Noam Chomsky, more prolific as an author of books than op-eds, recently published an essay on HuffPo titled “The Imperial Way.” In it, he argues:
In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination, another serious loss [to US primacy]. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites, tiny islands of extreme wealth in a sea of misery. They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.”
Of course, Chomsky fits this into the master narrative of US decline across the globe. The United States built its superpower rise on lessons from intervention after intervention in Latin America. Does US disengagement from the region signal the loss of America’s superpower status?
