How has this new form of expansion affected American foreign policy?
One could say that the global or virtual empire, Empire III, has not just affected, but has basically been, American foreign policy since the end of World War II in 1945. As I point out, a lot of our military placement overseas was a response (or promoted as a response) to the Soviet threat. It was part of the containment policy, enunciated by George F. Kennan and carried out—though in a much more military fashion than Kennan envisaged—by every administration from Truman to the present. It has involved our elaborate treaty structure beginning with NATO. It is represented by the stationing of hundreds of thousands of U.S. forces in Okinawa, Korea, Germany, and elsewhere since that time. Vietnam and Iraq have been unfortunate aspects of it. But whatever the reason, the U.S. now has over seven hundred bases around the world; commentators (U.S. as well as foreign) speak of the U.S. ranking military officer as the go-to guy in an area rather than our ambassador; and the Pentagon seems to ha
