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The Cost of "Empire"
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21-10-2003 07:04PM#1be warned tis a long one lads
The Cost of Empire
President Bush’s war policy marks the beginning of the end of America’s era of global dominance.
The administration’s U-turn decision to ask for United Nations help in Iraq, and President George W. Bush’s request that Congress appropriate $87 billion to fund the occupation and reconstruction of that country send a very clear message: the administration’s Iraq policy is a fiasco. And a foreseeable one at that.U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that American troops occupying Iraq would not be welcomed as liberators but would be resisted. A pre-invasion State Department report warned that the administration had the proverbial snowball’s chance of transforming Iraq into a Western-style democracy (a conclusion reinforced by a recent Similarly, it was obvious that the administration’s go-it-alone hubris, combined with its sledgehammer diplomacy, would chill Washington’s relations with the other major powers and trigger a worldwide backlash of hostility toward the United States.Those—here and abroad—who opposed Washington’s reckless march to war can say we told you so. But that is not the point. More than that, it is necessary to step back from day-to-day events and place the Iraq war in the context of its longer-term significance for the United States. A good place to start is by asking why the administration embarked on war while ignoring widespread—and accurate—predictions that even a successful military campaign could lead to postwar disaster. In other words, what were the administration’s war aims?We know what they were not. Iraq was not an imminent threat to the security of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. (Did anyone say “weapons of mass destruction”?) And—the administration’s manipulation of public opinion notwithstanding—Saddam Hussein was not involved in Sept. 11 and was not in bed with al-Qaeda. But, as both U.S. and British intelligence warned, by going to war with Iraq, the administration has created a terrorist threat where none existed previously, making the U.S. less, not more, secure than it would have been had we not invaded Iraq.The real reason the administration went to war had nothing to do with terrorism. . The administration went to war in Iraq to consolidate America’s global hegemony and to extend U.S. dominance to the Middle East by establishing a permanent military stronghold in Iraq for the purposes of controlling the Middle Eastern oil spigot (thereby giving Washington enormous leverage in its relations with Western Europe and China); allowing Washington to distance itself from an increasingly unreliable and unstable Saudi Arabia; and using the shadow of U.S. military power to bring about additional regime changes in Iran and Syria.It is fashionable to say that 9/11—and the subsequent war with Iraq— “changed everything.” But this is not true. Before Sept. 11 the biggest debate among students of international politics and analysts of U.S. foreign policy was about American hegemony. Re-christened as a debate about the wisdom of American empire, it still is. The big fault line in this debate is over which of two theories—yes, academic theories about international relations really do reflect and influence real-world policy—about how states can best attain security for themselves in the competitive arena of world politics is correct.“Offensive realism” holds that the best way for a state to gain security is to amass overwhelming power—that is, by becoming a hegemon. Since World War II, offensive realism has undergirded American grand strategy, although the current administration’s policy is offensive realism on steroids. If the Duchess of Windsor had been an administration strategist she would have said that the U.S. can never be too rich, too powerful—or too well-armed or too willing to employ force against its adversaries. After all, if power counts in international politics—and every realist knows it counts big time—then it seemingly makes sense for the U.S. to grab as much power as possible. Traditional realists like Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Walter Lippman reject the logic of offensive realism because they believe that when one state becomes too powerful all the others fear for their security. They respond by building up their own military capabilities or by forming alliances with others to act as a counterweight against a hegemon’s power (or both). This is what students of international politics refer to as “balancing.” And, indeed, the historical record pretty conclusively shows that hegemony is a self-defeating grand strategy, not a winning one. Every hegemonic aspirant in modern international history—the Hapsburg Empire under Charles V, Spain under Philip II, France under Louis XIV and Napoleon, and Germany under Hitler—has been defeated by counter-hegemonic balancing.American policymakers have come up with a number of (far too) clever rationales to convince themselves that the U.S. will escape the fate that invariably befalls hegemons. For example, they claim that the United States is a different kind of hegemon—a “benign” or “benevolent” one that is non-threatening because it acts altruistically in international politics and because others are attracted to America’s “soft power” (its political institutions and values, and its culture). There is no reason, they say, for others to balance against the United States. Other proponents of American hegemony take a different tack: they claim that the United States can throw its hegemonic weight around as it pleases because its power—economic, military, and technological—is so overwhelming that it will be a very long time before other states can even think about balancing against the U.S.These are not compelling arguments. In international politics, benevolent hegemons are like unicorns—there are no such animals. Hegemons love themselves, but others mistrust and fear them. As for the argument that the U.S. is too mighty to be counter-balanced, history reminds us that things change fast in international politics. The British found out toward the end of the 19th century that a seemingly unassailable international power position can melt away with unexpected rapidity.Perhaps the proponents of America’s imperial ambitions are right and the U.S. will not suffer the same fate as previous hegemonic powers. Don’t bet on it. The very fact of America’s overwhelming power is bound to produce a geopolitical backlash—which is why it’s only a short step from the celebration of imperial glory to the recessional of imperial power. Indeed, on its present course, the United States seems fated to succumb to the “hegemon’s temptation.” Hegemons have lots of power and because there is no countervailing force to stop them, they are tempted to use it repeatedly, and thereby overreach themselves.
For example in a war with China over Taiwan.At the end of the day, hegemonic decline results from a combination of external and internal factors: over-extension abroad (imperial overstretch) and domestic economic weakness (endless budget and balance-of- payments deficits). It comes as no surprise that the imperial overstretch debate of the late 1980s—about the costs of empire and America’s ability to afford them—which was aborted by the Soviet Union’s sudden collapse, has re-emerged with a vengeance. And there is ample reason to worry about whether the U.S. can sustain the burdens of hegemony. . Over time, America’s fiscal troubles will erode its economic power—which is the foundation of its military might—and, as the relative power gap between the U.S. and potential new great powers begins to shrink, the costs and risks of challenging the United States will decrease and the pay-off for doing so will increase.American policymakers should want to avoid the fate of hegemons. In the late 1890s, Great Britain—widely regarded as at the zenith of its hegemonic power—had its own counterpart to American unilateralism: splendid isolation. But as speculation grew that the other European great powers would form a coalition to balance against Britain, London realized its isolation was far from splendid. As the British military analyst Spencer Wilkenson said the time, “We have no friends, and no nation loves us.”The administration, however, is not worried because it believes that American hegemony is an unchallengeable fact of international life. But this does not hold up because the rest of the world draws the opposite conclusion: that the United States is too powerful, and its hegemony must be resisted. The administration has dug the U.S. into a deep hole in Iraq and, more worryingly, in terms of its relations with the rest of the world. So, what is to be done?Realists have tried to do something. Nearly every major realist scholar of international politics in the U.S. opposed going to war with Iraq. No surprise here. Realists also know that it is foolish to antagonize other states needlessly or to destroy institutional frameworks of co-operation through which the U.S. can work with others to advance its own interests.Perhaps as the 2004 presidential campaign unfolds, someone like a Howard Dean or a Wesley Clark will recognize the virtue of reaching across party lines to staff a foreign-policy team dedicated to reconstructing American foreign policy on a sounder, non-imperial basis.One thing is certain: unless the call for the United States to exercise self-imposed grand-strategic restraint is heeded, the rest of the world will act to impose that constraint on Washington. If that happens, the Bush administration will not be remembered for conquering Baghdad but rather for a policy that shattered the pillars of the international security framework that the United States established after World War II, galvanized both hard and soft balancing against U.S. hegemony, and marked the beginning of the end of America’s era of global preponderance.0
Comments
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I'm not an expert in economic analysis, but I'll try. As you have correctly pointed out, America is heavily in debt - currently in the region of $6.8 trillion (source). However, that vast amount of capital has allowed large scale enterprise and manufacturing industries to thrive. Per capita GDP amounts to $37,600, with a population of 290,342,554 (source). That equates to $10,916,880,030,400, or about $10.8 trillion, a difference of $4 trillion per year. As of yet I don't know any other country that can match that sort of capital. Many economists would also argue that having a budget deficit can be very beneficial if an economy demonstrates signs of depression, as that extra income can lead to more buoyant expenditure, hence boosting industrial and service sectors.One thing I would like explained to me(honestly) is how America is the dominant economic power in the world when it is the most indebted country?
In any case, I think that magick just did a nice cut and paste job (no offence if you wrote all that yourself
). I don't think the article stated anywhere that saving the US hegemony was an honorable goal, in fact I believe the whole thrust of the article was to demonstrate that hegemonies are frequently short lived, and often lead to bitterness and anger towards the dominant nations, especially since they often tend to overreach themselves.
The US may have made a proverbial dogs dinner of the Iraq situation (surprise, surprise), but it takes a little leap of the imagination to assume that it will seek to extend it's doctrine and hegemony upon the rest of the world, especially upon certain European powers.0 -
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It kinda shoots your credit rating though.Originally posted by Geromino
The President does not have authority, through executive orders, to declare the debt worthless and move on. Only congress can make such legislation, with 2/3 majority of both houses, and only then it needs to be signed by the President. 0 -
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It fell in the last 2-3 years of Clinton but is now rising steadily, mostly due to the downturn in tax receipts and increased "defense" expenditure.Originally posted by Vader
That doesnt answer my question, does the ammount owed grow every year? And why dont you make one medium sized reply rather than 3 small ones in a row
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