I was posting endlessly about the real danger of returning to a world of city-states a couple years ago - If we allow the terrorists to cow us, if the civilized world fails to effectively join together enough to defeat the barbarism of the terrorists - we will eventually withdraw into a world where we do business only with people we individually trust - into our own little world. We will return to the Dark Ages.
The article you linked is the first time I've seen anything like this in an analytical journal. Thanks for posting that.
You're welcome. :)
Mr Ferguson is an interesting historian who has written about US 'empire' in the positive sense.