Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance is a book about the United States and its foreign policy written by American political activist and linguist Noam Chomsky.

Drawing historical examples from 1945 through to 2003, Chomsky looks at the US government's support for regimes responsible for mass human rights abuses—including ethnic cleansing and genocide—namely El Salvador, Colombia, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, and Indonesia.

He looks at the role of propaganda – employed by government and mass media – in shaping public opinion in both the U.S. and United Kingdom, arguing that it allows a wealthy elite to thrive at the expense of the majority.

[12] Chapter two, "Imperial Grand Strategy", looks at the U.S. government's belief that it should take part in "preventative war" against states who threaten its global hegemony, despite the illegality of these actions under international law.

Criticising the standard U.S. government claim that such interventionism is for humanitarian purposes, Chomsky maintains that it is an attempt to further the power of U.S. capitalism, with little interest in the welfare of the people involved.

He discusses the U.S. campaign to topple the socialist government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, highlighting both its economic embargo of the island and its financial backing for militant groups that attack Cuban targets, including the perpetrators of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bombing of Cubana Flight 455.

Chomsky argues that Reagan's administration utilized fear and nationalist rhetoric to distract the public from the poor economic situation that the U.S. was facing, finding scapegoats in the form of the leftist governments of Libya, Grenada and Nicaragua, as well as the international drug trade.

Proceeding to critique the idea that the Bush II administration was genuinely concerned about threats to U.S. security, he criticises their attempts to undermine international efforts to prevent the militarization of space, the abolition of biological warfare, and the fight against global pollution, as well as the fact that they ignored all warnings that the Iraq invasion would cause a worldwide anti-American backlash.

[16] In the sixth chapter, "Dilemmas of Dominance", Chomsky explores the relationship that the U.S. has had with Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union and with East Asia since the Second World War.

In the former, Chomsky argues, the U.S. has allied itself with the capitalist reformers who have advocated privatization and neoliberalism at the expense of the welfare state, leading to increased poverty and demographic decline across the region.

[17] Chapter seven, "Cauldron of Animosities", opens with a discussion of U.S. support for the increasing militarization of Israel and its illegal development of nuclear weapons, something Chomsky believes threatens peace in the Middle East by encouraging nations like Iran and Iraq to do the same.

He explores the longstanding western exploitation of the Middle East for its oil resources, first by the British Empire and subsequently by the U.S. post-World War II, and then looks at the U.S.' role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, continually supporting Israel both militarily and politically, furthering human right abuses against the Palestinian people and repeatedly sabotaging the peace process.

Discussing the role of the U.S. in creating ballistic missile defense systems and encouraging the militarization of outer space, he notes that the U.S. government have continually undermined international treaties to decrease the number of weapons of mass destruction, because the American socio-economic elite believe that "hegemony is more important than survival."

[21] Quoting liberal statesman Dean Acheson, Chomsky asserts that the purpose of this strategy is to prevent any challenge to the "power, position, and prestige of the United States".

[24] Examining examples of preventative war waged by the United States, he notes that all of the nations that have been attacked have shared the same three characteristics: 1) they are "virtually defenseless", 2) they are "important enough to be worth the trouble" and 3) there has been a way to portray them as "the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

He also argued that government and media propaganda also set out to forge an erroneous link between Iraq President Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, playing on the American people's horror of the 9/11 attacks.

Chomsky remarks that the 2003 invasion of Iraq is particularly significant because it signals the "new norm" in international relations, and that in future the U.S. might be willing to wage a preventative war against "Iran, Syria, the Andean region, and a number of others.

"[27] In Hegemony or Survival, Chomsky returns to themes that have motivated most of his political writing, including the blindness of western states to their own moral failures and inconsistencies and the ruthless insistence of successive US administrations that the world will do their bidding.

Furthermore, Boyle opined that Chomsky had failed to offer a "compelling explanation" for why the U.S. government was willing to declare war on Iraq in 2003, a conflict that was far costlier and riskier than the 1980s military adventures in Nicaragua and Grenada.

He thought the book was important in reminding readers that the War on Terror was keeping the US public in fear and was ensuring an ongoing international market for weaponry.

She considered it similar to other books criticizing Bush's administration, such as those of Michael Moore, John Dean, and Bob Woodward, but thought it novel in acknowledging prior policy.

In a review for The New York Times, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Harvard scholar, and Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Power described the book as a "raging and often meandering assault" on U.S. foreign policy.

Arguing that he completely ignores the concept that the U.S. might undertake any foreign interventions with good intentions, she asserts that his book is not easy to read, and that his "glib and caustic tone" are distracting.

Although disagreeing with his arguments, she believed that reading his book was "sobering and instructive", having value in illustrating how many non-Americans viewed the U.S. and highlighting many of the "structural defects" in U.S. foreign policy.

Furthermore, recognizing that Chomsky's "critiques have come to influence and reflect mainstream opinion elsewhere in the world," she concedes that Chomksy's analysis has a coherence that, for many, resolves much of the post-9/11 confusion and disillusionment stemming from the Bush administration's standard response to the question, "Why do they hate us?".

Writing in The Observer, journalist Nick Cohen wrote disparagingly of Hegemony or Survival, describing Chomsky as a "master of looking-glass politics", exemplifying a trend in the western Left for being more interested in anti-Americanism than in opposing the "fascist" regime of Saddam Hussein.

Highlighting Chomsky's "wry humor and sarcasm", he notes that the author "successfully shows that the American emperor, while preaching modesty to the rest, himself struts about rather ostentatiously."

Ultimately, Mathur notes that the "strangely defensive and rather parochial posture" adopted by Power and Cohen was "entirely in line" with the reception that Chomsky had received from the Anglo-American world.

He also expressed cautious support for the leftist reforms being implemented by Chávez's administration, remarking his opinion that their moves "toward the creation of another socio-economic model could have a global impact if these projects are successfully carried out".

He asserted that he was "convinced that she must be set free, not only due to her physical and psychological health conditions, but in conformance with the human dignity the Bolivarian revolution presents as a goal.