but the empire is weak-and precisely because of its imperial ambitions. So argues Walden Bello's provocative new book, which systematically dissects the strategic, economic, and political dilemmas confronting America as a consequence of its quest for global domination.

An award-winning development expert, Bello shows how despite the enormity of the U.S. defense budget, American forces are already overextended, a condition bound to intensify as each local "victory" breeds simmering resistance and new confrontation. He points to the empire's looming economic breakdown, the result of its gargantuan military costs, record-breaking deficits, and exploitative trade and investment relations with developing countries. On the political front, he warns of the bitter disillusionment mounting around the world in response to America's failure to champion liberal democracy. Everywhere America goes, crony capitalism, hostile coercion, and gross inequalities in income eat away at expectations of justice and inclusion.

A clear and prophetic examination, Dilemmas of Domination reveals a not-too-distant future in which the empire's hidden weaknesses will yield fatal challenges to American supremacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, Bello offers a provocative analysis of why he--and much of the world--sees the U.S. empire beginning to weaken. Since he believes that U.S. supremacy is unlikely to falter anytime soon, Bello focuses on its underpinnings and perceptions of its legitimacy. After a brief examination of U.S. grand strategy over the last half century, Bello (De-Globalization) concentrates on the post-9/11 world, arguing that U.S. military credibility has been compromised by actions in Iraq. A related review of U.S.-centrist globalization follows, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present, with a sustained critique of the current U.S. administration's policies. Most instructive are Bello's clear and cogent case studies of Southern countries that are frequently dissatisfied with the U.S.'s role in the WTO, IMF and World Bank. He argues that because the U.S. government's actions in the international arena reflect, at their core, the needs of American capitalism, the U.S. fails to champion liberal democracy and thereby loses legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Most of what's here is not news, but it is a concise and thoughtful global South perspective on America's military, economic, and political realities. (Mar. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bello is best known as a prolific critic of corporate globalization, deeply concerned about the global South's vulnerability to the injustices of unrestrained neoliberal capitalism. In this book, however, his focus is on the emergent vulnerability of the U.S., the consequence, he argues, of an overstretched military, a stagnant economy, and a crisis of democratic legitimacy. Protracted conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan--often the main emphasis of similar arguments--are, for Bello, but one of the concurrent crises of the U.S., alongside sagging international goodwill and the backfiring of "rollback economics" worldwide. Ultimately more compelling than his familiar-sounding political analysis, the strength of Bello's argument rests in exposing the limits and contradictions of speculative capitalism: the Asian market collapse and deteriorating World Trade Organization/International Monetary Fund system, among other illustrative events. It is the author's area of expertise, and his book is a provocative, well-researched polemic. But some readers, even those agreeing with his analysis, may be put off by his undiluted optimism--schadenfreude even--at the decline of the American empire, even if peace is his goal. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books (February 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805074023
• ISBN-13: 978-0805074024
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,304,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dilemmas indeed, April 28, 2005

By 

Tom Mertes - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

The problems of the US mount daily from a ballooning deficit to heightened opposition from multiplying points on the globe. Walden Bello's Dilemmas of Domination is a tour de force dissection of the causes of these mounting problems. He argues from an objective and non-partisan position in the global South. Because he primarily works outside of the US and because his method relies heavily on history, his account is compelling. Dilemmas of Domination contends that the US has entered into a period of decline as the world's hegemon. Three crises characterize the loss of power and prestige. The first crisis is the problem of manufacturing and raw materials overproduction that leads to a decline in profits, and as wages are squeezed to stabilize profits demand falls further. Added to these problems is the fact that the US, the consumer of last resort, cannot continue to borrow and buy forever. The IOUs to the rest of the world will eventually have to be repaid. A second critical problem is military overextension. According to Bello, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the US is not invincible. If it were, how could guerillas continue to move about these occupied nations so freely and make nation-building into such a farce? The US military is so strained that it has to hire mercenaries from companies like Blackwater to protect its corporate interests abroad because a draft would undermine all of its imperial adventures. The third crisis, perhaps the most enduring, is legitimacy. Ideologically, the US has lost its currency to lead the world. Because the US dominates international financial institutions like the IMF, World Bank and most of the regional development banks, their imposition of neo-liberal structural adjustments programs has led to a revolt against their destructive policies as witnessed by the left ferment especially in Latin America but also in the rest of the global South. Furthermore, the US bullying and sometimes insulting treatment of the UN has further sullied the US's reputation. Added to this international delegitimation is the quagmire of domestic politics from the surrender of civil liberties to the patently obvious corporate control of both major parties. For readers looking for a rich and clear formulation of why the US government is detested and feared by much of the earth's population this is the best primer.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The weak must hang together, otherwise they hang separately, November 4, 2005

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

In this stringent view from the South, Walden Bello discerns three different crisis levels beleaguering the US world domination: a military, a judicial and an economical level.

On the military front, the Iraq war shows clearly the limits of interventon: 'today the entire US military is either in Iraq, returning from Iraq or getting ready to go.'
The lesson for the South is that the US military supremacy can be brought to a halt with guerrilla warfare. A sledgehammer is useless in swatting flies.

On the judicial front, the US is loosing its legitimacy.
In Western societies, enhancement of individual freedom and democratic representation are the ideological cornerstones of the regime.
Nationally, recognized human rights (no access to personal information, privacy) are jeopardized in the US by the Patriot Act in the name of the war against terrorism.
For Walden Bello, the US government is becoming authoritarian, because it is in the hands of the military-industrial complex, which functions on a risk-free, cost-plus basis and grabs one half of the US budget. He quotes judiciously William Pfaff: 'The military is already the most powerful institution in the US government, largely unaccountable to the executive branch.'

Internationally, consensus and multilateralism are needed through international institutions.
However, the US behaves unilaterally. Dealings with the South are subordinated to strategic considerations (R. Zoellick: 'countries that seek free trade agreements with the US must cooperate on its foreign policy goals.')
Walden Bello's analysis of the WTO agreements is devastating. He calls them a free trade monopoly in the hands of corporate interests. WTO's agreement on Agriculture is not less than 'Socialism for the Rich'.

The result is that the US democratic messianism is seen as sheer hypocrisy by the rest of the world.

Economically, some of Walden Bello's arguments are a little of the mark.
Finite natural resources and ecological space are demographic problems. The conflict between a minority in command of assets and the majority of the population is a trade union and an election problem.
But some of his arguments are to the point. There is a widening inequality gap in the US: the richest 1% of the population pocketed more than half the benefit of the latest tax reduction. The actual US budget and trade deficits are unsustainable in the long run and certainly if the inflow of foreign capital comes to a halt.

Finally, there is a new hegemon at the horizon: China with its state-assisted capitalism. The author summarizes brilliantly China's behavior: 'nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.'

But what should the South do in the meantime: regional economic blocks, G-20, South-South cooperation, because 'the weak must hang together, otherwise they will hang separately'.

Walden Bello's hard hitting analysis of current events should be a vademecum for all politiciams and laymen.
A must read.

In this context, I also recommend the works of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed and Noreena Hertz.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Free trade as a tool for domination, October 26, 2005

By 

Khalid S. Al Khater "'A lover of Books'" (Doha, Qatar) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

I've read lots of books about globalization and free trade but none exposes the uneven playing field of free trade as good as Walden Bello. He shows that not only the evenness of playing field but also how the way U.S. is imprudently trying to dominate the world by adapting short sighted policies. These kind of policies have become the distinctive mark of recent American ideology domestically and foreign.