----- Original Message ----- From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Ian, Ian, Ian! you're getting too close to reality! the efforts by > individual parts of the military-industrial complex (or the whole shebang) > to gain advantage for themselves is part of the reality of imperialism. It's > not the same as the self-perception and self-justification of imperialists > that I described. > Jim ================= Right, except that I think they're no longer worried about the fables of "international public goods" and the like which were previously seen as constituting the vocabulary of self-description and self-justification which served their goals. That's the difference between the Neoliberals and the Realists in IR discourse. The whole recent discussion emanating from the Beltway regarding imperialism is, to my mind, Realism's [and the Realists] coming to full self-consciousness regarding the terms of their self-description/self-justification. "Ok, we're imperialists, we might as well get good at it" and "what are you going to do about it, beat us up" type rhetoric is symptomatic of this self-consciousness. They see themselves as so powerful now they don't *care* whether they are seen as imperialists. Hobbes. Ian
