In a feature-length article at the website of Asian broadcaster Press TV, futurist author Harry J. Bentham questions the future of US military power.
From the article:
First, ask yourself this: what is this Empire, and who does it serve? It can be argued in good faith that the special interest groups, those gentlemen setting the objectives of American foreign policy, are the same ones who once played monopoly using the British Empire.Much of the article appeals not to left-wing critics of US foreign policy, but to self-labelled American patriots. "If America’s many patriots can be reasoned with - if it is possible to reach their hearts, past the propaganda and money that glamorize the squander of American military power - let them know that they are being used" the op-ed argues.
Although stating that patriotism is a concept alien to the futurist political discourse, the op-ed makes the case that giving up lives and fortunes on foreign battlefields that don't help the nation does not fit with idea of patriotic virtue.
In what may not strike a chord with more conservative patriots, though, the long version of the article makes the case that the US should focus more on the social ills at home rather than remaking the world in America's image:
The growing social failures and the proliferation of misery in places like Chicago, where law enforcers indulge in torture and terrorism against people on account of the color of their skin, demand the full attention of all who profess to love America. It is a time like this, when messianic and utopian foreign policy aimed at reshaping other countries like Ukraine or Syria in America’s image belies the dystopic and doomed course that the US government has taken at home.
