Empires
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One of Sullivan’s readers whines about the use of the word empire:
This is not the British in Malaysia.
Quite true. Unlike the British, our government seems to have no intention of leaving Iraq under any circumstances.
One wonders if these people understand how British rule, or Roman rule for that matter, was extended to many of the places that later became “the empire.” In many cases, the Romans and the British alike initially made a number of treaties with local rulers, who agreed to submit to occupation and taxation in exchange for being secured in their traditional (or usurped) rights, and over time these local rulers became merely figureheads to maintain a useful fiction that helped maintain the imperial system or they were liquidated/removed and replaced with direct imperial administration. Our useful fiction is that the Iraqi government is a sovereign democratic one, we are currently demanding the right to occupy their country militarily, but we seem to have done without demanding the ability to tax Iraqis for our own revenues. As far as I can tell, that is the only significant structural difference between a long-term military occupation of Iraq and old-style colonialism. British rule in India did not begin with anything so obvious as a direct invasion, the elimination or expulsion of the old ruling class and the creation of an entirely new political order from stratch. First, they merely did business with the existing rulers, then co-opted them and then the relationship became more coercive and hegemonic. All the while the formal domestic institutions of a representative constitutional monarchy not only remained in place at home, but were gradually liberalising at the same time that the empire was expanding. Not only is there no contradiction in having an officially democratic regime engage in imperialism, but it has happened several times in the history of modern democracies. The “liberal imperialism” of Gladstone and the ”Tory democracy” of the late 19th century helped fuel expansionist policies in Africa. Roman rule throughout the Near East was the result of a series of treaties made with local kings (and, of course, backed up with military might). Rome was just a republic making treaties with the legitimate rulers of various states, so why worry about empire?
There is nothing “excessive” about the word empire to describe the political and military domination of other countries. Hegemony may be slightly more precise, but the practical difference between hegemony and empire is not very great when hegemony entails the establishment of dozens of military bases on foreign soil. Perhaps people who believe that Washington and Baghdad are merely negotiating a bilateral “status of forces” agreement as between two equal, sovereign states also think that the Batavian Republic was a free and independent state that just had a very friendly relationship with France. Oh, but that couldn’t have been imperialism–France was democratic at the time! France and the Batavian Republic also made a treaty, one that was quite disadvantageous to the Dutch but a treaty all the same, so that must have made the ensuing occupation all right.
If there is one good thing that might come out of the disaster of the war in Iraq, it is that the absurd, excessive and naive faith that democracies are never aggressive and imperialistic may be shaken at least a little.
Filed under: foreign policy, hegemonism, history, politics
You suggest that one good thing that might come out of Iraq is that “…the excessive and naive faith that democracies are never aggressive and imperialistic may be shaken at least a little.”
The question I would ask is, whose faith is shaken and why? If it’s the American electorate, then I am unsure what evidence there is that the average voter even knows what Empire and Imperialism are, let alone that the US is engaged in both enterprises.
The activists are littler better. The conservative and liberal movements have become pro-Empire. The former bases their imperialism on nationalism, the later on universal human rights.
In neither case, do the movements see anything morally problematic with invading countries and killing people (which I find particularly rich coming from people such as Samantha Powers). And in neither case has the Iraq war inspired the basic introspection needed to conclude that Empire is evil and counter-productive to the stated goals of each movement. Otherwise, the conservatives would realize that Empire building makes us less safe, and liberals would realize that enforcing democracy and individual rights at the point of a gun causes more misery and death than if nothing was to done to begin with.
And what of the elites? For all the mindless chatter about the loss of a bipartisan consensus, the bipartisanship surrounding the expansion and projection of military force around the world has been completely untouched. Barack Obama, supposedly the leader of the anti-war, anti-imperialist party wants to expand our military.
If anyone with any sort of power, had their faith shaken in Empire, then they would ask:
Question: Why does Barack Obama propose an expansion of the military?
Answer: Because he wants to use it.
This state of affairs makes a cosmopolitan liberal, such as myself, wonder if he should have supported Ron Paul’s candidacy.
Okay, you’ve persuaded me–nothing good will come from the war.
Okay, that was brilliant. This is my favorite thing you’ve ever written.
Our useful fiction is that the Iraqi government is a sovereign democratic one, we are currently demanding the right to occupy their country militarily, but we seem to have done without demanding the ability to tax Iraqis for our own revenues. As far as I can tell, that is the only significant structural difference between a long-term military occupation of Iraq and old-style colonialism.
Everything depends on this being correct and yet you spend no time establishing it…
I say it’s because you can’t and thus empire is the wrong word.
I do however, agree that hegemony is what the US is really after in the Mid East and the world….
I didn’t think I needed to “establish” that the Iraqi government is neither really sovereign nor democratic. It isn’t democratic as we use the word when describing Western countries. It is in a sectarian and majoritarian sense, which is to say the worst sense. Clearly, it isn’t sovereign. We *are* demanding the right to occupy their country militarily. That’s what the bases are for. To say that we are going to be occupying it “with the consent of their government” or words to that effect rather drives home the point that that government is not really sovereign in its own territory and that we are looking at a long-term occupation. This looks very much like indirect empire. It’s not at all clear why empire is the wrong word. It has much more negative connotations, but it is describing essentially the same features that the word hegemony does.
No no. Sorry. I meant you should have spent more time establishing that that our lack of taxing the Iraqis for our own revenue is illusory… That seems to be the point on which your analysis turns and what would take a quest for hegemony into a quest for empire…
My mistake. Clearly, I misread your comment. Thanks for the clarification.
I doubt if on reflection a comparison with the Batavian will seem especially apt. The Iraqis are receiving our indemity and its government while presumably open to our persausion does not appear to be acting under our control or even, sometimes, in concert with us. Finally our interests are served merely if Iraq acts to serve the interests of its people and joins the ranks of functional, sovereign nations — allied, aligned, or non-aligned with us. Perhaps they’ll even say, “out, now.” I guess then we’d see whether I’m naive or others have been overly cynical.
Since I am the whiner to which Mr. Larison refers, let me respond. I am not sure who is or was making the argument that “democracies are never aggressive and imperialistic.” After all, the United States was still a democracy when it was imperialistic in the most classic definition of the word following the Spanish-American War. Nonetheless, I submit that empire is an antiquated word that describes the functioning of nations that no longer exists in a world that no longer exists.
Few would disagree that because of its economic, cultural, and military power, the United States plays a major role in world affairs, though I would argue that the first two are at least as important, if not more important, than the third. Influence is not imperialism. And despite the fact that we maintain a huge military presence all over the world, we still have to engage in nuts-and-bolts diplomacy to bring other nations in line with what we believe in in our national interest. We maintain one of the largest military presences in Germany, and yet this did very little in securing the blessing of Chancellor Schroder for our adventure in Iraq. Turkey refused to allow use of its territory for an attack on Iraq. The United States vacated the Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan in November of 2005 following a demand by the Uzbek government.
The U.S. and Iraq have been engaged in very heated debate regarding the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement, with the U.S. conceding many of Iraq’s demands, including removing immunity for private contractors, not using Iraqi soil as a base of operation to launch attacks against other nations, requiring the authority of Iraqi leadership for military operations, and handing over detainees to the Iraqi judicial system. Iraq is doing exactly what we want democratic nations to do–attempting to find a balance between a military partnership that it believes is in its interests while also retaining its sovereignty.
It seems to me that one of the big lessons we are supposed to have learned in this post-Iraq world is that thanks to globalization and economic interdependence, the world is a multipolar place that requires cooperation in some sort of international order. Of course, arguing that American in Iraq is not an empire is not to argue that America should be looking to station large forces in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, in attempting to understand the role of America in the world in the 21st century, amid a new world war, comparisons to 19th century Britain somehow seem inadequate.