Mallaby, Sebastian. "The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire". Foreign Affairs, Vol.81, No.2 (2002): 2-7.

Mallaby, Sebastian. "The Reluctant Imperialist: Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire". Foreign Affairs, Vol.81, No.2 (2002): 2-7.

• Prior to World War II, when states would be threatened by violent groups operating out of poorly government areas, the response was expanding empire. Now that is not considered an option, as, "orderly societies now refuse to impose their own institutions on disorderly ones" (2).
• The lack of imperialist intervention since the 1940s has led to a growing number of destabilized countries unable to correct their own problems and dooming civilians to chaos and poverty. Without intervention, populations in these countries will climb and spillover, bring crime, drugs, and terrorism to previously stable regions (2-3).
• Foreign aid and developmental assistance has failed to provide an end to poverty and civil war in a number of chronically weak states. Democracy-promotion efforts after the Cold War have also proven unsuccessful in areas like the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa (3-5). If life is to improve in certain untrustworthy and weak states, like Chad or Angola, the task of state-building must be directly performed through imperial projects (5).
• Although the United States has been historically isolationist, it also experienced periods of history where it forcible opened markets or, "improve the world". The US did tremendous good for the world during the Cold War, and now it has to mobilize to fight instability (5-6).
• The author proposes that the rich countries of the world, restricted to OECD members, should form an international body dedicated to enlightened empire that invade the basket-cases of the world and build institutions in them. It would be able to operate outside of UN structure, which are too multilateral and include obstinate Russian and Chinese viewpoints (6-7).
• This might be one of the scariest op-eds I have ever read in Foreign Affairs, and that is saying a lot. The author totally ignores America's historical experience with imperialism, as well as the terrible crimes of imperialism committed by other states. The author is so deeply scared and ignorant of politics in the developing world, that he is willing to dismiss all development from the 1950s onward -- including continuous imperialist intervention by former colonizers, or the USA, or the USSR -- and claim that the West could do it better. Utter shit! Only cite this as evidence that somebody reputable put this in a widely-read journal.