In The Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson advances the disturbing claim that the United States' Cold War-era military power and far-flung base system have, in the last decade, been consolidated in a new form. of global imperial rule. The United States, according to Johnson, has become 'a military juggernaut intent on world domination.' Driven by a triumphalist ideology, an exaggerated sense of threats, and a self-serving military- industrial complex, this juggernaut is tightening its grip on much of the world. The Pentagon has re- placed the State Department as the primary shaper of foreign policy. Military commanders in regional headquarters are modern-day proconsuls, warrior-diplomats who direct the United States' imperial reach. Johnson fears that this military empire will corrode democracy, bankrupt the nation, spark opposition, and ultimately end in a Soviet-style. collapse. In this rendering, the American military empire is a novel form. of domination. Johnson de- scribes it as an 'international protection racket: mutual defense treaties, military advisory groups, and military forces stationed in foreign countries to' defend' against often poorly defined, overblown, or nonexistent threats.' These arrangements create 'satellites'—ostensibly independent countries whose foreign relations revolve around the imperial state. Johnson's previous polemic, Blowbaek, asserted that post-1945 U.S. spheres of influence in East Asia and Latin America were as coercive and exploitative as their Soviet counterparts. The Sorrows of Empire continues this dubious line. Echoing 1960s revisionism, Johnson asserts that the United States' Cold War security system of alliances and bases was built on manufactured threats and driven by expansionary impulses. The United States was not acting in its own defense it was exploiting opportunities to build an empire. The Soviet Union and the United States, according to this argument, were more alike than different: both militarized their societies and foreign policies and expanded outward, establishing imperial rule through 'hub and spoke' systems of client states and political dependencies. Unfortunately, Johnson offers no coherent theory of why the United States seeks empire. At one point, he suggests that the American military empire is founded on 'a vast complex of interests, commitments, and projects.' The empire of bases has become institutionalized in the military establishment and has taken on a life of its own. There is no discussion, however, of the forces within U. S. politics that resist or reject empire. As a result, Johnson finds imperialism everywhere and in everything the United States does, in its embrace of open markets and global economic integration as much as in its pursuit of narrow economic gains. According to the passage, which of the following is the most important character shared by both satellite and 'satellite' countries?