American postwar empire legitimized itself through ‘benevolent supremacy’ rather than old colonialism.

Evidence

Secretary of state John Foster Dulles said of the Suez crisis that what “the British and French have done is nothing but the straight, old-fashioned variety of colonialism of the most obvious sort.” In contrast, the United States crafted a new model of imperialism on the basis of what Melani McAlister has called “benevolent supremacy.” This model was premised on the notion that an American-dominated world would ensure liberty and democracy for all through the mechanism of free-market capitalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 144

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduction of ‘benevolent supremacy’ as the key term for the new American imperial model.
• XREF: Connects to McAlister’s Benevolent Supremacy and to the reader’s prior thread on empire’s legitimating language. — connects to: Postwar America replaced Britain as the leading instance of advanced capitalism — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 161; US post-war hegemony repurposed Orientalism and modernization theory to justify empire. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 28; US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• U.S. conquest has long been framed as benevolent rescue. #exemplifies (0.75) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 121
• US support for decolonization served its own imperial aims #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207
• Empires justify themselves by claiming superiority over prior empires #expands (0.60)