Europe Seems to Hear Echoes of Empires Past By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

...the United States is being seen in a new way, as the latest � and perhaps most powerful � of the imperialist powers that bestrode the globe over the centuries....Will it turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for the rest of the world? "The key terms of the new imperialism will be the ability of the U.S. to provide security and stability for other nations without imposing an American way of life"

The implication is that's necessarily a bad thing.

To some in Europe, the operative word is not so much imperialism as it is unilateralism.

The reason for US unilateralism is that Bush felt that trying to work with certain others was just too constraining. And while he gets slammed for his refusal to cooperate with others, the French are seen as heroic for their refusal to cooperate with the US.

Outsiders wonder whether the United States will use its power from now on as it has in Iraq, free of the constraints of multilateralism and dismissive of its allies.

Some answer that question with a stark new definition of the American goal, which is not so much to control unconventional weapons or to bring about government change in Iraq, but to establish unchallenged global dominance. This view, which would seem strange, almost paranoid, to many Americans, is heard in serious and respectable places in Europe....

In the main view being expressed in Europe, it is not the classic imperialist goal of national wealth and resources that is driving the United States.

In the more radical view of American power � represented by The Guardian or by Mr. Fr�lich � the United States is seeking global dominance almost for its own sake....

That's just the "more radical view", but even so, I guess for the radicals, US global dominance is bad because the US is bad.

...with eyes on another potential crisis, an influential South Korean commentator, Kim Young Hie, a columnist for the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, worries that American success in Iraq will backfire when it comes to North Korea.

"For Pyongyang, Iraq was the second shock and awe after Afghanistan," Mr. Kim wrote. "When Bush is determined to do something, he just goes ahead. And America undoubtedly has the military prowess to carry out his will. This message is sinking in with Kim Jong Il."

Bernstein is a little vague for me, here. What does Kim Young Hie think that Kim Jong Il is going to do? So far, he's behaved pretty well; see The Watchword Is Restraint By HOWARD W. FRENCH. And it's helped to bring China, S. Korea & Japan into line:

China recently started intensive consultations aimed at preventing conflict on its border. South Korea, whose new president, Roh Moo Hyun, took office in February pledging to stop his country from being pushed around by its ally, the United States, is suddenly scrambling to ingratiate itself to the Bush administration.

Japan, which abhors violent solutions, especially in its own neighborhood, and has constitutionally forsworn military action of its own, has been debating the acquisition of deterrent weapons

Ah, here we go:

...the biggest fear here is that the famous paranoia of the northern leadership, which President Bush has already lumped with Iraq in the "axis of evil," could cause the United States and North Korea to stumble into war.

Anyway, I'm a bit annoyed by the presumption that imperialism is unequivocally a bad thing, when countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe make such a hash of running themselves, with barely a peep from the anti-imperialists. Still, as Antony Beevor argues, Nobody Loves a Liberator:

A liberator, however generous, should never expect gratitude, at least not for long. According to Isaiah Berlin, who was a member of Britain's Marshall Plan delegation, the European attitude in 1947 toward America's postwar generosity was that of "lofty and demanding beggars approaching an apprehensive millionaire."