The Whole Empire Question

It's trendy if you're a college freshman to bemoan the American Empire we're building around the world. I remember I did it!

Andrew Sullivan's been writing about it recently and as usual going a bit batty. But also, as usual, Andrew calms down and writes more rationally about it here.

My initial thought:

Why don't we remove/close a few of the bases in South Korea, Japan, or Germany to demonstrate - "Look if you guys are cool, we'll be cool." Because we should not be an imperial empire. I know no one in America wants that. Not even the so-called neoconservatives.

But then again, would this be foolish? Would it be perceived as weakness by a more autocratic Russia? Would it give NoKo an excuse to redevelop nukes? Would it make China pursue a more aggressive Taiwan strategy? The answers to these questions are: I don't know. Or...we don't know.

A couple things to think about: JFK thought by the late 1960s there would be 20+ nuclear powers. At the time it was Russia, US, China, Britain, and France. Today, the only countries to develop nukes post-JFK are Pakistan, India, and Israel (maybe Brazil, maybe Iran, maybe North Korea). Aggressive US presence in Asia helped stopped a possible nuke race in Asia and an aggressive US presence in the mid-East may help stop a nuke race there as well. I mean, imagine if the US disengages from the MidEast and Iran develops a nuke - which they probably will anyway. Won't Saudi Arabia *have* to develop a nuke in response? Won't Iraq as well? Would Egypt?

Is this beginning to sound like a nightmare to you as well?