Keen On

Is there anyone who still believes in America as a force for good in the world today? There’s that doddery old cold warrior Joe Biden, of course, and his younger globalizing sidekick, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. And then there’s Edward Goldberg, the author of The United States as Global Liberal Hegemon, who is still hawking the idea that the world needs America as the global policeman for peace and prosperity. You have to admire Goldberg’s chutzpah, I guess, given the catastrophic consequences of its “liberal” invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. But, in 2024, to be still imagining the US as any kind of hegemon, especially a “global liberal” one, seems at best a tragicomic nostalgia for a world that no longer exists.Edward Goldberg is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, USA. He is the author of Why Globalization Works For America: How Nationalist Trade Policies Are Destroying America (2020) and The Joint Ventured Nation: Why America Needs A New Foreign Po