I think the real reason is "post-imperial reflex".    From Wordnik.com.  [Why Are British Troops in Afghanistan? « Antiwar.com Blog] Reference

Of course it is closely related to post-imperial liberal guilt.    From Wordnik.com.  [A stylistic difference] Reference

How can America act like an imperial power in a post-imperial world?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Katrina vanden Heuvel: Five Years On...] Reference

The last thing they need is a hectoring phone call from a post-imperial nanny.    From Wordnik.com.  [Simon Jenkins: It Depends on What You Mean by Democracy] Reference

As for 'post-imperial', this is a label that is about as ridiculous as post-racial!.    From Wordnik.com.  [Obama Post Imperial?] Reference

The English have learned to do so in their post-imperial age, and soon America will too.    From Wordnik.com.  [Musings of a Drunken Monk: January 2005 Archives] Reference

Real estate, even that with mineral rights, is not what is needed in a post-imperial world.    From Wordnik.com.  [Hamas Victory is Bush "War Against Terror" Failure] Reference

Certain post-imperial Kaunian writers had used that truth to sneer at the morals of Forthwegian women.    From Wordnik.com.  [Rulers of the Darkness]

It was named the Weimar Republic for the city in which the new post-imperial constitution was written.    From Wordnik.com.  [Think Progress » Bartlett: Frum’s Dismissal Shows ‘All That Matters Now Is Absolute Subservient Adherence’ To The GOP] Reference

Britain's loss of faith in its museums in the last century was a consequence of post-imperial self-hate.    From Wordnik.com.  [Save face. Save our museums] Reference

Has American culture begun to mimic the chronic nostalgia of a certain strain of post-imperial Englishness?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2005-10-01] Reference

British national identity in its post-imperial phase, particularly as fears mount about the fragmentation of.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Ruins of Empire: Nationalism, Art, and Empire in Hemans's Modern Greece] Reference

Even when we don't do anything: In the post-imperial age, powerful nations no longer have to invade and kill.    From Wordnik.com.  [Archive 2007-08-01] Reference

Next would come the view of Kissinger as "a transitional figure in the complex passage to a post-imperial world.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Kissinger & the Emperor] Reference

But Globish belongs to a new post-imperial wave in which the story has been reframed to make it less anglocentric.    From Wordnik.com.  [Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language by Robert McCrum] Reference

In the modern world diplomacy and a resonable post-imperial foreign policy is far more effective and far less costly.    From Wordnik.com.  [Think Progress » ThinkFast: August 19, 2006] Reference

Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man.    From Wordnik.com.  [Simon Jenkins: Fighting Iran Is a Losing Battle] Reference

It is serious because Russia is going through a post-imperial crisis of leadership inspired by post-imperial nostalgia.    From Wordnik.com.  [dream on, zbiggy] Reference

After America California is also post-imperial -- it has lost its will to impose a dominant culture on the outside world.    From Wordnik.com.  [Paul Starobin: California: The Big Picture] Reference

His weight in the world, the expansiveness and ambition of his world view, gave Britain its new post-imperial global role.    From Wordnik.com.  [I Did It My Way] Reference

The second act in the classic drama of post-imperial dissolution in south Asia has been as turbulent and destructive as the first.    From Wordnik.com.  [A Passage to Pakistan] Reference

But there is simply no doubt that the post-imperial order we inhabit allows for greater disruptions than the Cold War ever permitted.    From Wordnik.com.  [A world with no one in charge] Reference

The setting may be California's Imperial Beach but the atmosphere is post-imperial, listless with the rust, must, and mildew of decline.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sand Crabs: James Wolcott] Reference

The two old powers have plenty of experience of the long withdrawal from empire and the diminution that comes with post-imperial status.    From Wordnik.com.  [Entente Frugal: There Has to Be More to Defense Policy Than Saving Money] Reference

While it's easy to side with the Greeks and decry the British as post-imperial pigs, it's important to examine the complexity of the issue.    From Wordnik.com.  [Karen Essex: Who Owns Art? Who Owns Democracy?] Reference

And the next president had better be prepared to lead a post-imperial America, whether advocates of dismantling that empire are excluded from debate or not.    From Wordnik.com.  [No Change for me: I want Bills: US Election Circus Awash in Cliches] Reference

It is thus presumptuous for the post-imperial west to demand that the world take the same route to self-government that it spent blood-thirsty centuries pursuing.    From Wordnik.com.  [Simon Jenkins: It Depends on What You Mean by Democracy] Reference

But rather than pining for the past, Russia would do well to look to Great Britain, another fallen empire, for lessons in how to stay relevant in a post-imperial world.    From Wordnik.com.  [The World According to Russia] Reference

In some cases, a post-imperial chip has hit the pan.    From Wordnik.com.  [Home | Mail Online] Reference

In post-imperial Europe empires usually get a bad press.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blogposts | guardian.co.uk] Reference

She describes them as a vision of what a post-imperial world might look like.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Prague Post] Reference

In international terms, Iran - exactly like its other post-imperial counterparts, France.    From Wordnik.com.  [open Democracy News Analysis - Comments] Reference

Many European countries have lost their colonies and have overcome the post-imperial syndrome.    From Wordnik.com.  [The St. Petersburg Times] Reference

He can see these two adversaries preempting his own post-imperial agenda with a new slogan - e.g.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Washington Times stories: Latest Headlines] Reference

Between them, these three post-imperial powers control 60% of the permanent seats on the UN Security Council.    From Wordnik.com.  [Pickled Politics] Reference

It is common sense, in short, that America's own interests would be best served by becoming a post-imperial society.    From Wordnik.com.  [- 911truth.org] Reference

These are imperial narratives and imperial deceits that can serve no redemptive purpose in a post-imperial presidency.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Corner] Reference

She changed the attitude of appeasement and post-imperial guilt that had actuated foreign policy making since the Suez Crisis.    From Wordnik.com.  [The First Post: Latest] Reference

It's happening in different ways all the time: we should be more aware of our post-imperial circumstances and the world's realignment.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Guardian World News] Reference

In 1962 US statesman and advisor Dean Acheson said that Britain had 'lost an empire but not yet found a rôle' in post-imperial times.    From Wordnik.com.  [open Democracy News Analysis - Comments] Reference