While Tom Engelhardt makes it crystal clear in this article and elsewhere that he viscerally disagrees with American policies and actions, what his preferred alternatives would be remain obscure. To illustrate, Engelhardt is quoted as saying “US has unprecedented imperial military presence in the world” but he fails to clarify: (1) What he means by “imperial”, instead preferring to abandon that word to reader’s own imaginations that are often lurid, prejudiced, ignorant and negative, which seems to suit Engelhardt just fine; (2) A reasoned analysis of what the purposes of American bases are. The mere fact of the bases’ existence is represented as a problem and as being evil, without any attempt to clarify what the specific outcomes would follow if specific bases had not been established or if they would be closed; (3) An alternative vision of how to deal with issues of international terrorism which those bases engage; (4) An analysis of what the world would be like today if American power, as projected from bases abroad, had failed to contain Soviet Communism and the Soviet-sponsored Communist regimes worldwide. I would love to see Engelhardt explain to us the glories of all of us now living in a world-wide Marxist totalitarian workers’ paradise, a possibility from which only American power has saved us. (5) I would also like to see Engelhardt detail what he believes the evidence is of Russia having fundamentally repudiated, atoned for and turned from its Soviet-era imperialism, and why anyone can be confident that Russia’s post-Soviet nationalism now poses no threat whatsoever to its neighbours who now need no protection of any kind against it. Criticism without offering an alternative vision is as easy as it is useless.

Nothing really new, perhaps more covert activities are being engaged in the so-called military bases spread at strategic locations all over the world in the name of counter terrorism. The US might want to demonstrate it is still the only superpower doing the global policing, or it could be struggling to prepare the necessary logistics in the face of rising China which gets more and more powerful economically and militarily. Just that one wonders, with its economic woes, how long the US could sustain such operations.

Komrade Marzipan, perhaps 3 milion dead Vienamese, million dead Iraqis + 4 million displaced can provide some answers, as for "imperial" any dictionary will provide the answer.

Marzipan6 Long before there a war on terror, an oxymoronic concept since one cannot wage a war against on an idea—the U.S had as many bases as it has now and has been conducting most horrific wars of expansionism in the name of war on communism….Thus, today the question is no longer one of is U.S an empire; the real question is can the U.S be able to maintain its imperial position in the world with primarily military might… my answer is, perhaps in the short run, it might appear the U.S might is unassailable but as the U.S economy steadily declines, like the British at the twilight of the 19th century, would it hard for the U.S. to maintain its imperial position in the world…

“Imperial” means “relating to empire”, while the definition of “empire” is “a group of states ruled over by a single monarch or ruling authority.” The pursuit of influence is not evidence of empire. Russia seeks influence in its somewhat ominously named “near abroad”, but there is no Russian Empire. Anyone who thinks there is an American Empire in the world today would likewise seem to have more than the standard number of holes in their head. PR101, your post is illogical. American confrontation with Soviet expansionism was exactly that – confronting Soviet expansionism, beginning with resisting Moscow’s illegal blockade of Berlin in 1948, and continuing with resisting Soviet and/or Chinese Communist conquest of South Korea, South Vietnam, and a whole host of other Third World countries that Communism sought to subjugate and use as further springboards against the West. You are right, though, when you note that the American economy is declining. This is because American moral values, which underpin the economy and everything else American, are in steady decline. As Soviet Russia discovered, a nation that is morally bankrupt will eventually become militarily and economically bankrupt as well. That said, the American decline has not reached anywhere near the levels of Soviet Russian moral decay, and hopefully its downward trend can be arrested before it does. You are also right when you say that ideas cannot be defeated by guns. But destructive actions based on crazy ideas not only can be, but should be. Srbin, the numbers of dead provide eloquent description of tragedy. They provide no definition at all of empire.

"A group of states ruled over by a single authority"...that is NATO. SACEUR of NATO-Europe, Stravidis, is a Generalissimo, a Dictator. SACEUR only can be an American, never a European. When a group of states, including such as important as France and Germany (Chirac and Schroeder), tried to create a different European-only Defense strucute, the were under attack from the Dictatorship. And more as they tried to establish a new Defense architecture in Europe including the Russian Federation. Ask Chirac and Putin.

Marzipan6 You not seem to understand the concept of "logic" is based on the universal law of non contradiction—that something, let us call it “P cannot be P and not P in the same proposition. Thus, according to both logic and the prevailing concrete evidence of WWII, it was the Red Army, and yes, under the leadership of Stalin, that won the peace for Europe. However, even before Berlin was captured by the Red Army, the United States, now in position of new weapons of mass destruction, was threatening the Soviet Union with nuclear war! Thus, in 1945, it was the United States’s political, economic and military elite who denied the fruits of peace to all mankind after the end of WWII. It was also the American military, economic and political elite who denied the fruit peace to all humanity after the end of the Cold War. Now, their chance to dominate the world is fasting disappearing. Thus, the American political, economic and military elite know very well that their economic and political capital to shape the future and the current world order has been weakened. Thus, in the context of the rise of China, and most importantly for the European continent, reintegration of confident resurgent Russia into the continent of Europe, signs are there that the era of the U.S world domination is coming to end, not at once of course, but surely all the signs are there.

Another point, When European states started drafting a global positioning sytem similar to GPS, and called "Galileo", the U.S. (the Generalissimo of NATO-Europe) didn´t allow it to have any military function (as GPS has) It ONLY could be a civil service. And they went even further: the orbit of the system, which was more accurate than GPS had to be changed.

I have seen Anastasia Churkina 's interview of Mr Tom Engelhardt and did not learn anything. If RT look at my previous comments, it will find the reason of America's multitude military presence all over the World. "Little-America" (France) is even trying to do the same thing. Right after World-War 2 the capitalist-imperialist found that the military industry was the most profitable way to make huge sums of easer money. Consequently to impose her will on the five continents America developed a huge military power. After spreading the fear of communism, it created a climat of insecurity and hatred. This strategy is still constantly used and it works perfectly. Look at the way our over-excited "clown" Sarkonaparte does here. As a result America, France, England, being no more competitive for average goods have become: military economies. To justify that kind of politics you have to create troubles. US armies integrate young unlisted soldiers right from High-School; France does the same because there is a 25% unemployment in the under-25 years old French citizen. You have seen the mess that this created for the retirement's reform. With those insane politicians, we have everything all wrong but not a single notorious leader (politic or media) want to face the realities. There is an other way, which I have already explained (My Internet, again goes aware = French sournoise censure). Sorry Future Generations, my power is very, very, very limited !!! Your friend: Jean-Claude Meslin

Marzipan6, This is ironic, but, while you have problem with the Tom Engelhardt's usage of the word "imperialism", you, seem, having not such problem with using it (undefined as well), when it is applied to the Soviet Union. Also, I think, you come with very heavy assumptions when you say that the "Soviet Communism" required the containment. Firstly, the Soviet Communism was weak enough to be spread around the globe in its Soviet form and, therefore, it was doomed either to collapse (as it happened in Russia) or be changed (like in Vietnam or China). Primarily from inside. This is the image created by the Western propaganda that the Soviet Union collapsed due to the West. Secondly, Americans failed to contain the Communist "regimes" practically everywhere in the world -- even in the tiny countries in the very close proximity. How would they do it with the USSR? They cannot even contain Russia, which is, at this point, just a remnant of the USSR power. Finally, when you are talking about the purpose of the American military presence in every corner of the world -- it is more like I hear again an half-worn vinyl disk with a century old propaganda record. Almost nobody already believe that "music". Even in the USA itself where this record was created... "Criticism without offering an alternative vision is as easy as it is useless." Marzipan6, the sadness of the situation -- you do not offer an alternative vision of the reality. You are projecting the image of the artificial reality, the fog of which slowly but surely becoming less dense and images fading away. Creating such "mirage" is as easy and as useless as "criticism without offering".

PR101 - 3 goals Marzipan6 - 0 Keep up the good work. Under no circumstances can we allow propagandists to use RT as a soap-box to spread their hate and fear.

Bogdanov, once the SU collapsed, it indeed was seen to be largely a weak and hollow facade – but one which, nonetheless, had been nuclear armed, and which had to be treated with great caution. Previously, the West was not always able to assess what was bluff and what was reality in the Soviet world. I agree, the West did not militarily re-claim any lands that Communists had taken (South Korea might be an arguable exception, though there we are talking only about a short-lived Communist invasion). But the pressure which Western resistance placed on Communism made an important contribution to the Soviet implosion. I think you will also find that in none of my preceding posts, apart from a very general reference to international terrorism have I attempted to define what the purpose of American bases as a whole, or of any specific American base, might be. I simply pointed out the flaws in Engelhardt’s interview. Nor is there any inherent problem with the word, “imperialism”. There were British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish and Russian Empires – and with the latter, I don’t have just the Tsars in mind. Russia’s Soviet manifestation was an empire in which Moscow ruled an inner core of foreign nations which it submerged within the Soviet Union itself, an outer core of East European nations which were nominally sovereign but in fact were nothing of the sort, and a farther-flung area of Third World clients and colonies which, to one extent or another, were also under its control. There just was no American Empire, and still isn’t, Engelhardt’s pontifications notwithstanding. As for “criticism without offering an alternative vision,” my initial post here clearly suggested some specific alternate paths that Engelhardt might have followed in his interview. Other posts elsewhere have also suggested alternate paths for Russia in place of the ones that rightly merit criticism.

Enrique, NATO is not “ruled over” by anyone. It is a free alliance of free nations. The larger ones obviously have more influence, the smaller ones obviously less; all of them have a voice, and any of them are just as free to leave the alliance as they were to join in the first place. All NATO members have views and opinions, and these may not always coincide. The plans and strategies that are eventually adopted are the ones that are argued out and eventually agreed to by all, and dictated by none. The “dictator” theory is another creation of Russian propaganda, and is not the result of any verifiable evidence.

PR101, your post of October 31 is written in slogans, not in statements of fact relating to verifiable realities. Also your illustration of the nature of logic bears no relationship to, does not define nor offer any insights into the nature of either the pre-war or post-war Soviet regime, and certainly demonstrates no contradiction in any of my posts. Stalin was a tyrant, a butcher and insatiable in cruelty, in paranoia and in desire for conquest. He was this way before the war, culminating in his being Nazi Collaborator Number One between 1939 and mid-1941. His collaboration enabled Hitler to overcome a British land and naval blockade and provided fuel and bases for Nazi attacks against Europe. When Hitler betrayed him, Stalin obviously and for the first time began to fight Nazis, and his efforts helped materially in the defeat of Germany. But not for a moment did Stalin lose sleep worrying over the welfare of the West – his world was merely not big enough for two totalitarian tyrants to ply their trade side by side, so one of them had to go. This is what motivated the gentleman. And as soon as his partner in crime was eliminated, Stalin resumed oppression at home and aggression abroad, this time of necessity within the constraints which the nuclear age placed on everyone. The US had nuclear arms for years before Moscow did, and never once threatened Russia with these, PR101. Your claims to the contrary are sheerest fantasy which no historical evidence, only Russian propaganda, posits. And by the way, perhaps you did not notice, the end of the Cold War did not weaken the West’s world order. It annihilated Soviet Moscow’s world order.

PR101 & Marzipan6. Your arguments lead nowhere. Please, make suggestions for an other World-governance. What you do is just the same thing as do politicians and western media owned by "big-business": Bla, Bla, Bla, without interest. Personally, I have a vision of what to do and RT in my over 500 comments has published it (first of all, save the trillions $ wasted on armaments to make the fortunes of greedy billionaires crooks). Please, just be serious ! Jean-Claude Meslin

Meslin, it’s kind of hard to articulate a new world order and provide a solution to the problems of the universe in a 2,000 character post – or even in several. Nor is it appropriate in the context of comments about an interview relating to US bases abroad. But what is possible, appropriate and perhaps even necessary is to point out flaws in the interviewee’s offerings and to suggest remedies to these. I have pointed out that Engelhardt demonises the fact of American bases without him even trying to explain what the purpose of any given base is, much less analyzing whether that purpose is valid. He thereby projects an entirely negative image of the subject which may impress the impressionable, but which conveys prejudice rather than understanding. Another word for that is “propaganda”. The solution to the article’s problem is implicit in the highlighting of its deficiencies – the article should correctly identify the purpose of the American bases in question, logically determine and demonstrate whether those purposes are valid, and if so, then analyze whether they actually fulfill those valid purposes. Then the article may actually shed some light. Currently it only radiates heat. The purpose of my posts here is not to solve the problems of the universe (I might get around to that next week if I have ten minutes to spare between appointments). Rather, my purpose is to encourage journalism that is a little more ethical and much more useful.

Marzipan6. It is good to see that you are interested to live in a better World. I do not need 2000 characters to put people on the right track. Before making the necessary changes, we must understand the origins of our troubles and why we are in such a mess. This must be done for not repeating the same mistakes. American do not like when I say that their finance's bosses and industrialist were the initiators of the whole situation, which ended up with that economic crisis and the Obama smoke'screen. It all started in 1945, when they saw how much easy money was available in the armaments industry. To justify such an insanity, Stalin and Communism were of great help. Then their art of communication made the simple citizen believe their BS and pay with their taxes for those greedy peoples' fortunes. To see how efficient that strategy is look at today Nov.2nd news: France and Britain are going to join their military forces and fashion the new European defense. This will create employment (including more professional soldiers). In reality with America they will protect western multi-national corporations all over the World. As I wrote in an other comment those three nations (USA, Britain & France) are no more competitive in all average consumers' goods. The decisions-makers being always the same, money still goes on the same pockets (But for how long !)...Consequently those three Devil'states have now a militarized economy and to keep something like that quiet, they need to steer troubles. So Dear Marzipan6 whole I wish is for a notorious person, like a De Gaulle to tell once and for all the real facts. Some time ago, I thought that Mister Putin will be the MAN to do it; now I have doubts... Sorry Future Generations...A suivre... Jean-Claude Meslin

Meslin, what is your view of De Gaulle's role of the French colonisation of Africa and deaths of 2M Algerians? Have seen the Battle of Algiers? Did the French ever admitted their crimes against the brown and black people of Asia and Africa? I am happy the Mr. Putin is not Mr. de Gaulle! OK, do know that Putin ordered rough stuff in the Caucasus but Russia paid these crimes with huge blood money and Russian people support the payment of blood money in exchange for peace and security for the Great Russia. Has France ever paid "blood money" or even an empty apology for killing millions of the Africans before after WWII? France has never paid for its shameful enslavement of Africa. So, perhaps we need to start the historical analysis closer to the French shores before lecturing to the Americans. As for Mr. Putin, he is serving Russia very well.

I guess we have all these bases because now we have an "invisible enemy." Or is he?? Next time you brush your teeth. look in the Mirror and tell me if he is indeed invisible! This goes for people on either side of the curtain!