Well, okay, that's not true. Yet.

But Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, recently proposed a Department of Peace. Hey, stop that snickering! It could happen. And, actually, when you read about what the Department of Peace would do, one wonders why we don't have one already. (We used to have a Department called State that did some this stuff, but someone misplaced it a while ago, I think. It hasn't been heard from in a long time.)

Of course, a Department of Peace hardly makes sense now that the U.S. is no longer interested in peace (hey, we tried). The U.S. is now an empire. Both conservatives and liberals are finally getting around to admitting it--liberals admitting that they lost the struggle against the move toward empire, conservatives admitting that no matter what you call it, empire is what we've got (the insane, of course, have always been comfortable with it, as all non-U.S.-allied entities are "evil").

There are still some admirable souls who believe the process of empire can be reversed. Paul Kennedy in the Washington Post, for example:

If the American hawks have their way — that is, if we move to consolidate our position in the Arab world and to transform its society — then the U.S. "moment" in the Middle East could be a fairly long one, with all manner of unintended consequences. To be sure, history never repeats itself exactly, but it often deals hard blows to those who ignore it entirely. It would therefore be best to approach these ideas with caution, if not outright skepticism, to have some humility about whether a Western-led crusade for democratization is a wise policy, and to insist that Congress play its proper role in asking hard questions and setting reasonable limits on the republic's future foreign policy in this troubled region.

This brings us to the broadest question of all, that of defining America's position in the world over the years to come. The clear victor of the Cold War, it no longer feels constrained from intervening in sensitive areas like the Middle East or Central Asia, should national security interests demand it. The United States is unchallenged militarily and sees no rival Great Power in sight. Yet it has taken little comfort from this. Since 9/11, it feels less secure and is spending massive amounts on armaments. It possesses the world's single largest national economy but faces huge trade and budget deficits and economic rivalries from an equally large European Union and a fast-growing China. It has taken on military commitments all over the globe, from the Balkans and Kuwait to Afghanistan and Korea. Its armed forces look colossal (as did Britain's in 1919), but its obligations look even larger. It is small wonder that while liberals protest soaring defense expenditures, the U.S. military repeatedly warns of overstretch and is dismayed at the hawkish calls for further adventures; in the recent war on Saddam Hussein's regime, part or all of eight of the 10 U. S. Infantry divisions were tied down in Iraq or standing by to go there.

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