The Economist
August 14, 2003


America, it is said, is the world's latest imperial power. Don't believe it

WHAT is the shelf-life of an idea? Just a few short months ago, the talk—and not
just in Washington, DC—was of empire, America's that is. Even before the
invasion of Iraq, pundits of all stripes were casting aside their coyness to
proclaim that America was the latest imperial power to bestride the world.
Today, with tribulations besetting the new Romans in both Afghanistan and Iraq,
their most recent conquests, the chorus has died down, but the idea is far from
dead. Too many people have invested too much in it.

For several years, after all, commentators have been announcing the discovery of
an American empire. Books and articles have poured forth, professors and pundits
have pondered the implications— and a surprising number have welcomed the new
role. “No need to run away from the label,” argues Max Boot, a fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York: “America's destiny is to police the
world.”

Behind the claim lies a conjunction of circumstances. First is the sheer scale
of America's power. While the sole superpower remains more than ready to put its
technological prowess to military use, its western allies, wearied by centuries
of fighting, have been quick to cash in their post-cold-war peace dividends and
turn to more pacific pursuits. Russia is diminished. China still lags behind.
America's pre-eminence in the skies, at sea and on land is thus unchallenged. In
terms of both brute force and gee-whizz gadgetry, it leaves even its nearest
competitors standing, or rather quaking.

Matching this military might, runs the argument, is an unrivalled degree of
economic power. Throw together all the output from Hollywood and Silicon Valley
to Wall Street and Tin Pan Alley, and you have a commercial empire that would
have been the envy of the British East India Company or Cecil Rhodes. And with
“hard” power and “soft” power combined, you have influence on a scale never seen
before. The polite term for it is hegemony, but in reality, as Mr Boot says, it
is Globocop. What other country divides the world up into five military commands
with four-star generals to match, keeps several hundred thousand of its
legionaries on active duty in 137 countries—and is now unafraid to use them?
For, stung by the events of September 11th, America is no longer shy about
spilling blood, even its own. Weren't the Afghan and Iraqi wars largely designed
to show just that?

To power and global reach can therefore be added another imperial
characteristic: an actual desire to sally forth and act. Even before Americans
were attacked on September 11th 2001, influential voices were calling for a more
activist foreign policy. Some were what Ivo Daalder, a fellow at the Brookings
Institution in Washington, DC, calls “assertive nationalists”, some were
“democratic imperialists”. Both groups were impatient with the constraints
imposed by treaties, multilateral action and America's membership of
international clubs like the UN. Both wanted to see America hit back when
attacked. Both thought the Clinton administration had been timid, if not craven,
in defence of American interests.

If, before September 11th, George Bush belonged to either of these groups, it
was to the assertive nationalists—along with men like Dick Cheney, his
vice-president, and Donald Rumsfeld, his secretary of defence. The president's
instincts were to take robust action if necessary, but to avoid foreign
entanglements. In particular, even as a candidate, he had been hostile to the
idea of “nation-building” (correctly, state-building) abroad, an ambition more
closely identified with the democratic imperialists, also known as
neoconservatives. Later, though, Mr Bush started to come round to that idea.
September 11th, he was to say a year after the event, “taught us that weak
states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests
as strong states.” Accordingly, “We will extend the peace by encouraging free
and open societies on every continent.”

So there it is. The American empire passes the duck test: it not only looks like
a duck and walks like a duck, it also quacks like a duck. And, unfashionable as
the idea may seem, it has been given a remarkably warm reception. Even
non-Americans seem well-disposed. Over a year ago Robert Cooper, a British
diplomat, called for “a new kind of imperialism”, albeit one that would be
provided by the “post-modern European Union”. Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian now
at Harvard, has also been ready to argue that “imperialism doesn't stop being
necessary just because it is politically incorrect,” though not for him another
European imperium. Doubtful as he is about the enterprise, he can see no
alternative to American leadership.

Many like Mr Ignatieff are ready to lend support to the idea of an American
empire, moved by a desire to bring people living in failed states out of their
disorder and misery, and believing that only America can run such an empire.
Others are more concerned to deny terrorists a base from which to launch attacks
on what was once the inviolable fortress of the West. All take succour from
recent, generally favourable reassessments of the British empire, notably the
one offered in a book (and television series) by Niall Ferguson, a Scottish
historian now at New York University. “What the British empire proved”, writes
Mr Ferguson, “is that empire is a form of international government that can
work—and not just for the benefit of the ruling power.” The British empire, he
suggests, “though not without blemish”, may have been the least bloody path to
modernity for its subjects.

Such thoughts are still too controversial for senior members of the Bush
administration to utter aloud. “We don't seek an empire,” avers Mr Bush himself.
“Our nation is committed to freedom for ourselves and for others.” With equal
vigour, Mr Rumsfeld insists: “We're not imperialistic.” But after one
regime-changing war in Afghanistan and another in Iraq, the administration seems
to be gathering the wool of empire, and doing so with a civilising mission that
sounds pretty imperial.

If Mr Bush does not state the aims explicitly, the neocons feel no such
embarrassment. For them, Afghanistan and Iraq are just the start. The
transformation of the entire Middle East—Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the lot—must
now ensue. In logic, once that is democratised under American tutelage, other
regions will have to follow. The United States has long felt free to intervene
in Latin America; even before September 11th it was being drawn into Colombia.
The Balkans, after a more direct intervention, are benefiting from even starker
American supervision (or indirect rule, to use the imperial term, via the EU and
UN). Can parts of Asia and Africa be far behind?

Perhaps they can. It depends, of course, on what is meant by empire, and
therefore on what counts as a constituent part. In one sense, America has had an
empire for years. In pursuit of its “manifest destiny”, which would have been
called Lebensraum (room to grow in) in 1930s Germany, 19th-century American
expansionists laid claim to most of their continent. Some parts, such as Alaska
and the huge swathe of land between the Rockies and the Mississippi that came
with the Louisiana Purchase, were bought. Others were acquired more
traditionally: California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and parts of
Colorado and Wyoming all fell into America's lap at the end of the 1846-48 war
that President James Polk had baited Mexico into fighting, chiefly to obtain
California.

A second imperial phase came after the Spanish-American war of 1898. This
“splendid little war”, in the words of the secretary of state, John Hay,
delivered Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The expansionist impulse
continued under Teddy Roosevelt, whose big stick (carry one, while talking
softly, he advised) and amendments to the Monroe Doctrine (his corollary
proclaimed the United States' right to intervene anywhere in Latin America to
prevent the Europeans doing so) have helped to make him a hero in today's
Washington. A man of pre-emptive action—grab Hawaii, or see it threaten
America's west coast, he argued—Roosevelt is Mr Bush's favourite president, and
hugely admired by Mr Rumsfeld too.

But soon America was drawing back, first under Roosevelt himself and then under
Woodrow Wilson, whose “14 points” set out an idealistic programme for a just
peace after the first world war, based on collective security and national
self-determination. Yet by the end of the next world war, America, the only
country to emerge unambiguously strengthened, had entered a third imperial
phase. It was formally in occupation in West Germany and Japan, and it was the
de facto power in a variety of places from Dutch Indonesia to the Belgian Congo,
from most of Latin America to much of Indochina.

If these earlier imperiums were empires, then perhaps America has indeed
acquired a new one. But if the imperial attribution is to mean anything, an
empire has to have at least two characteristics besides those of huge might and
a willingness to use it. An empire must also be a hierarchical system, in which
ultimate control resides at the centre, in this case Washington, DC, and all the
colonies, client states, satrapies, sepoys, slaves and helots must understand
that. And it must be enduring. True, territories can be acquired one by one for
a series of different reasons, as Britain's first colonies were. But, as Adam
Smith said, “every empire aims at immortality.” In other words, running colonies
collectively as an empire requires the intention of either continuous control
or, more likely, some sort of transformation, which is where state-building
comes in, ideally laced with a bit of missionary zeal. The thrills of empire are
not those of the one-night stand.

In short, the empire now proclaimed in America's name is at best a dull duck, at
worst a dead duck, unless it is to be a big strong drake that intends to throw
its weight around for quite a while. And this in turn raises two difficulties
for the concept of a new American empire. One is that the subjects won't like
it. The other is that Americans won't either.

Theory, meet practice

For the truth of the first proposition, take a look at Iraq. Four months after
the fall of Baghdad, America still faces what one of its own top generals has
called “war, however you describe it”. Even at the outset, the happy natives
failed to greet their liberators quite as joyfully as some had so obviously
hoped. Yes, Saddam Hussein was loathed; no, the Iraqis would not die for him in
any numbers; but now, please leave us to get on with our own affairs. No matter
that the Iraqis are in no position to run their own affairs. They still do not
want their country run for them. Resistance is encouraged by the emperor's
failure to fix the plumbing, stop the looting and get the lights back on, never
mind the constant indignities that go with running an empire: arrests,
roadblocks and house-to-house searches that offend the modesty of devout Muslim
women. The combination of cock-up and hostility has not only cost the new
administration its first boss, Jay Garner. It has also led America to reverse
its plans to start cutting the number of its occupying troops. A constitution
and free elections are promised for next year, but the progress towards
democracy has been much slower than was at first hoped.

Just a few teething troubles? Up to a point, certainly. But Afghanistan, too,
suggests that the imperial role is neither popular nor easy. Nearly two years
after a singularly successful toppling of the Taliban, the country is still
largely in the hands of warlords of dubious allegiance, each with his own
militia (see article). They pay nominal obeisance to the proconsul, President
Hamid Karzai, but pay him his dues either grudgingly or not at all, preferring
to keep the revenues they collect for their own militias. The 5,000 or so
peacekeepers, the emperor's proxy army, scarcely dare leave the capital, Kabul,
though they are now under NATO command. In the provinces, meanwhile, anything
may be going on. The UN has just said that it is suspending work in the south
after a series of attacks, and the Taliban are talking of new offensives in the
north.

What price commitment?

All this is grist to the mill of the true believers in America's imperial
mission. It just goes to show that an early exit after a quick war solves
nothing. If the peace is to endure, if the rule of law is to be established, if
democratic institutions are to take root, you had better be prepared for a
lengthy undertaking, with men, money and limitless patience. Such has been the
lesson of Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland—a lesson yet to be learnt perhaps
in Congo, Sierra Leone and countless other hell-holes less pressing on the
western conscience. The neo-imperialists have logic on their side when they
argue that regime change alone is not enough, and, to their credit, they say
they are ready for the long haul. Mr Boot, one of their foremost advocates,
believes America is too. The price is affordable, he argues, and, in its
containment of the Soviet Union and other policies, America has shown it can
sustain a commitment over long decades.

Sorry for the inconvenience—we'll try not to be too longIt is a beguiling
argument. But a contradiction lies at the heart of the imperialists' concept.
Imperialism and democracy are at odds with each other. The one implies hierarchy
and subordination, the other equality and freedom of choice. People nowadays are
not willing to bow down before an emperor, even a benevolent one, in order to be
democratised. They will protest, and the ensuing pain will be felt by the
imperial power as well as by its subjects. For Americans, the pain will not be
just a matter of budget deficits and body bags; it will also be a blow to the
very heart of what makes them American—their constitutional belief in freedom.
Freedom is in their blood; it is integral to their sense of themselves. It binds
them together as nothing else does, neither ethnicity, nor religion, nor
language. And it is rooted in hostility to imperialism—the imperial rule of
George III. Americans know that empires lack democratic legitimacy. Indeed, they
once had a tea party to prove it.

Some imperialists may be untroubled by such thoughts. Throughout their imperial
history, the British, a rather steak-and-kidney sort of people, not much
interested in constitutional concepts, would generally fight to defend their own
freedom but did not feel obliged to introduce it in their colonies so long as
democracy was in prospect for their subjects one distant day. They were helped
in this happy procrastination by powerful practical interests (they exported
both settlers and capital to their colonies), by a degree of racism, and by a
sustained sense of semi-religious mission. And despite the many hardships, those
who ran it also had fun with their empire (lots of dressing up with funny hats,
playing polo and shooting tigers); and it was a commercial enterprise (“Trade
follows the flag,” noted Rhodes).

Little, if any of this applies to Americans. The neocons may have the missionary
zeal, but even this is likely to pall in the face of setbacks. There is
certainly no zeal to bear the financial burden: Mr Bush's latest budget was
drawn up without any money at all for Afghanistan, and the costs are rising in
Iraq (to nearly $4 billion a month, just for the soldiery), even as Mr Rumsfeld
says more troops may be needed. Unlike most empires of old, the United States is
an importer, these days, both of capital and of migrants.

America has changed since September 11th. The new mood allows for more
nationalism, more assertiveness, less patience with allies, a greater readiness
to go it alone. But there is no appetite to spend a lifetime in a sweaty country
in the service of a noble cause. The memories of Vietnam, where every effort to
withdraw or hand over to the locals seemed to lead to further entanglement, have
not departed. And though the rhetorical heat may now be turned on Iran and
Syria, Mr Rumsfeld and his fellow fire-eaters know full well that Americans are
not ready for another invasion. Even if, hallelujah, regime change in such
countries could be effected peacefully, would the United States really be
prepared to shoulder the white man's burden across the Middle East?

It is unlikely, to say the least; the imperial idea is a big exaggeration, like
previous fads. It was fashionable, after all, to declare history at a close not
so long ago. The new battlegrounds would be markets, said some pundits.
Commerce, ideas and information were the weapons of the modern world; military
might was for the pterodactyls. To be sure, America is now going through an
imperial phase, but this one has more in common with its earlier imperial phases
than with the imperial eras of Britain, Byzantium or Rome. If the assertive
nationalists and the democratic imperialists have come together over Iraq, that
does not mean the administration has signed up for the entire neocon agenda. And
as for the foreign-policy pundits, in time they will move on to a new idea.
That does not mean Mr Bush is wrong to think that democracy is the best hope for
the world, though it will surely have to take different forms in different
places. He is right. But he is also right in disavowing any imperial intentions.
America will have to promote its aims some other way, probably by leading
multilateral action. Empire is simply not the American way. If the United States
has to intervene in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and then stay on, it will
not enjoy the experience. Running the place, it will discover, is nasty and
brutish, so it had better also be short. Good or bad, that is not what most
people mean by an imperium.