We live, still, in the long aftermath of World War II (WWII), a nearly 70-year period beginning with the emergence of the United States of America as a hegemonic power after WWII. From this vantage point, the United States claimed and guarded the US dollar as global exchange currency, fought and endured "the Cold War," and, with the fall of the Soviet Union and East European state socialism, rose to a sole superpower from the 1990s onward. It has instigated and fought hot wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as sponsoring "low intensity" conflict globally. All the while, it has claimed that its wars and economic power plays were essential to a globalization project, one usually unfolded under the banner of "development."¹ Today, US global sovereignty remains uncertain and in flux, with some sensing its demise as an imperial force, and others arguing for its reinvention and continued power. I will explore this debate briefly, and note also how the toll that US imperial presumption and policy have extracted from humanity and nature is now haunting even its own power, perhaps even subverting it. This may be both crisis and opportunity for overcoming the imperial United States.