Song Ho-keun

The author is a columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo and a chair professor and director of Doheon Academy, Hallym University.

The era of the benevolent empire has ended. The age of immigrants gazing with hope at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor is gone. The torch in her right hand has turned into a searchlight guarding borders, and the Declaration of Independence in her left hand - which promised liberty and equality - has become an exclusive right reserved only for Americans. The values that bloomed after the bloodstained "age of extremes" in the early 20th century - principles of humanity and international institutions - have withered. Allies once embraced by the empire now crouch in fear of the hegemon's heavy hand. In today's world order, dominated by raw power, allies and partnerships no longer count for much.



The United States, having beaten back totalitarianism and communism, gave the world a baptism of civilization. Korea, on the front lines of the Cold War, benefited most. It was rescued from war and rose from one of the poorest countries to a developed economy. America stood as the ideal of a civilized state. The idea of "civilization," as opposed to "barbarism," grew from concepts of civic freedom, courtesy, refinement and respect. Yet as these values merged with economic growth, they mutated into hegemony. The 20th century showed how a civilized nation became a hegemon. In the 21st century's fierce great-power competition, that hegemon has abandoned the very virtues that once distinguished it.

The retreat from humanitarianism to narrow nationalism has darkened the outlook of allies. Koreans in particular feel the sting after the sudden arrest and deportation of 316 Korean engineers. Paul Kennedy of Yale University predicted this trajectory in his 1989 book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." He argued that the United States was already losing its edge in the 1980s as its industrial and military advantages eroded. The decline has unfolded over four decades. The rise of Japan's manufacturing sector could be managed within an alliance framework, but with China's manufacturing ascent and the revolution in artificial intelligence, it has become impossible for the United States to maintain its former dominance. The world has entered an era of "new imperialism," shaped by two rival powers. Other nations are left to pay tribute to great powers consumed by the quest for supremacy.



It is in this context that Washington accepted Korea's MASGA initiative, grasping the outstretched hand. Yet that was as far as civility went. Courtesy and reciprocity no longer matter for a desperate America. Extending a hand did not prevent deportations. Appeals to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency were met with shackles and plastic ties. Unlike feudal times, when suzerain states did not demand tribute in cash, Washington under President Donald Trump has made demands explicit - $350 billion in upfront payments and 100 percent tariffs on pharmaceuticals not manufactured locally. Selling professional visas for $100,000 apiece amounts to a toll to enter the fortress. ICE, meanwhile, is expected to descend on California's farms to expel Latin American migrants. Whether such merciless policies can restore American hegemony remains uncertain. The age of the civilized empire, once bright with tolerance, has passed.

The sudden arrests of Korean professionals shocked many. The trauma they may carry is hard to measure. I recall my own humiliation in 2002, when, a year after 9/11, I was strip-searched in an airport interrogation room with drug-sniffing dogs circling me. That memory remains vivid. Yet such indignities are small compared to the nightmare of a world sliding toward imperial excess, great-power confrontation and the suffering of allies caught in between. The United States, once a beacon of democracy, no longer seems able to restrain this march of barbarism. Americans themselves appear divided, preoccupied ...