Hegemony or Survival

The US Strategy for Permanent Global Dominance

The biologist Ernst Mayr once suggested that "higher intelligence" might be a biological error leading to quick extinction. Of fifty billion species on Earth, only humans developed this trait, and we have spent our short history perfecting ways to destroy ourselves. This threat has become more urgent as global powers prioritize dominance over survival, pushing for the militarization of space and dismissing severe environmental warnings to protect narrow private interests, even at the risk of nuclear war or ecological collapse.

This strategy of seeking permanent global hegemony requires keeping the general population under control. Since the first democratic revolutions, elites have feared the "great beast"—the common people—and sought to keep them from interfering. In democratic societies, this is achieved not with a lash but through the "engineering of consent," where specialized industries manage public opinion to ensure the "bewildered herd" remains spectators rather than participants.

In late 2002, this vision was officially unveiled as a grand strategy to ensure a unipolar world where no other power could challenge American leadership. This doctrine introduced the concept of preventive war, which, unlike preemptive self-defense against an imminent threat, allows for an attack based on an imagined or invented future danger. It effectively grants the powerful the right of arbitrary aggression, treating the framework of international law as "hot air."

Iraq served as the first test case for this policy. It was a defenseless target, rich in resources, and easily portrayed as an imminent threat. Despite no credible evidence linking the regime to 9/11 or active WMDs, a massive propaganda campaign convinced a large portion of the public that the invasion was necessary self-defense. This drive for global hegemony has a mirror image in the erosion of domestic rights. By labeling individuals as "enemy combatants," the government claimed the right to detain people indefinitely without charge or access to lawyers, laying the foundation for control typically seen in totalitarian systems.

The international community is expected to follow this lead or be dismissed as irrelevant. The UN Charter’s rules on the use of force are treated as a "collapsed edifice" when they become inconvenient, even as the dominant power uses its veto to block resolutions calling for other nations to observe international law. To justify these actions, leaders and intellectuals rely on "intentional ignorance," framing every intervention as a noble mission. Every empire, from the British in India to the Japanese in Manchuria, has claimed to act out of pure altruism while ignoring the destructive consequences.

However, this pursuit of dominance has faced a significant obstacle: world public opinion. For the first time in history, massive global protests occurred before a war was even launched. This "second superpower" represents a major shift in public consciousness, suggesting that the engineering of consent is becoming more difficult. Ultimately, the world faces a stark choice between a system governed by force and one governed by law. For those in free societies, the responsibility is to challenge the doctrines of hegemony that place the entire species on a precarious path.