Posted on 12/12/2003 8:00:03 PM PST by knak
Historian Paul Johnson described the new American Empire a recent essay: a defensive imperialism in defense of Western Civilization.
The generation for whom the latter half of the last century represents their view of the world is now wondering about the world in which their grandchildren will live. It will be very different for a lot of reasons, but the most dramatic will be the American Empire.
It will be a world in which America doesn’t merely participate in great issues and events, but dictates them. It will be a world in which the hope for worldwide democracy is no longer a sterile US foreign policy, but an active, militant one.
Historian Paul Johnson has written a commentary, “America’s New Empire for Liberty,” posted on the website of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. The notion that America has become an empire may be off-putting to some, but the reality of this is hard to ignore or refute.
When the President of the United States can travel halfway around the world to share a few hours with the frontline troops in Baghdad on Thanksgiving, it sends a signal to the Middle East and the rest of the world that he can move around at will, despite widespread opposition, even to the capital of a nation we liberated with the help of a “coalition of the willing.”
A week or so earlier, he was in London where a desultory crowd of Euro-trash and British communists did their best to stage a march that fizzled with a turnout far below their predictions. In Europe, only France and Germany remain opposed to our Iraq invasion. At the United Nations, Bush has made clear that the US will not acquiesce to its politics of accommodation with despots. Bush is making sure that friend and foe alike is getting the message that our foreign policy has changed since 9-11.
A sea change has occurred and the attack on our home soil has forever changed our view of ourselves and of the historic mission of our nation. Historian Paul Johnson calls this a “defensive imperialism” that “specifically repudiates imperialism” as defined by the attempt of one nation to invade and control others, and replaces it with the realization that oceans and distance no longer provide protection against our enemies. We invade to protect ourselves and, in a larger sense, Western civilization.
This offers real hope at last to the billions of people around the world who are still in the grip of totalitarian regimes and petty despots like Saddam Hussein. It is an assertive policy that says the days of self-appointed monarchs like the House of Saud, the African strong men like Robert Mugabe, and others are numbered.
Johnson cites a number of reasons for this beyond the objective of self-defense. “America has the language of the twenty-first century.” Just as Latin and Greek were the languages of past empires, “A more secure world will be legislated for, policed, and adjudicated in English.”
Those of us who worry about our national sovereignty, challenged most significantly by the United Nations and world domination by the failed economic theories of communism and socialism, have watched and listened as President Bush clearly asserted that the United States will act alone or in combination with other freedom-loving nations to insure that our sovereignty is protected, along with theirs.
He has sounded the death knell of the United Nations as that penultimate imperialistic institution has demonstrated its unwillingness and inability to effect needed changes to advance freedom. The UN has proven so cowardly that a single attack on its Iraq headquarters caused it to immediately withdraw. Its various conferences have become the source of mockery as they pretend to address worldwide problems.
Its unwillingness and inability to achieve its goal of world peace is a reminder of the failure of the League of Nations that followed WWI.
The “war on terrorism” is a war on militant, fanatical Islam. Even Muslim nations have concluded it threatens them as well. Despite being the religion of more than a billion people worldwide, Islam’s future depends on its ability to adapt to the twenty-first century and, without an internal Reformation, its future is in question.
Another factor Johnson notes is the way “America’s production of world wealth, both absolutely and relatively, is accelerating. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, it added $5 trillion to its annual GDP. By 2050 the US share of global output will constitute more than a quarter of the world total and will be as much as three times as big, for instance, as that of the European Union.” Indeed, one only has to patiently wait for the EU to come to an inevitable end as it seeks to challenge American dominance. It will implode as its economic policies and political cohesion implodes.
This end is driven by demographics. “There is a marked and growing contrast between Old Europe and young America,” says Johnson, “And the combination of accelerating technology and an expanding workforce will be irresistible in terms of economic and military power.” The creation of the Department of Homeland Security is a reflection of the America’s need to insure our ability to resist attacks from al Qaeda. Indeed, our presence in the Middle East has already reduced its ability to mount such attacks and have driven its leaders into hiding as they are hunted by every nation that has a stake in the success of the war on terrorism. “Dead man walking” is an apt description of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
None of this could have been envisioned before 9-11. America sustained attacks on its troops and even its diplomats since the late 1970s and its former policies failed to deter those attacks. A renewed American optimism, combined with its new policies, is reflected in our economy and our willingness to destroy our enemies.
Changes are reflected here at home by our growing population. Unlike virtually every other nation, America not only has a high birth rate, but we absorb new immigrants on a scale that no other nation on Earth rivals. “By contrast,” writes Johnson, Europe’s population will shrink and the percentage of working age will fall rapidly.” America, notes Johnson, “has never exported people overseas. On the contrary, its growing power and wealth have reflected its ability to attract and absorb immigrants.” As the working populations of Japan, Russia, and the EU nations decline, ours is growing. Only Great Britain and Ireland will increase their working population by 2050. Little wonder that it is the most significant ally we have.
Lastly, the notion of an American empire, the nexus and exporter of democracy, was anticipated by its Founding Fathers. George Washington spoke of “the rising American empire” and Thomas Jefferson said that America was “an empire for liberty.” Johnson, however, notes that America “will not share its sovereignty with anyone. It will continue to promote international efforts of proven worth” but “it will not allow the United Nations or any other organization to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it sees fit.”
Welcome to the dawn of the American Empire.
I am not so sure about that. This isn't an empire in the Roman sense. Most of the "Harsh and Hard" things will be small scale, and can be done pretty quickly. Remember, too, that it will be our policy to allow local government and to improve the lot of the people in our empire.
This will be a loose fitting, leave us alone, and we won't come down on you, kind of arrangement.
If you believe that, I have a nice bridge to sell you.
it will be our policy to allow local government and to improve the lot of the people in our empire.
The Brits did just that -- and they had to do a lot of hard harsh things, even so.
This will be a loose fitting, leave us alone, and we won't come down on you, kind of arrangement.
Here, you prove my point. That kind of wishy-washy approach will not keep an empire very long at all.
Exactly. The world can't be conquered with a carrot-and-stick approach if we want to maintain our national sovereignty. Simply offering carrots means that the more cunning actors in the global system will grab the opportunity to weave a web of interdependence with which to undermine US independence.
An empire is a double-edged sword. However much we try to maintain our sovereignty, at the present rate it appears destined to wither under the unrelenting assault of transnational corporate and financial power. IMO we'll still be the strongest nation on earth in 2050, but the nation-state as an institution will be well on its way to obsolescence.
That aspect of Bush's trip to Baghdad hadn't occurred to me, frankly. We sort of take for granted that he can fly anywhere he wants, anytime - for that matter, we figure we can as well. In fact, it is something that is historically somewhat anomalous, and it is, after all, a bad old world out there.
"Empire" is perhaps the best of a number of not-quite-applicable terms ("hegemon" being another in current vogue) that describes what is going on in the short term only. It is actually gratifying to see that persons in the U.S. government, which sometimes isn't noted for its farsightedness, take a view as long as this one evidently is. If I am not mistaken it is for at least a century - Chinese terms, for a change. And it is simply this - during this period of unprecedented ascension, we have the opportunity to set up portions of the world that might otherwise constitute a counter-empire in time, with governmental systems that are inherently less threatening, looking forward to the inevitable waning of our own power and the ascension of the next, whoever it might be. Stable representative governments in such places are not merely altruistic exercises in idealism, they are concrete steps taken to assure our own future safety and security.
This is thought on a grand scale, but it isn't, despite my remark above, unprecedented in American history - the Louisiana Purchase, Manifest Destiny, Seward's Folly, the Marshall Plan, and Kennan's Long Telegram are all examples of a time when real policies were crafted that looked forward to something more than the next presidential election. So too, I think, with this sudden flurry of activity in an entirely new geopolitical direction - if Pearl Harbor brought us Marshall and Kennan, then it seems to me likely that 9/11 is bringing us a similar paradigm shift, and none too soon.
Naturally it won't go as visualized - such grand scale planning rarely does. But what, of it, remains through temporary setbacks and the advent of unsympathetic administrations will dictate the shape of the world our children's children will live in. "Interesting times" isn't always a curse.
I don't honestly think that the demographic changes in the United States (even if they do project linearly from today, and I doubt they will) will halt this process; if anything they will exacerbate it. Young, rich (by comparison) America will be in combat with young, poor Middle East, and the outcome is not much in doubt. In any case if we're not done by 2010 I'll be very much surprised. WWII only took six years and we only played for four of them, and the sides aren't anywhere near as even now as they were in 1941.
But your point is well taken, and is not necessarily contradictory to my own view - we need to ensure that stable, representative governments are set up by the time that such demographic changes as you propose, if they do happen, will weaken our ability to project our force to the degree necessary. If you are correct about 2010, then we need to be finished with this process by then.
This is the thinking of the people I talk with. The rationale is that if the terrorists can kill Americans in small numbers at a time the better. Eventually however, a public demands to remove forces from Iraq and Afghanistan once a magic number of dead results, say 3,000 plus one.
That is of course as you say is another large scale attack on US occurs and all bets are off. Basically, the US will turn into a monster war machine. Almost definitely turning authoritarian.
The US need to stay the course, win and keep Iraq on our side strike our adversaries in every corner for 100 years, then we might the WORLD safe for the next 1000 years.
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