While I think Escobar is correct in his observation that Empire policies are still driven by the Empire imperative expressed in the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guide, I don't think he has read the latest political views of Zbigniew Brzezinski which indicates a very significant change. He now sees that the US Empire is no longer a dominant global power; and to secure its future, he thinks that the Empire should seek cooperation with either Russia or China, preferably the latter.
...it behooves the United States to fashion a policy in which at least one of the two potentially threatening states becomes a partner in the quest for regional and then wider global stability, and thus in containing the least predictable but potentially the most likely rival to overreach.However, I don't think that Brzezinski is still influential regarding Empire policies, and the neoconservative agenda as expressed it the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guide is still in control of the Empire's actions. As Escobar writes:
Twenty-four years after the Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guide, the same mindset prevails; “Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival…to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia”.