Post-Cold War US foreign policy was bipartisan and aimed at capitalist world integration

Evidence

The photographer’s testimony evokes a mood palpable across the OECD world. In a foreword to the 1992 reissue of his Society of the Spectacle, French philosopher Guy Debord anticipated a planet “officially unified” as “a single bloc in the consensual organization of the global market.” Two years later, the Communist Party of Italy’s erstwhile leader Achille Occhetto traveled to Wall Street, declaring its banks “the temple of civilization”; NATO headquarters in Brussels, he ventured, was “the center of world peace.” — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 34 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a unipolar world, or what has been called a “unipolar moment,” led to a reconfiguration of US imperialism. At the time, the discussion revolved around a “peace dividend” and a global order characterized by butter, not guns. The United States would create and police a “New World Order” in which it would show up anywhere it was needed, like a “globocop,” to right wrongs, advance humanitarian goals, and save the day. The 1991 Gulf War demonstrated to the world that the end of “Communism” did not mean the end of the US military; instead of fighting the Russians, it would be used against other still-significant threats to international stability—rogue states, failed states, terrorists, and a host of others who refused to acquiesce to pax Americana. This was not going to be accomplished through the naked assertion of power, but through the logic of multiculturalism and benevolence. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 403 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In a nutshell, illiberal hegemony translated into a policy of aggressive unilateralism and the abandonment of multilateral organizations, treaties, and economic pacts through which the United States had dominated the world. It was neoconservatism on steroids combined with Trump’s transactional approach to deal making. This marked a break with the bipartisan strategy of liberal or benevolent hegemony that the political class had pursued since the Cold War. Moreover, the multicultural and feminist imperialism of the post–Cold War era was replaced by white nationalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 526 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Foreign policy elites across camps share the aim of US hegemony — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 461; Clinton reframed US post-Cold War power as democracy promotion through free trade — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 459; Post-Soviet Western politics consolidated around consensual global market consensus. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization…, 34 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Post-Soviet Western politics consolidated around consensual global market consensus. #corroborates (0.90) — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 34
• Post-Cold War US empire rebranded military force as benevolent multicultural intervention #complicates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 403
• Post-Cold War US imperial consensus traded liberal veneer for white nationalism under Trump. #complicates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 526
• Cold War threat produced unprecedented internal cohesion in capitalist societies #corroborates (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 160
• Post-Cold War US-based neocons theorized that a single hegemonic power guarantees global stability #expands (0.75)