Empire vs. merger.(INSIDE REPORT)

Political analysts who see the U.S. mutating into an empire "assume that empire is the only model for a state seeking to project power and influence--ignoring the alternatives from the business world," writes UCLA professor Richard Rosecrance in the Summer 2005 issue of The National Interest. Rosecrance, senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center and (predictably) a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, declares that multinational "merger" is a sensible alternative to unilateral hegemony and its attendant costs.

If a company "reaches the limits of its economic market, it may consider a merger with like-minded companies to cope with a competitor," states Rosecrance in his essay "Mergers and Acquisitions." "States [that is, nation-states] reaching the limits of their viability as self-sufficient actors can adopt merger strategies, too. Indeed, to preserve its global influence throughout the course of the 21st century, this is a path the United States must consider."

That's right: to be viable as a global power, the U.S. must abandon its independence, according to Rosecrance.

Mergers among private corporations, Rosecrance points out, are intended to reduce costs and enhance profits. Mergers among nation-states, however, "are arrangements that combine political leaderships to project greater power and influence in the world at large."

Such arrangements do not necessarily mean the end of domestic political arrangements (such as electoral procedures), but "merged nations ... accept a common code of behavior that their electorates sustain. They create merged ...