[Chris Alger]

This is to both your ideas in turn:

1. Converting to a self-defense military is certainly in the interests of most Americans. About half of discretionary spending, or about 4% of GDP, is devoted to the military and "intelligence." Drastically cutting it would still leave the U.S. with the world's most powerful conventional military and turn fiscal policies from crises into much simpler problems. Few Americans have an interest in maintaining or expanding U.S. military power around the globe.

2. The practical problem of expanding U.S. hegemony is the same problem all empires face: exponential risks and costs coupled with diminishing returns. We're seeing the tip of the iceberg in polls showing the U.S. being regarded everywhere as a growing threat, a new phenomenon. Common sense tells us that we can keep taxes down, address the public spending crisis or use our military to dominate the world, but we can't do all three.

Fifty years from now the U.S. could easily be plagued by domestic terrorism and discontent and bogged down in a dozen or so "asymetrical" conflicts where the costs and benefits, espcially to the public, are incapable of reasonable estimation. Entrenched intstitutions engendered by this system, such as foreign elites trying to extort concessions and domestic forces driven by fear of a power vacuum if the U.S. reduces commitments, could preclude any political solution. The system could be forced to continue more or less on autopilot until it breaks down, something like Vietnam policy afer 1967 (when it was clear that costs would exceed any tangible gain), except on a global scale. The increasing inability to control borders, WMD proliferation and international capital flows tend to make crises catastrophic, conceivably not survivable.

Every empire in the history of the world has either (1) been crushed by a rival or (2) experienced some point where runaway costs and instability become endemic and ultimately overwhelming, or both. Ours won't be saved by the pretense of spreading "democracy." Nowadays, this really refers more to signs and perceptions of political legitimacy rather than broad-based power. One sees no alarm in the national media about the problem of democratic failure in the U.S. despite obvious crippling defects: the vast majority barely participating while those that do tend to be cynical, confused or deluded. Our system is dominated by elites who don't much care about poular desires. They are not inclined to seriously pursue in countries where they are even less popular.

Moreover, domination of other countries by the U.S. does much more to undermine local legitimacy than any demonstration election or propaganda can salvage. It is just possible that this is more of a long-run effect since many populist forces might tentatively welcome U.S. efforts to shake up local elites (I tend to agree with those that see U.S. exploitation of local struggles as counterproductive even in the short-run). So there could be a period where democratic forces enjoy new visibility and opportunities. In the final analysis, however, the U.S. has no interest in transferring power to foreign masses. When push come to shove, when popular political parties mature to the point of demanding a bigger slice of the pie, any perception of legitimacy of U.S. hegemony will also break down.

The counterargument is that a much bigger "pie" means being able to satisfy more desires while keeping elites affluent and sufficiently satisfied. Think about how well that's worked here. Look at what the bottom half of the U.S. gets for the hours it works and how this has stagnated or gotten worse while the "economy" has gotten quite a bit bigger. It isn't even recognized as much of a national problem. It won't even become a blip on our country's international agenda.