Imperial Denial and America's Identity Crisis
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There is no question that America has all the trappings of an empire; American culture is voraciously consumed all over the planet in the form of movies, music, fast food, clothing, etc. American military Areas of Responsibility (AOR ) span the globe under six Unified Combatant Commands (UCCs). The Army’s Field Manual (FM) 3-07, titled Stability Operations Doctrine identifies five components of stability and reconstruction (read: nation-building). FM 3-07 defines the following as the range of activities in stability operations:
Reconstruction is the process of rebuilding degraded, damaged, or destroyed political, socioeconomic, and physical infrastructure to create the foundation for long-term development.
Stabilization is the process by which underlying tensions that might lead to resurgence in violence and a breakdown in law and order are managed and reduced, while efforts are made to support preconditions for successful long-term development.
President Obama, in an interview with the Washington Post stated:
We benefit from the expansion of democracy: democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies, and the nations with which we share our deepest values.
…I will significantly increase funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other nongovernmental organizations to support civic activists in repressive societies.
According to the National Endowment for Democracy’s ‘about’ page, NED “is a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. ”
With such an established apparatus for nation-building and a doctrine of expanding democracy that spans multiple presidencies, is America a de facto empire?
To answer that question, we have to look pretty far back into American history. American imperialism started with the Louisiana Purchase but didn’t really get off the ground until the Spanish-American war.
With the conclusion of the war and the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the U.S. gained four new territories; Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The same year, Hawaii was annexed as a U.S territory.
Also in 1898, Albert Beverage gave a speech titled The March Of The Flag in which he made his case for American empire in the name of capitalism, in which he said the following (the speech is worth reading in its entirety):
Therefore, in this campaign, the question is larger than a party question. It is an American question. It is a world question. Shall the American people continue their march toward the commercial supremacy of the world? Shall free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the children of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our principles is established over the hearts of all mankind?
Have we no mission to perform no duty to discharge to our fellow man? Has God endowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our own selfishness, as men and nations must, who take cowardice for their companion and self for their deity-as China has, as India has, as Egypt has?
…Hawaii is ours; Porto Rico is to be ours; at the prayer of her people Cuba finally will be ours; in the islands of the East, even to the gates of Asia, coaling stations are to be ours at the very least; the flag of a liberal government is to float over the Philippines, and may it be the banner that Taylor unfurled in Texas and Fremont carried to the coast.
It would seem that the late 1890′s saw a ground swell of acceptance of American ‘soft’ empire. That acceptance continued to develop into the Twentieth Century, as the empire continued to develop along economic lines–countries being pulled in for their natural or economic resources and how those resources could benefit the U.S. financially.
From the beginning of World War I, as early as 1914, Wall Street was loaning Britain and France money and giving credits to purchase war material from U.S. companies. Once America officially joined armed combat in 1917, the federal government guaranteed all loans to Britain and France. The American military-industrial complex was off to a good start.
President Wilson’s Fourteen Points speech made to a joint session of Congress in 1918, was meant to justify America’s involvement in World War I. Point number three stipulates;
The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
It was later implied by the Nye Committee’s investigation that the huge profits made by U.S. arms manufacturers helped influence Americas involvement in the war.
Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine urged Americans to
seek and to bring forth a vision of America as a world power, which is authentically American…America as the dynamic center of ever-widening spheres of enterprise, America as the training center of the skilled servants of mankind, America as the Good Samaritan, really believing again that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and America as the powerhouse of the ideals of Freedom and Justice–out of these elements surely can be fashioned a vision of the Twentieth Centruy…the first great American Century.
We’re seeing American empire shaping into an empire of capitalism and democracy, which feed and support each other in an endless loop. Remember President Obama’s quote from above; “We benefit from the expansion of democracy: democracies are our best trading partners, our most valuable allies, and the nations with which we share our deepest values.”
By 1943, two years before the end of World War II, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had drawn up a wish list of bases to be established in at least 17 countries. Roosevelt himself requested the Marquesas and the Tuamotu Archipelago. The secretary of the navy, Frank Knox informed Congress that as we captured islands from Japan they would become ours.1
The postwar occupations of both Japan and Germany produced extraordinary economic recovery in both countries, which the U.S. leveraged as two large markets for American goods and locations for several American military bases, further expanding the military-industrial complex made infamous by President Eisenhower’s farewell address:
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual –is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
American empire looks like no other empire we’ve seen. There are no colonies. Instead there are sovereign countries housing U.S. military bases on their soil. There are no colonial taxes. Instead there are contracts with American companies and huge markets in which to sell American goods. America’s empire is capitalism and her subjugates are consumers.
In later posts I’ll discuss the value of an American empire over that of less liberal alternatives, such as an empire of Russia or China.
1Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, The Penguin Press, P. 68