Gary over at philosophy.com has a nifty little post on the US as empire. Key phrases: empire, imperial overreach, and national security state. Got that?

Calling post-9/11 America a “national security state” is surely more helpful than calling it a “police state.” Adam Felber wonders wonders if liberals have cried wolf so much since McCarthy that the word has lost its impact, now that it might actually be needed. Calling conservatives “fascists” or the current administration a “police state” might make you feel better, but it will close more ears than it will open. “National security state” seems to more accurately describe the Bush administration—in a way that it understands itself. This isn’t to say that it’d use the term, but “national security” does seem to be its number one priority, at least as it understands national security.

According to Simone Weil, oppressive power seems to eventually get too big for its britches. When any empire starts needing to tighten its belt a little, four scenarios tend to come into play:

1. The forces of parasitism, waste, and confusion take on lives of their own, sheltering challengers to the imperial order.
2. The empire’s over-reaching provokes reactions (from #1) that it didn’t anticipate and is not prepared for.
3. The empire reacts to the challenger(s) and begins to exhaust its own resources.
4. The principle of nemesis punishes the empire’s hubris.

How does nemesis punish the empire’s over-reaching? Either, one, the empire can’t find new resources and blows its wad; disintegration is rapid, and a new power takes over. Or, two, the empire manages to find new resouces, but the shift from one to another allows “subterraneous powers” to arise, which eventually master the new situation and take over.

The trick, then, is to avoid overreach. Gary wonders if that might be France’s real concern: that the US will overreach and we’ll have global chaos on our hands when the American giant trips over itself.

I don’t want to speculate as to the secret thoughts of Jacque Chirac. But we can ask if Weil’s scenario is coming into play…

1. Yes, the forces of chaos (I prefer “the forces of Joker”) have take to a life of their own. Drug cartels and terrorism are successfully avoiding defeat by the US and its allies. Corporate corruption seems to have leveled off lately, but the fall of Enron and its ilk should still be registering on our radar screens for some time (if we’re prudent).
2. September 11 is definitely an unanticipated reaction from the forces of chaos. If North Korea attacks, we’ll have another one. If Iraq unleashes weapons of mass destruction, we’ll have another one still.
3. Well, we’re reacting. It’s too soon to tell if we’re over-reaching. But the slagging economy and the hesitance of our usual allies seems to indicate that we’re not too far from over-reaching.
4. Time will tell on this one.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is trying to cool Bush’s jets. UK lapdog Tony Blair seems to be trying to back out of a corner and turn the Iraq situation over to the UN. So maybe the US won’t overreach…