Indian political problem is not that we are being Americanized, but that the US empire does not know what it wants to do or can do with its power or its limits. It merely insists that those who are not with it are against it. Had the US president, George W. Bush, declared a ‘War on poverty’, ‘War on Hunger’ or ‘War on AIDS’, it would been a fitting reflection of the primacy of American power. Instead, the true colors of American unilateralism were seen in the invasion of Iraq.

The US has an overwhelming edge in hi-tech defence system. Its military strength is unrivalled. This advantage is the result not only of large budgets, but also of important managerial and organizational changes made over the years. Even in the age of globalization, commercialization and information revolution that are transforming the world, the US military dominance continues and military action has become the Bush administration’s defining response. The strategy rests on a strong technology base and a defence industry that uses techniques for new defence systems, reconnaissance satellites, stealth-aircraft, precision weapons and other unique technology. But American dominance is not simply military. The US economy is as large as those of Japan, Germany and Britain put together.

America’s ultimate challenge is to transform its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightened leadership. Only in such a world will the US find partners not only to share the psychological burden of leadership but also to shape an international order consistent with freedom and democracy. No matter how powerful American may be an obsession with predominance, as in the Iraq war, will only gradually unite the world against it and force it into positions that would eventually leave it isolated and drained.

Unilateralism and militarism are at the core of the US security doctrine. The Iraq invasion was not just a military crisis but also a political crisis within the larger liberal democratic world. Peace according to international law or can be lured into doing so. Finally, in the historical perspective, the new American imperialism will be more dangerous than was the British Empire, because it is run by a much stronger power. But it is unlikely to last longer. The metaphor of war should not blind America of the fact that suppressing terrorism will take years of patient civilian cooperation with other countries, particularly the Islamic World. The suppressing terrorism will take years of patient civilian cooperation with other countries, particularly the Islamic World. The willingness of other countries to cooperate on the solution of transnational issues depends, in part, on their own self-interest, but also on the attractiveness and acceptability of the American position. No large country can afford to be purely unilateral. Learning to listen to others and to define the national interests broadly to include global interests will be crucial to the success of the new American preponderance.