Pax Invisibilus

Introduction
Anthony Pagden writes in the LA Times that there is no American Empire. This is a surprising claim, not often heard lately on the Left or Right. He says, "... unlike ancient Rome or 19th century Britain, the U.S. was and is a liberal democracy. It has been incapable through its entire (if brief) history of creating colonies, as all empires have necessarily done ..." and "The U.S. is not an empire. If a new American Empire became a reality, liberal democracy ⋅ and the U.S., for all its faults, is still the best representative of this ideal ⋅ would be truly at risk"

Introduction

Anthony Pagden writes in the LA Times that there is no American Empire. This is a surprising claim, not often heard lately on the Left or Right. He says,

"... unlike ancient Rome or 19th century Britain, the U.S. was and is a liberal democracy. It has been incapable through its entire (if brief) history of creating colonies, as all empires have necessarily done ..."

and

"The U.S. is not an empire. If a new American Empire became a reality, liberal democracy ⋅ and the U.S., for all its faults, is still the best representative of this ideal ⋅ would be truly at risk"

I am uncertain whether Prof Pagden is a resident of planet Earth, or merely lacks some other observational equipment common to the rest of us. I strongly disagree with his claim, that there is no Pax Americana.

I do agree that vast portions of the American electorate, especially in the "Red" States, believe that America has no Imperial ambitions and that it is not an Empire. People who routinely believe George W Bush's statements, such as the notorious WMD claim, probably believe Bush's other Wilsonian statements denying any American territorial claims. Even I can conceive American activities in that light, but I also know the difference between the possible and the factual. My view comes from a more skeptical reading of the President's words and official statements, and paying attention to the news everyday.

I also agree in Prof Pagden's conclusion, that democracy in America will surely suffer if the United States becomes an Empire, except I state it in the present tense. I guess that means he hasn't learned of, or isn't concerned about, the Patriot Act and a host of similar measures which infringe basic rights in the name of "public safety." He doesn't show any awareness of Bush's attempts to establish religion in the United States. He ignores the shaky condition of American elections, gross gerrymandering being perpetrated to prevent new or different voices from being heard, and the piles of money being offered to office seekers and holders. I agree that American democracy will surely suffer, because it is suffering. One of the reasons is the American Empire.

How could Pagden have avoided the cries of "Yankee Go Home!" and similar widely reported demands during the last 50 or more years? Are all those millions of people from every country (except the "Red" States) deluded? Surely, they must see and feel something!

Has he not heard about Bush's (really, Wolfie's) plan to establish American-style democracy in Iraq? What gives the United States the right to determine the government of Iraq? Why isn't this right also given to the Russians, Chinese, Japanese and Indians, not to mention the infamously anti-American French and Germans?

Why are U.S. troops stationed all over Europe and Japan? What about the American military bases in England, Turkey, and even remote islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans? Why does a non-empire need any of that? Why are non-Imperial taxpayers spending billions of dollars every year to maintain that? This is not a distinction and honor afforded to, let's say, Israel or Kenya. Not even bloody-minded people like the Australians can claim such a setup.

Prof Pagden's non-empire America leaves giant holes in the newspaper of history, as if some censor had removed all the articles too inconvenient or dangerous for people to read. The U.S. military used to do that to letters during WWII. Maybe Prof Pagden has been relying on such letters for his facts. I have no idea what one would call it, if the American presence in almost every nook and cranny of this world is not empire.

Perhaps his problem is that he wants to find common patterns in empire, patterns that go beyond the dominance of one State over others. Does America have colonies, as did the Romans and British? Not according to Pagden, who explains away Alaska and Hawaii, and doesn't even mention the numerous Pacific Islands under American occupation or supervision. Does America govern through native elites, as did the British in India? No, not at all, that is not what we are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq and Isreal, says Pagden. The fact that incredibly pro-American governments have been installed in Europe and Japan since World War II, and remain under American tutelage, is not important in Pagden's description of empire.

I think what the Professor misses is this: the American Empire doesn't operate in quite the same way as those past glories, Rome and Britain. Like Rome, the business of America is business. So, we have developed the multi-national (imperial) corporation to exercise the American will. Whatever place these corporations claim as their home matters little, for they all have their best paid representatives in Congress or on Washington's K St. Every country has sent its most flattering sychophants to Washington, to please the pashas in charge of everything. I am sure the Chinese Emperors are turning green in their graves from envy, not rot, at how the mandate of Heaven has moved to the other side of the Earth.

That the United States does not look exactly like Rome, or that its rule in Iraq is (so far) unlike the Raj, does not make it any less an Empire. The United States otherwise has all the marks of Imperial existence, starting with dominance over other peoples and essential control of their lives. The core of Imperialism is, after all, the enforcement of Caesar's will on as many people as possible. It is the earthly practice of 'might makes right' on a grand scale.

THE PROBLEMS OF SUPERPOWER

Bush Is No Emperor

Some say the American troops swarming Iraq are the vanguard of imperialism. They're wrong. So far.

By Anthony Pagden, Anthony Pagden is professor of political science and history at UCLA and the author of "Peoples and Empires" (Modern Library).

In the 1960s, as Europe's once-proud empires shed their remaining colonies, "empire" became a dirty word. The Soviet Union alone was one, and an evil one at that. Only enemies of the United States used the slanderous term against this country and its "imperialist" policies.
...
But is the U.S. really an empire?

Of course, the U.S. often acts like former imperial powers, and its leaders sometimes sound like them. "If we have to use force, it is because we are America," Madeleine Albright, then the secretary of State, declared in 1998. "We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."

No Roman consul could have put it better.

Like any great empire, the U.S. has client states and subservient allies. It also has a string of military bases around the globe, which some see as a global empire. But if military power alone were all that was needed to be an empire, neither Rome nor Britain, both of which relied on foreign-born troops to do their fighting, would have qualified.

Although it is stylish these days to speak of a Pax Americana, 21st century America bears not the slightest resemblance to ancient Rome, and very little to 19th century Britain. It has no significant overseas settler populations in any of its 14 formal dependencies, as all previous European empires had, and no obvious desire to acquire any. It does not conceive the control it exercises beyond its borders as constituting a form of citizenship, as nearly all European, and many Asian, empires did. It exercises no direct rule anywhere outside these areas. And it has always attempted to extricate itself as swiftly as possible from anything that looks as if it were about to develop into even indirect rule.

Nineteenth century British imperialist Cecil Rhodes once said that he would colonize the stars if he could. Today in the U.S., it is hard to imagine even Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz harboring such desires.
...
But unlike ancient Rome or 19th century Britain, the U.S. was and is a liberal democracy. It has been incapable through its entire (if brief) history of creating colonies, as all empires have necessarily done, even if these places were finally destined for self-determination as Western-style democracies.
...
Americans should reject any such notions. When either detractors or defenders of American foreign policy represent the U.S. as an expansionist empire imposing some latter-day version of the "white man's burden" on the world, they are not just being historically misleading. They are courting political danger.

As Alexis de Tocqueville warned prophetically of France's invasion of Algeria in 1830, no nation can acquire an empire without finding itself radically transformed. Rome was a republic when it acquired its empire. It ended its days as a tyranny.

The same fate is unlikely to overtake the United States. Still, it is unwise to encourage Bush administration policymakers, who should be playing the part of Brutus ⋅ the defender of republican liberty ⋅ to see themselves as Caesar.

The U.S. is not an empire. If a new American Empire became a reality, liberal democracy ⋅ and the U.S., for all its faults, is still the best representative of this ideal ⋅ would be truly at risk