This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, August 25, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

What is the proper use of America's might around the globe?

Is the United States truly an empire as is so often claimed or is its role more of an umpire?

And what's the difference? Elizabeth Cobb's Hoffman is author of American umpire.

We talked about the book and the film of the same name this week.

You refer to Federalist Number 4.

Yes.

Your book as having this very unique word presented as describing the role of what a federal

government might do and the word is umpire. That's right.

And how did that word and how did that idea of an umpire serve us early on?

I actually just describe what the umpire does in the description that the in

Federalist Number Four.

In Federalist Number Four and a couple of other spots in the Federalist Papers, the founders John Jay, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton,

were trying to explain why in the world you needed this federal government and there

are tons of people who thought that was a dumb idea that it would lead to tyranny and they were the anti-federalists.

But what they were saying is that amongst a collection of states you needed some body that could be the

umpire that could play a role where they were mediating between the states and that could actually as the phrase they used was to compel acquiescence

to common rules because who's going to do it? You know one state will be the enforcer, so to speak. And that was a phrase that

jumped out at me because I was working on a book about America's role in the world at large

after World War II. And when I was debating with some students,

you know, is the U.S. an empire or not empire with a capital E?

...