In my days as a student activist in the 1970s, the use of the term "imperialism" to describe US policy was generally used only in the antiwar and international solidarity movements, the writing

In a book of interviews published a few years ago, Chronicles of Dissent, Noam Chomsky recounted a childhood incident that shaped his life.

The Soviet Union can no longer act as a brake on US. expansion, and Western Europe cannot do so yet. That is the bitter, bloody and understated lesson of the current crisis.