Benjamin Barber’s Fear’s Empire presents a case against the recent unilateral impulses in U. S. foreign policy. According to Barber, empire is not inherent in U.S. dominance but is, rather, a temptation—one to which the Bush administration has increasingly succumbed. In confronting terror- ism, Washington has vacillated between appealing to law and undermining it. Barber’s thesis is that by invoking a right to unilateral action, preventive war, and regime change, the United States has undermined the very framework of cooperation and law that is necessary to fight terrorist anarchy. A foreign policy oriented around the use of military force against rogue states, Barber argues, reflects a misunderstanding of the consequences of global interdependence and the character of democracy. Washington cannot run a global order driven by military action and the fear of terrorism. Simply put, American empire is not sustainable.
For Barber, the logic of globalization trumps the logic of empire: the spread of Mc World under- mines imperial grand strategy. In most aspects of economic and political life, the United States depends heavily on other states. In an empire of fear, the United States attempts to order the world through force of arms. But this strategy is self-defeating: it creates hostile states bent on overturning the imperial order, not obedient junior partners.
Barber proposes instead a cosmopolitan order of universal law rooted in human community: "Lex humana works for global comity within the framework of universal rights and law, conferred by multilateral political, economic, and cultural cooperation—with only as much common military action as can be authorized by common legal authority; whether in the Congress, in multilateral treaties, or through the United Nations." Terrorist threats, Barber concludes, are best confronted with a strategy of "preventive democracy"—democratic states working together to strengthen and extend liberalism.
Barber’s overly idealized vision of cosmopolitan global governance is less convincing, however, than his warnings about unilateral military rule. Indeed, he provides a useful cautionary note for liberal empire enthusiasts in two respects. First, the two objectives of liberal empire—upholding the rules of the international system and unilaterally employing military power against enemies of the American order—often conflict. Second, the threats posed by terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are not enough to legitimate America’s liberal empire. During the Cold War, the United States articulated a vision of community and progress within a U. S. -lead free world, infusing the exercise of U.S. power with legitimacy. It is doubtful, however, that the war on terrorism, in which countries are either "with us or against us", has an appeal that can draw enough support to justify a U. S. -dominated order.
It can be inferred from the passage that the temptation which the Bush administration has increasingly succumbed to comes from ().
A．Washington's inability to run a global order driven by military action and the fear of terror- ism.
B．Washington's vacillating between appealing to law and undermining it.
C．a misunderstanding of the consequences of global interdependence and the character of democracy.
D．American empire's unsustainablility.
