I submit that hegemony is the rarest of states. The Pax Romana or Pax Americana—which aren’t really paxes, since they are constantly at war to maintain their power—are exceptional. As are binary systems like the Cold War. Much commoner is the scramble for power represented by Europe from the Middle Ages to WWII, or simple anarchy.
“In the pure sense, it’s a rather flimsy charge to make”
If you were to charge the US with neocolonialism aside from the colonies which we officially possess—that us, for instance for building factories in other countries—which people often do, I’d balk. Because that’s lassoing a loaded term for new uses, which is a rhetorical dirty trick. But imperialism? Need I name that argument. First of all land empires are also empires, and you might have noticed we crawled westward after independence. Secondly annexing Hawaii, the Spanish-American War, securing the Panama Canal, and too many foreign adventures to mention were purely imperialistic in the old sense.
We only get to your World Police patrolling parameters by WWI, if then. The whole making the world safe for democracy was BS, of course. But that is when what has been called the Wilsonian vision, which you seem here to espouse, took form. I hardly need remind you it didn’t work, and led directly to another war and decades of warlike peace. As for the keeping people from plotting against us in their countries, that sounds more like regular old defense. Only two things: the more imperialistic we are the more we are plotted against, and we don’t need troops stationed around the world permanently to repel attacks on the homeland.
“when it isn’t the world’s imperial power...someone else will be.”
And what? They’ll invade us? Or they’ll hedge us in, dictate policy, and otherwise deprive us of whatever it is we’re supposed to gave gained from the current arrangement. Well, you know what else there’s “no going back” on? Globalism. That is, the international market order. Jesus wouldn’t sit down to break bread with the Devil, but he could trade with him. That’s the beauty if it. And thus new hegemony, wherever it is, won’t be able to stamp it out, any more than the Soviet Union did. Nor will it be any more self-sufficient than was Nazi Germany.
There’s that, then there’s the corruption if national defense. First it was just that, being able to retain the right of self-determination. And you don’t need an empire to do that. There’s the more porous concept of national security, which I guess is more about how we feel. Then there’s one of the most beloved concepts of the modern superstate: national interest. Suddenly anything that seems not to be ideal for any and all of our citizens’ purposes deemed worthy are defensible in the same manner in which we have a right to defend ourselves from enslavement. Which is perfect when you can’t explain how Iraq or Vietnam have anything to do with defense.
We do not need to project power abroad, much less get involved in wars, big or little, which only concern us through a game of telephone, i.e. because thus guy touched that guy who touched another guy who someday may rub up against me. You only think we need to because you’ve been forcefed myths about the Hun, the Nazis, the Naps, the Commies, etc. bent like supervillians on conquering the world. It may have been true of the commies, at least ideologically. But that could have been taken care of here, not everywhere on the globe.
Let me clue you in on a little known secret: our last war of true self-defense was in 1812, and that’s only ignoring our expansionist territorial ambitions.
China is a parasitic economy living on borrowed time. It’s parasitic in the sense that its economy is almost entirely based on foreign trade. When the rest of the world is no longer able (or willing, when countries start setting up protectionist regimes and bolstering their own industries) to buy China’s goods, China will fold like a cheap suitcase, and will return to its normal state of internal disorder and poverty. If China is foolish enough to try the superpower game, it will burn itself out in short order. As for your other worries, well, China’s military prowess is trumped up by people (mostly of the neocon persuasion) who are nostalgic for the old Cold War and would love for us to have a new Cold War with a real enemy (Islamic fundamentalists don’t quite cut it for them).