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blowback seriesWritten by Chalmers Johnson
Read by Tom Weiner
* Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Second Edition)
* The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
* Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
* Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope
Nonfiction, History, Politics
Johnson sees that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, since World War II the US has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world where it has strategic interests. A long-time Cold Warrior he applauded the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was a cold warrior. There’s no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so.[1] But at the same time he experienced a political awakening after the USSR 1989 collapse, noting that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of this militarism (as distinct from actual domestic defense) is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and an eventual disaster for the American economy.