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Wednesday 10 February 2010

The American Way of Empire

Monday, 30th November 2009

Actually, the existence of any such imperial ambitions is generally denied, even though the US has been an expansionist power almost since its inception. The inter-war years of "isolationism" are the great exception, not the natural way of things. At least not in Washington. Still, we are where we are. Two recent columns, by Thomas Friedman and David Frum respectively, are worth considering when one ponders the state and fate of the American Empire.

First, Friedman writes about the anti-American "Narrative" that dominates muslim opinion. This, he says, is most unfair since:

Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny— in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.

As Daniel Larison says, what this really means is that Friedman wants "Muslims to think like Pan-Islamists when it serves Washington’s purposes (i.e., when it is supposed to make Muslims favorably disposed to us), but Muslims must never think like Pan-Islamists when it doesn’t."

In one sense it is charming that the Cousins retain such a faith in their own idealism; in another it's infuriating that they so often fail - Friedman being a regular exemplar of this - to appreciate that their idealism is a pretty cloak for America's self-interest. There would be less wrong with this if America's great idealism were applied more consistently. But since it isn't it's unwise to boast too much about it or to pretend that it's the only motivation for US foreign policy and that if only this were more perfectly understood all would be well.

To take but one obvious example: if US foreign policy is "largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims" or freeing them from tyranny, then why, the Muslim Street might reasonably ask, does the US support repressive dictatorships in Egypt and Libya and Saudi Arabia and elsewhere? American fears that something "worse" might replace these regimes (add Pakistan to the list) are not unreasonable but nor is it unreasonable for Muslims to look at US policy in its entireity and conclude that it's hypocritical, selective in its idealism and, fundamentally, a question of asserting American power.

To put it another way, listening to Friedman you might think the US only plays the role of Good Samaritan and (almost) never acts out of self-interest. Sometimes, as in the case of WW2, these roles overlap but here too the American "narrative" dramatically downplays all the many ways in which the United States benefited from the war. Ackowledging that doesn't cheapen the sacrifice of so many soldiers and sailors and marines and airmen, it merely puts it into some kind of proper context and allows us to take a disapassionate view of these things.

Meanwhile, David Frum makes a good point about Dubai's financial crisis:

Dubai’s banking sector could exist only because it was backed by an implicit security guarantee from the United States. The credibility of that guarantee was spectacularly enhanced by the first Gulf War of 1990-91, and not so coincidentally Dubai took off soon afterward.

As with Dubai, so with so many other emerging economic powers, from South Korea to Chile. Their wealth depends on security provided to them by the United States.

Far from indicating a “post-American world,” the skyscrapers of Dubai are symbols of that American world as much as the monuments of American cities. Arguably even more so: Every rich country has skyscrapers, but there is only one that can be counted on to defend the skyscrapers of others.

This is the Pax Americana in operation and it's true that the security guarantees given by the United States have been hugely beneficial for millions, perhaps even billions, of people around the world. We should be grateful for that. David, I think, disputes this idea of empire and takes the view that it strips the word of any significant meaning. But there are different types of empire and they maintain their interests in different ways. Argentina, for instance, was never a formal part of the British Empire but in the 19th century it was so dependent upon the London bond market that it was, to all intents and purposes, part of the Informal Empire.

The end of the Cold War could have changed some of this. But rather than retreat, the US actually expanded. The world, famously, became uni-polar. In addition to its financial interests and leadership, the Cousins maintained their network of bases around the globe. The message was clear: the US is prepared to intervene in any country on earth. Just as importantly, it maintained the capability of so intervening.

But where there was once a balance of power there is now an imbalance of risk. The free-rider problem is real. Other countries, not merely in western europe, have relied upon US protection so heavily that they are now largely incapable of making large-scale interventions themselves. They need the Americans. One consequence of this is that when the Americans actually ask for help there is not much their allies can usefully offer. This strengthens the American view that the US is having to shoulder too much of the burden itself. There's something to this. But if that's the case then it's partly also because America's allies appreciate that the US will do what it must in order to safeguard its interests and so, even when our own self-interest might be aligned with theirs, the less risky option is to let them go ahead on their own since they're going to do it anyway. Without the Soviet Bear, Washington's ability to leverage support is actually more limited even as its own power has increased.

And some of this is the result of past US policy. For instance, the Cousins have been opposed to the development of any independent european defence capability. There are sound reasons for preferring everything to be organised through NATO but that insistence upon American leadership has also, conveniently, made everyone still more reliant upon the US. (This may also, of course, have prevented wars or disastrous military adventures that might have occurred if other countries' armies were beefier.)

First in war and first in peace is how Washington likes to think of itself and that's a useful reminder that American policy is founded upon the principles that the United States must remain the world's indispensable nation and that American hegemony must be preserved. On the whole, I'd rather have the Yanks play this role than anyone else and most of the time it's been for the best anyway.

The triumph of American-led capitalism, however tarnished it may look right now, has been a Good Thing too, but there's no point in pretending that the Washington Consensus wasn't also about power and self-interest as well as being a well-intentioned belief that US economic liberalism offered a better deal for the rest of the world as well as the United States.

As I say, on the whole American leadership has been good for the world but that doesn't mean the US is perfect by any means. David Frum is more realistic than Thomas Friedman and thank heaven for that. Alas, Friedman's belief that American flexes its muscles with Cincinnatian Reluctance is naive at best and pernicious at worst.

Filed under: Americana (255 more articles) , Empire (8 more articles) , Middle East (26 more articles) , Muslims (2 more articles)

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Brett

November 30th, 2009 11:11pm Report this comment

To be honest, I'm not sure why we Americans seem to need to have our paper-thin justifications. Is it just egotism, that we really do believe that our self-interest and the like are humanitarian and pro-freedom? A discomfort with the naked wheeling-and-dealing aspects of power politics?

Edmund Jerk

November 30th, 2009 11:51pm Report this comment

American leadership has been a good thing for the world in promoting economic liberalism; but the military interventionism I think we could all have done without. Bring on the new balance of power I say!

ndm

December 1st, 2009 2:01am Report this comment

Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny - in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan - a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.

This Friedman quote alone shows the weakness of his thesis. Each of the examples he quotes is a result of Defense policy not Foreign policy. Each of them comes from a use of the US military to achieve some end. His mockery of legitimate Muslim grievance at the American-sponored Israeli tyranny over the Palestinians is despicable.

The World has had two models of international engagement over the last half century. We have the militarism of the bipolar cold war and its unipolar remnant in US projection of force. And we have the jaw-jaw of the Franco-German expansion of the European Union. Who remembers that even as recently as the early 1970s Portugal, Spain and Greece all had right-wing dictatorships? I don't think there is any real doubt that the European model where foreign policy is supreme has had far better results for more people than did and does the American model of militaristic supremacy.

sam

December 1st, 2009 4:45am Report this comment

What link between the expansion of the EU and the end of 70's right-wing governments is there? Couldn't that be as connected to the expansion of NATO?

ndm

December 1st, 2009 8:13am Report this comment

I din't say there was a link between EU expansion and the end of right-wing governments in Greece, Portugal and Spain. These all ended for local reasons. However, since the issue has been raised a comparison between the NATO and EU membership of these countries is instructive.

Portugal was a founding member of NATO in 1949 and Greece joined NATO in 1952. Spain joined NATO only in 1982. NATO appars to have been not overly concerned by the right-wing dictatorships in Portugal and Greece. Wikipedia, admittedly not the most definitive of sources, has this to say about Spain and Greece respectively:

-- After World War II, Spain was politically and economically isolated, and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when due to the Cold War it became strategically important for the U.S. to create a military presence on the Iberian peninsula, next to the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar, in order to protect southern Europe.

-- King Constantine's dismissal of George Papandreou's centrist government in July 1965 prompted a prolonged period of political turbulence which culminated in a coup d'état on 21 April 1967 by the United States-backed Regime of the Colonels.

That United States seems more intent on projecting its own military power than caring about the Democratic nature of the states from which that power is projected.

Meanwhile, Greece joined the EU in 1981 while Portugal and Spain joined together in 1986. The reality is that dictatorship is utterly incompatible with membership of the EU yet is not incompatible with membership of NATO. It is membership of the EU that will ensure the economic and political growth of the Central European members not membership of NATO.

Steve

December 1st, 2009 12:36pm Report this comment

So if I read this correctly we are to be despised because we intervene throughout the world (economically, militarily, politically) in our own self interest, doing so at times with a masquerade of it being in someone elses best interest. This is bad, unless of course, our self interest happen to dovetail with Britain's self interest or Europe's in general, in which case, then us acting in our self interest with or without a masquerade of it being in someone else's best interest is good. Our action, in these particular situations is doubly good because it is typically an American instinct to act as opposed to not act which allows the other players to sit back and let the burden of the action fall onto our shoulders.

Part of the reason for the lack of action of other players, say Europe, is that those players have been relying on American security and other guarantees (Dubai as an example) for so long that they have not invested in their own self interest and cannot therefore act in them. Then we are chided for wanting to keep that imbalance of power because it benefits our own self interest.

So, if I'm tallying here, acting in our own self interest, bad. Acting in our own self interest but it benefits Britain or Europe, good, acting in someone else's self interest with no benefit to us, also good.

Providing security guarantees to other nations is good, except when it somehow benefits our nation, then its bad. And wanting to keep any situation where we benefit from the security relationship is also bad.

I'm not an America, right or wrong as long as it is America type. However, you seem to be mildly annoyed that we use geopolitics to our advantage. Are we the benevolent, shining city on the hill, that American's like to romanticize we are, sometimes, but also sometimes not. Yes, but only when it benefits us, we're just another powerful empire, as Britain was, as France was, as the Romans were, attempting to cling to our power as long as possible. Give us a plus sign for not conquering, plundering and annexing (at least we don't anymore) and asking for tribute, or at least in the way the Romans, Spanish, French, Dutch and British did it, in the 20th century ours is a much more kinder and gentler subjugation...

I do agree Friedman is a fraud at best but would not be so quick to hoist Frum on a chair and prance around the room shouting "Huzzah" either...

Sean

December 1st, 2009 7:06pm Report this comment

What an odd critique.

The U.S. government must justify to the American electorate any involvement, military or otherwise, outside of our borders. As such, we will almost always derive some benefit from our foreign entanglements. Otherwise, why expend American resources if it is ultimately to our detriment?

If one Congress tosses away blood and treasure on a fool's errand, they will be voted out within a year or two, allowing the oppostion party to gain control of the government. Pissing away the favor of the people over a single international affair has a cascading effect when the opposition is then granted control of not only that affair, but every other affair both foreign and domestic.

This is not a difficult concept to understand. To get any poltical support for intervention, there must a clear benefit associated with the effort to offset the risk of failure. Like it or not, this is a feature of our republic, not a bug.

Methinks the author here spends to much time philosophizing on the abstract, but not nearly enough time thinking about the practical.

ndm

December 1st, 2009 8:30pm Report this comment

Sean writes:

Methinks the author here spends to much time philosophizing on the abstract, but not nearly enough time thinking about the practical.

even as his own post demonstrates such naivete it is wrong from start to finish.

The U.S. government must justify to the American electorate any involvement, military or otherwise, outside of our borders

It must? If memory serves the Republicans won the 2004 elections 18 months after the Iraq war was started even though it already knew by then the claimed rationale for war was bogus and long after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was uncovered. The reality is that US () and other) Governments always portray wars as essential to the nation and the electorate wherever nearly always responds to the siren calls of jingoism.

If one Congress tosses away blood and treasure on a fool's errand, they will be voted out within a year or two, allowing the oppostion party to gain control of the government.

In the unlikely event they are voted out in a year or two the problem is that the damage has already been done. US military spending and might is such that there is no conceivable enemy - other than, perhaps, Russia - which should require more than a few months to overcome with a competently prosecuted war. The US electorate is not the blocking factor in starting a war although its reluctance to pay for the competent prosecution of the wars it all too willingly starts is a significant contributing factor to the failure in these wars.

Had Wolfowitz and company told the American people that the war in Iraq would cost $3T I very much doubt they would have allowed the war to happen. That is why the Bush Administration told so many half truths about the cost of war.

This is utter rubbish. The United States invaded Iraq even though it was patently clear at the time that there was no benefit to the Unitd States.

ndm

December 1st, 2009 8:32pm Report this comment

Stephen Walt has a good post detailing 5 questions to think about during Obama's speech on Afghanistan. He starts:

1. Why does he believe that 30,000 more troops will lead to success in Afghanistan, given that the ratio of foreign troops relative to the local population will still be much smaller than the number required for successful military occupations?

Sean

December 2nd, 2009 8:14pm Report this comment

"This is utter rubbish. The United States invaded Iraq even though it was patently clear at the time that there was no benefit to the Unitd States."

It's only "patently clear" in your eyes. In 2003, the invasion of Iraq was widely supported by the U.S. public, as reflected by the bipartisan support early on in the process. You may not have agreed with the benefit of removing Saddam Hussein and establishing a Democracy in that region presented, but back then your opinion was shared by only an inconsequential minority, even within your own side of the political spectrum.

As the government's case for invasion began to unravel afterwords, support dwindled both from the public and from politicians. By 2006 the opposition party had won control of both houses of our legislature. By 2008, those majorities increased and the opposition party won the presidency, controlling all of government.

The system worked as intended.

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