Empire, Hegemony, and Predatory Power: How Great Powers Feed on the World

Power is not the problem. Predatory power is. When does leadership become domination-and how can a nation remain formally independent while losing meaningful control over its own future? The Seventh Discourse in Beyond Sovereignty: The Discourses examines empire beyond territorial conquest. John Zavala Jr. follows the instruments of modern hegemony through debt, sanctions, unequal exchange, resource extraction, military reach, client states, private gain, and control over public narratives. The book does not treat every alliance, investment, trade relationship, or act of international leadership as imperial. It distinguishes protective and cooperative power from arrangements that organize other peoples' choices around the dominant power's advantage. Nor does it assume that resistance to an empire makes every rival innocent. The argument then turns homeward. Secrecy, surveillance, executive expansion, permanent military systems, corruption, and overstretch can reshape the society practicing domination. Empire does not remain safely abroad. For readers of international relations, political economy, and the ethics of state power, this discourse asks how strength might be transformed rather than abandoned. Its constructive answer is service under higher law: protecting without possessing, assisting without controlling, and accepting the same judgment imposed on others. The alternative to predation is not isolation, but accountable power.