It's interesting that now that the ideological underpinning of the people who are constantly warning against "imperialism" is gone there is only now the possibility of imperialism. Imperialism cannot exist in an ideological frame, true client states do not emerge. Ideology creates mutual bands of friendship and defense, what we see now is a return to blatant calculation in pursuit of simple (petty) national interests, but these are overwhelmed by cooperative goals (hence the mutliplicity of interlocking cooperative systems and an odd paucity of alliances old-fashioned alliances). Marx was wrong on a fundamental philosophical question (not to mention a plethora of economic ones), is capitalism an ideology? No, it is a simple outgrowth of markets and the trading of abstract methods of payment (promissory notes and later "float" currency).

The power of confident ideology is nothing against nature. Canute may have ordered the tides recede, but Marx believed they would.