It has been argued, by at least one US historian, that the U.S. is no ordinary nation-state, but should be understood as a system leader, a 'civilizational power' - like Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire. The 'system leader', historically, has always sought to embed its particular civilizational vision onto those distant 'lands' that serve, or abut, its empire: which is to say that the universalistic vision may be bound to one state, but is forcefully unfurled across the globe, as 'our' inevitable destiny.
It is not hard to see what we are talking about when it refers to America: politically it is liberal markets, liberal capitalism, individualism and laissez-faire politics - and the metaphysics of Judeo-Christianity, too, if you like. For most Americans, their victory in the Cold War spectacularly affirmed the superiority of their civilizational vision, through the defeat and implosion of communism. It was not just a political defeat for the USSR, more significantly, it represented a triumph for America's full cultural paradigm: It was a Civilisational 'win'.
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