This is because the rhetoric of modern empire – which describes the global system as 'consisting of liberal-democratic nation-states, connected by more or less free markets and ruled by international law' – masks the reality that the United States imperial elite considers itself the vanguard of this global order with the right to violate state sovereignty, to control markets (including via corporate-written 'free trade' agreements) and to be above international law. In short, territorial control is 'less important than the control of markets in capital, labor, and resources'.
Hence 'the brutalities exposed by Wikileaks are not aberrations…. (T)he methods of American war-making have depended upon terrorizing civilians…. Terror is a quintessential element of the American empire' even if other violent methods are often used in particular contexts as well.
So what are these other methods? Here is an incomplete summary: lying endlessly (by saying something publicly while doing the opposite, for example, by saying publicly that 'the United States seeks the best possible relations with all governments' while seeking to undermine governments that do not serve US government and corporate interests), 'strengthening democratic institutions' (which means to finance and assist in countless other ways the right-wing organizations in other countries that are sympathetic to US elite interests), 'supporting civil society' (which is jargon for materially supporting NGOs with strong international connections rather than broad-based, locally representative grassroots community groups), funding and supplying violent opposition groups, training leaders of right-wing student and other movements, enhancing ties with military leaders, using the corporate media to undermine the targeted government in international fora (for example, by harping on election promises not yet fulfilled), thwarting initiatives to develop national self-reliance and isolating the targeted government internationally.
