CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

War and the Illusion of Power

Image by Brandon Mowinkel.

Economic decline. Weakening poll numbers. Political desperation. War has long been the answer. It provides an enemy to rally against, a spectacle of power, a demand for unquestioning obedience, and a ready distraction. Yet political calculation alone does not explain war’s persistence. The impulse runs deeper.

In Superpower Syndrome: America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World, American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton offers a psychological and historical analysis of modern power politics. He describes the superpower syndrome as “a national mindset—put forward strongly by a tight-knit leadership group—that takes on a sense of omnipotence, of unique standing in the world that grants it the right to hold sway over all nations.” The orientation is not simply political; it is psychological. According to Lifton, the American superpower does not only seek dominance; it seeks to shape and control history itself. Behind this lies less a strategy than a psychic disposition. Such cosmic ambition is accompanied by an equally expansive sense of entitlement, a belief in a special mandate to pursue its aims. Lifton writes, “A superpower is entitled to dominate and control precisely because it is a superpower.” A circular, self-serving, solipsistic fantasy, deeply hypnotic in its appeal.

Lifton notes that psychiatric experience with individuals reveals a pattern: beneath grandiose claims of omnipotence........

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