Dismantling the Empire

ALSO BY CHALMERS JOHNSON

Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power:

The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945

Revolution and the Social System

An Instance of Treason: Ozaki Hotsumi and the Sorge Spy Ring

Revolutionary Change

Change in Communist Systems (editor and contributor)

Conspiracy at Matsukawa

Ideology and Politics in Contemporary China (editor)

Autopsy on People’s War

Japan’s Public Policy Companies

MITI and the Japanese Miracle:

The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975

The Industrial Policy Debate (editor and contributor)

Politics and Productivity: How Japan’s Development Strategy Works

(with Laura Tyson and John Zysman)

Japan: Who Governs? The Rise of the Developmental State

Okinawa: Cold War Island (editor and contributor)

DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE

DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE

AMERICA’S LAST BEST HOPE

CHALMERS JOHNSON

METROPOLITAN BOOKS   HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY   NEW YORK

Metropolitan Books

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Metropolitan Books^® and ^® are registered trademarks of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2010 by Chalmers Johnson

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Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

The chapter “Blowback World” first appeared in slightly altered form in the London Review of Books in the October 21, 2004, issue (vol. 26, no. 20), pp. 25–28.

“America’s Unwelcome Advances” first appeared August 22, 2008, on MotherJones.com and is used in this book with its permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the Foundation for National Progress.

All other pieces, except the introduction, first appeared on the website TomDispatch.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Johnson, Chalmers.

Dismantling the empire : America’s last best hope / Chalmers Johnson.—1st ed.

    p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-8050-9303-2

  1. United States—Foreign relations—1989– 2. United States—Military policy. 3. United States. Dept. of Defense—Appropriations and expenditures. 4. Intervention (International law) 5. Imperialism. I. Title.

E840.J6325 2010

973.92—dc22

2010003167

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premiums. For details contact: Director, Special Markets.

First Edition 2010

Designed by Kelly S. Too

Printed in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

  Introduction: The Suicide Option

PART I: WHAT WE DID

  1. Blowback World

  2. Empire v. Democracy

  3. The Smash of Civilizations

  4. Peddling Democracy

PART II: SPIES, ROGUES, AND MERCENARIES

  5. Agency of Rogues

  6. An Imperialist Comedy

  7. Warning: Mercenaries at Work

PART III: BASEWORLD

  8. America’s Empire of Bases

  9. America’s Unwelcome Advances

10. Baseless Expenditures

PART IV: THE PENTAGON TAKES US DOWN

11. Going Bankrupt

12. The Military-Industrial Man

13. We Have the Money (If Only We Didn’t Waste It on the Defense Budget)

14. Economic Death Spiral at the Pentagon

PART V: HOW TO END IT

15. Dismantling the Empire

Note on Sources

Acknowledgments

Index

DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE

INTRODUCTION

THE SUICIDE OPTION

During the last years of the Clinton administration I was in my mid-sixties, retired from teaching Asian international relations at the University of California and deeply bored by my specialty, Japanese politics. It seemed that Japan would continue forever as a docile satellite of the United States, a safe place to park tens of thousands of American troops, as well as ships and aircraft, all ready to assert American hegemony over the entire Pacific region. I was then in the process of rethinking my research and determining where I should go next.