November 20, 2007
Column: America loses faith in imperialism
Well, that was quick. In 2003, the idea of empire became fashionable in Washington, DC. But the flirtation has lasted little more than three years. The imperial eagles are being put back in the cupboard. The challenge for the US now will be to avoid sliding straight from imperialism to isolationism.
It is true that President George W. Bush always insisted that the US had no imperial ambitions. But – as ever – his vice-president had his own agenda. In 2003, just after the invasion of Iraq, the Christmas card that Dick Cheney sent to his friends read: “And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
Many American conservatives were considerably less coy. Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote an article frankly entitled: “The Case for American Empire”. Charles Krauthammer, an influential columnist, panted that America “is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. America is in a position to … create new realities.” Mr Krauthammer recommended that this be done by “unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will”. In two influential books, Niall Ferguson, a British historian and FT contributing editor, sought to rehabilitate the reputation of the British empire and to suggest that liberal US imperialism “makes sense today in terms of both American self-interest and altruism”.
Continue reading this column here. You can post comments below.
My awkward response to “America’s unpopularity” earlier today was formed in part from having read this piece last night.
In short, is it not time that the US consider constitutional reforms that would bring its foreign policy structure into line with the 21st century?
Foreign policy was just that in 1789. Much of it is outside of checks and balances. Much of it needs checks and balances. Less of it should be determined by temporal readings on what the US population and its media appears to be thinking.
When the US structure is addressed, then one can speak of updating the unwieldy UN and related multilateral frameworks.
As is evidenced in the debates on defence and Javier Solana’s team, Europe still has a lot of work to do. As it has begun this debate ahead of the US, perhaps some suggestions can be passed back across the Atlantic for a change.
The risk today is not the collapse of empire or the suicide of the West, as Mssrs Koch and Smith put it in their 2006 book. It is that the current phenomenon of self-righteousness, including the belief that its exemplary Constitution was inscribed in stone by no less a diety than God, may turn into something far more difficult to deal with. It will not be democratic will, but the opportunism of the clever-but-not-so-enlightened.
Posted by: WCM | November 20th, 2007 at 12:19 pm | Report this commentTheir real fear is the truth coming out, as it is now. To those who have the guts to write it as it is, don’t be afraid.
Posted by: Daoud | November 20th, 2007 at 1:52 pm | Report this commentAmerica loses faith in imperialism
Interesting article, I think Mr. Rachman has covered the topic of America’s flirtation with imperialism very well. America is always flirting with imperialism, always being rebuffed, goes off in a corner and pouts, then flirts again. There is never a shortage of suitors eagerly awaiting flirtation either. And like all suitors, they all want something. Some honorable, some not.
Comparing America to the Roman empire is best done by people with no understanding of the Roman Empire. It helps avoid all those messy facts. Facts like the Roman empire in the west fell in 435, but the Roman empire in the east grew stronger and lasted for 1,000 years. A long time for any empire. Longer than the British, the Persian, the Russian.
But being westerners let us continue to concentrate on the Roman empire in the west. Everyone, but everyone loves to moralize. Loves to blame lack of virtue for failure. The decline and fall of Rome is no exception. Always decline first, then fall. And usually that which survives blames traits they oppose for the decline. In the article, reference was made to a cause of decline, arrogance and corruption. But Rome was just as corrupt building up the empire as in decline and there is no such thing as a humble empire. They are all arrogant. Perhaps missionaries may be humble, but I do not know. The only ones I ever came across personally were all braggarts.
So I do not think arrogance and corruption are the cause.
I do tend to agree with Weber that the Roman empire in the east was able to pay for and maintain and army while the Roman empire in the west could not as the root cause of the fall. Apparently commerce and organization pay off after all.
It becomes fashionable from time to time to compare the British empire to American imperialism. But I do not think they compare well at all. The British empire grew under Cannings dictum trade through war, the British made money off of their colonies. With the possible exception of Ireland, a real money loser there. American imperialism does not make money, it is always a dead loss. So one might say that America only has as much imperialism as it can afford.
Boston
Posted by: Wayne Perry | November 20th, 2007 at 4:14 pm | Report this commentI found Mr. Rachman column in the FT (11/19/2007) interesting and provocative. However, in the closing lines I was appalled to find the phrase “…barbarians are still a long way from the Beltway.” obviously referring (or so it seems to me) to China and India (among others). Let me say that, in all fairness, these cultures have existed for many centuries, keeping their identities amidst historical upheavals, and showing no sign of weakness yet. The resilience these countries have shown when incorporating Western scientific and technical knowledge and at the same time preserving their core values (as it is also the case of Japan) is truly remarkable. I think it would be a serious mistake to lightly dismiss Asian peoples as “Barbarians”.
Posted by: Patricio Sorichetti | November 20th, 2007 at 5:38 pm | Report this commentGideon Rachman states that America may be losing its appetitie for imperialism, but that the ruling elites in rising powers such as China, India and Russia have much to gain from continued American military and economic “leadership” in making sure that the international system of globalization runs smoothly. But is this not imperialism by another name? And why does Mr. Rachman leave out the influence of America’s ruling elite, which President Dwight Eisenhower presciently called the “military-industial complex” almost a half century ago, and which is the principal beneficiary of both traditional types of imperial adventures such as the Iraq war, and the more recent laissez-faire, dog-eat-dog “open markets” capitalism of today’s globalization system?
Many years ago, Joseph Schumpeter, certainly no follower of Karl Marx, wrote that in every empire throughout history, there has always been an elite class that benefited most from imperial dominance. To suggest that the US is any different, if indeed that was Mr. Rachman’s intention, itself smacks of the kind of patronizing and condescending attitude toward the rest of the world, and especially to those who are not part of the elite, that has always been part of imperialist ideology.
Roger Algase
Posted by: Roger Algase | November 20th, 2007 at 7:04 pm | Report this commentNew York NY 10024
My apologies for misspelling “appetite” in my above comment.
Posted by: Roger Algase | November 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm | Report this commentRegarding Patricio Sorichetti’s statement that he was “appalled” at Gideon Rachman’s reference to the “barbarians at the gates”, I do not always agree with Mr. Rachman myself, but let us be fair to him. This reference obviously had nothing to do with India and China, but with the fall of Rome, an empire with which US imperial ambitions have frequently been compared, as Mr. Rachman pointed out earlier in his article. This reference was clearly meant to be ironic, not descriptive of any modern nation in Asia or anywhere else.
Posted by: Roger Algase | November 20th, 2007 at 7:35 pm | Report this commentGood comments in this thread. Empires as super-state structures have always been around and are neither categorically evil nor eternally good best-practice delivery systems. There are the conquer-and-rule and the manifest-destiny varieties, which would include not just the US, but also China and Russia in its post-1991 form.
Empires are a big topic and Rome did not fall in a day and Barbarians did not spend the same evening licking their chops and belching.
Far from the Roman? Macedonian or British models in my opinion, the US system, however, has nonetheless delivered an emperor in the form and powers granted to its presidency. The US president directs foreign policy largely outside the system of checks and balances that are largely still remarkable in the US Constitution for domestic governance.
If the lustre is wearing off this crown, then where are we? How should the rest of the world play a constructive role in helping the US rethink this dimension of their constitution?
It will not be enough to redesign the UN without achieving some convergence of objectives at the super-state level. The Bush Admin has not been wrong in wagging the finger at the current system. It is just that the elites Mr Algase notes have grown deeply cynical and fearful of the world that globalisation has opened up.
Posted by: WCM | November 20th, 2007 at 8:02 pm | Report this commentCome on. America loses faith in Imperialism? That´s not true:
According to “The Economist 2008″ the USA will spend over $600 billion on Defense (including the Wars of Afghanistan and Iraq)….and that means 25% of US´S 2.4 Tr.Budget of $2,4 Tr. (2.2 Tr. in 2006 according to the CIA factbook)
That´s as much as all the other nations of the World combined…no wonder the US is considered the biggest Threat for World Peace.
No wonder the US has invaded two nations of 25 million people in less than five years, something that didn´t happen since Adolf Hitler invasion of Poland (the Czech Republic had less population) and is threatening to invade several countries more like Iran (70 million people) or Cuba (11 million people)
A great part of World citizens are really affraid and it is obvious there is a need for Containment of America. It is logical those who feel threatened by such a military-based society as the US where 25% of the Budget is spent on War, military aircraft, nuclear weapons…those who feel threatened try to join forces to avoid an American attack.
Posted by: Enrique | November 20th, 2007 at 11:36 pm | Report this commentAre there any serious contenders for America’s position as top dog in the world? China’s rise seems to be as precarious as riding a Chinese bicycle: keep peddling lest you lose your balance. How sustainable will this prove to be in the long-run? — There is still a real risk of implosion. Europe’s static statism rules it out almost a priori: the sub-continent is today no more than a museum of its past glory.
As recently as the 1990s America was at the forefront in the latest of a string of global technological transformations which it had heralded since the Wright brothers and Henry Ford’s assembly line. If this was any inflexion point, there must still be many more American decades to come.
Posted by: RCS | November 21st, 2007 at 7:09 am | Report this commentRCS - Let’s hope so!
Posted by: AYC | November 21st, 2007 at 9:49 am | Report this commentJust received this link to today’s London Times on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s criticism of the US:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2937068.ece
Firstly, while he expresses thoughts and observations I share and have posted herein, I differ with him on his lament at what he sees as the decline/demise of Western Civilisation. For me, the point is that we are in a new era and the ose problems which are due to Western leadership, including the UK and Europe, stem from misguided efforts to stave off such a decline.
Secondly, his comments on Islam are condescending at best. As a theologian, he could certainly have made better points. Then again, the Anglican Church is not thriving under his leadership, which is marked by contradictions and a romantic yearning for monastic orders.
Lastly, I find it interesting that this story indeed is the front-page lead in the print edition available in Paris kiosks. Yet when one opens the timesonline home page, it is not listed, except in the list of “most read” in the upper right-hand corner. Is this placement at the suggestion of the Times owner?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/
Posted by: WCM | November 25th, 2007 at 5:20 pm | Report this commentLee Hamilton/Asia Times (online) on US: “we [U.S.] should seek progress instead of perfection in our policies. And we should be more precise in our aims. Let’s take the “war on terror”: instead of conflating all terrorist and extremist groups, we should focus our resources on the core of al-Qaeda. Instead of demanding the change of regimes we do not like, we should try to change their behavior - and we must decide what kinds of behavior deserve our immediate attention because there is plenty of egregious behavior in the world to go around. Instead of demanding the immediate transformation of closed governments into full-blown democracies, we should seek the extension of more rights and opportunities to their citizens, and more transparency and accountability by their governments. Instead of demanding American hegemony, we should try to shape a multipolar international system to serve our interests, as is the case with the six-party talks over North Korea and the Iraq Study Group’s proposed regional conference on Iraq’s future. We should be idealists without illusions and pragmatists with a vision.”…. what can one say,this certainly works for me!
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | November 25th, 2007 at 9:34 pm | Report this commentSo now the CIA recognizes “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003″….and the U.S. Administration was preparing to attack and invade a nation of 70 million people with proofs that they had halted their nuclear program, unlike the US and Israel with their hundreds on nuclear heads.
I congratulate the people of Iran because against the terrorists of the US Administration that have caused so much damage to the rest of the World, who have invaded two nations of over 25 million people in five years (something that didn´t happen in the World since the Hitler´s invasion of Poland) and was preparing the ground for a third invasion of a country FIVE TIMES BIGGER THAN POLAND AND WITH TWICE ITS POPULATION, the only option they had was resist with some support from China and Russia…
Posted by: Enrique | December 4th, 2007 at 2:27 am | Report this comment