Is American an empire? America is the world's only superpower. It dominates the globe militarily, economically, and culturally. It is a 21st-century empire? And how does the rest of the world feel about that?

• Author: Berkeley, Bill
• Position: International

Well after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, in a mud-walled Iraqi town north of Baghdad, American troops in Apache helicopters and Bradley fighting vehicles fought for four days against Iraqi attackers hiding in a thicket of reeds.

More than thousand miles away in Afghanistan, American soldiers patrolling near the Pakistani border killed four suspected Taliban members in a three-hour gun battle.

Meanwhile in the South Pacific, American forces stationed in the Philippines were training Filipino troops in counter-terrorism to help them combat Muslim rebels.

Two years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, America's global reach and power has never been more obvious--nor more widely resented, and even feared, in many parts of the world. America now possesses the most awesome military power the world has ever known, surpassing the military might of the next nine nations combined. It maintains more than a million soldiers on four continents and aircraft-carrier battle groups on every major ocean. The U.S. economy, by far the world's largest, propels and sets the roles for global commerce. And American culture permeates the airwaves, movie theaters, and Internet chat rooms in virtually every corner of the globe.

"While Americans may not see themselves as an imperial people, they are so perceived across the globe," says historian Karl E. Meyer. "For reasons just or unjust, rational or otherwise, there is widespread unease about American methods and motives, even among the educated foreign elites whose children attend American universities."

"NO TERRITORIAL AMBITIONS"

The Bush administration flatly denies the U.S. has become an empire. America has "no territorial ambitions," President George W. Bush told a gathering of war veterans last year. "We don't seek an empire. Our nation is committed to freedom for ourselves and for others."

Of course, America's empire--if, in fact, that's the right term--is not like empires of times past, built on colonies and conquest. Americans think of themselves as the friends of freedom, human rights, democracy, mad self-determination. Indeed, the very idea of an American empire is ironic, considering the nation's history. The U.S. was born out of an 18th-century revolt against the British empire. It also played a key role in the demise of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the fall of the Soviet Union's empire in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War.

LESSONS OF EMPIRE

Not everyone opposes the idea of an American empire. Niall Ferguson, a...