All the developed industrialised countries such as Belgium, Japan, Germany, Australia and so on are imperialist in terms of the economic essence or stage of development (decaying, parasitic, monopoly capitalism dominated by finance capital); many of them also possess, and occasionally use, their enormous military prowess. But among them there is one country which has earned the outrageous distinction of being the world people’s enemy number one.

The first wave of global extension of capitalism was led by maritime and mercantile powers like Spain, Holland, England; the second wave by England to start with, (for that was the birth place of the industrial revolution); the third by the USA, the forerunner in the latest Scientific and Technological Revolution and by far the biggest economic (and also military) power. It is only natural that like Spain and England in earlier periods, today the USA aspires for continuous expansion of its sphere of influence, for a world empire. But the most crucial difference is that, as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out in a mid-2003 article in the Guardian, all other empires knew that they were not the only ones — they had to reckon with real and potential challengers. Not so Washington. After the collapse of the other superpower it thinks and acts like the monarch of all it surveys. Moreover, whereas even the British at the summit of its power operated no more than one quarter of the earth’s surface, Pax Americana has got the economic, diplomatic and military means to actively campaign for “full-spectrum dominance” over the globe. This is the Empire of our times: not in a post-imperialist sense as in Negri and Hardt, but as the highest (and may be the last – who knows?) product of imperialism today, much like fascism was in another period, and awaits the same fate as all other empires in history.