American Empire Project
5 total works
"Dismantling the Empire" explores the subjects for which Johnson is now famous, from the origins of blowback to Barack Obama's Afghanistan conundrum, including our inept spies, our bad behavior in other countries, our ill-fought wars, and our capitulation to a military that has taken ever more control of the federal budget. There is, he proposes, only one way out: President Obama must begin to dismantle the empire before the Pentagon dismantles the American Dream. If we do not learn from the fates of past empires, he suggests, our decline and fall are foreordained. This is Johnson at his best: delivering both a warning and an urgent prescription for a remedy.
A stunning exposure of the policies that have led to American imperialism and the massive military deployment that accompanies it, The Sorrows of Empire proposes that the US could suffer the same "overstretch" that led to the demise of the Soviet Union. Johnson outlines the cost of Empire, both for the American people and their Republic, and for the rest of the world. Eloquent and impassioned, The Sorrows of Empire is a sombre and cogent analysis, written with an authority that is impossible to ignore.
The long-awaited final volume of Chalmers Johnson's bestselling "Blowback" trilogy confronts the overreaching of the American empire and the threat it poses to the republicIn his prophetic book "Blowback," Chalmers Johnson linked the CIA's clandestine activities abroad to disaster at home. In The Sorrows of Empire, he explored the ways in which the growth of American militarism and the garrisoning of the planet have jeopardized our stability. Now, in "Nemesis," he shows how imperial overstretch is undermining the republic itself, both economically and politically.Delving into new areas--from plans to militarize outer space to Constitution-breaking presidential activities at home and the devastating corruption of a toothless Congress--"Nemesis" offers a striking description of the trap into which the dreams of America's leaders have taken us. Drawing comparisons to empires past, Johnson explores in vivid detail just what the unintended consequences of our dependence on a permanent war economy are likely to be. What does it mean when a nation's main intelligence organization becomes the president's secret army? Or when the globe's sole "hyperpower," no longer capable of paying for the vaulting ambitions of its leaders, becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all times? In his stunning conclusion, Johnson suggests that financial bankruptcy could herald the breakdown of constitutional government in America--a crisis that may ultimately prove to be the only path to a renewed nation.
An account of the consequences of American global policies. The author argues that, in the 21st century, America will reap the global resentments it is now sowing. "Blowback", a term that officials of the CIA first coined for their internal use, refers to the unintended consequences of American policies and the dangers faced by an over-extended empire that insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the globe and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms. From America's role in Asia's financial crisis, to its early support for Saddam Hussein and its actions in the Balkans, Chalmers Johnson reveals the misguided actions of a nation basking in its own triumphalism. In the wake of the Cold War, the USA has imprudently expanded the commitments it made over the previous 40 years. In "Blowback", Johnson issues a warning: it is time for the American empire to demobilize before its bills become due.
