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American empire out of the closet
Gulf News
| By
Joseph S. Nye
The military victory in Iraq seems to have confirmed a new world order.
Seldom in history has one nation loomed so large above the others. Indeed,
the word "empire" has come out of the closet. Respected analysts
of both left and right are beginning to refer to "American
empire" approvingly as the dominant narrative of the 21st century.
But those who openly welcome the idea of an American empire mistake the
underlying nature of American public opinion. Neoconservatives such as Max
Boot argue that the U.S. should provide troubled countries with the sort
of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.
But, as British historian Niall Ferguson points out, modern America
differs from 19th-century Britain in our "chronically short
time frame".
Some say the U.S. is already an empire and it is just a matter of
recognising reality. It's a mistake, however, to confuse the politics of
primacy with those of empire. The U.S. is more powerful compared with
other countries than Britain was at its imperial peak, but it has less
control over what occurs inside other countries than Britain did when it
ruled a quarter of the globe.
For example, British officials controlled Kenya's schools, taxes, laws and
elections, not to mention external relations. The U.S. has no such control
today. We couldn't even get the votes of Mexico and Chile for a second UN
Security Council resolution.
Devotees of the new imperialism say not to be so literal.
"Empire" is merely a metaphor. But the problem with the metaphor
is it implies a control from Washington that is unrealistic and reinforces
the prevailing strong temptations toward unilateralism.
Despite its natal ideology of anti-imperialism, the U.S. has intervened
and governed countries in Central America and the Caribbean as well as the
Philippines. But imperialism has never been comfortable for Americans, and
only a small portion of the cases led directly to the establishment
of democracies. American empire is not limited by "imperial
overstretch" in the sense of costing an impossible portion of our
gross national product.
We devoted a much higher percentage of GNP to the military budget during
the Cold War than we do today. The overstretch will come from having to
police more and more peripheral countries – more than public opinion
will accept. Polls show little popular taste for empire.
In fact, the problem of creating an American empire might better be termed
imperial under-stretch. Neither the public nor Congress has proved willing
to invest seriously in the instruments of nation-building and governance
as opposed to military force.
The entire budget of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for
International Development is only about one per cent of the federal
budget. The U.S. spends nearly 16 times as much on its military,
which is designed for fighting rather than police work.
The administration has reduced training for peacekeeping operations. It
tends to eschew nation-building and has designed a military better suited
to kick down the door, beat up a dictator and go home, rather than stay
for the harder work of building a democratic polity.
Consider the following three scenarios among Iraq's many possible futures.
The first is a 1945 Germany-Japan scenario in which the U.S. stays for
seven years and leaves behind a friendly democracy.
That's the preferred outcome, but it's worth remembering that Germany and
Japan were ethnically homogeneous societies with significant middle
classes that had experienced democracy in the 1920s, and in which there
were no terrorist responses to the presence of U.S. troops.
A second scenario is President Reagan in Lebanon. Some of the people who
cheered our entry wind up protesting our presence. Terrorists kill U.S.
soldiers, and the public reacts by saying: "Saddam and the weapons
are gone, they don't want our democracy, let's pull out." If that
scenario leaves Iraq in conflict, dictatorship or theocracy, it will
undercut a major rationale for the war.
Third is a Bosnia-Kosovo scenario in which the U.S. entices NATO allies
and other countries to help in Iraq's policing and reconstruction. A UN
resolution would bless the force, and an international administrator would
help to legitimise decisions.
The process would be long and frustrating but would reduce the prominence
of the U.S. as a target for anti-imperialists and probably provide the
best prospect that America would not pull out prematurely.
Ironically, the neoconservative strand of the administration might
have to make common cause with the multilateral realists to achieve its
objectives. It might find that the world's only superpower is not suited
for empire after all.
The writer, dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government,
is author of The Paradox of American Power.
© Los Angels Times-Washington Post News Service
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |