catapult magazine

We’ve touched upon it in other threads, but I think this one deserves its own. Is the United States an empire? If so, is it as grant once said, a reluctant one? What sort of empire is this—is there anything we can compare it to historically?

I just read an excellent article in the May issue of Harper’s called “The Economics of Empire: How the White House, the World Bank, and the IMF Impoverish the World on America’s Behalf” by William Finnegan. Take a look. Unfortunately, the Harper’s website is very rudimentary, so you’ll have to find this one in a library or bookstore.

Would it be fair to say that very few Americans want the USA to be an empire for empire’s sake? What Americans want is 1. prosperity, 2. security. Most Americans are content to ignore the rest of the world as long as neither prosperity or security are threatened. If economic competition from elsewhere threatens prosperity, the US government is “forced” to get involved in international affairs in order to protect US interests. September 11 demanded a particularly harsh international response because it was an attack on both the prosperity and the security Americans hold so dear.

So one could say America is a reluctant empire. But one could say that about most empires: the British empire of the 19th Century, for example, a half-hearted attempt at protecting economic interests. Most empire-building is based on greed and fear: the idea that “the best defense is offense”. The Napoleons and Alexanders are the exception, not the rule. Empires happen. And not necessarily because anyone wants them to.

I’m not sure about any of my ideas there, but I’m trying to reconcile America’s current and historic anathema to international interference with it’s current and historic penchant for international interference.

I’m not sure you can equate the colonialism of European nations or Rome’s imperial desires with the U.S.’ involvement in the Middle East. I think the U.S. felt perfectly fine ignoring the problems in the Middle East, or at least throwing money at it, before Saddam invaded Kuwait. I think the lessons learned from WWII and Bush Sr.‘s (and Margaret Thatcher’s) sense of morality were much more the cause of U.S. involvement than just a threat to our prosperity (oil) or security. I would suggest, though, that the conflict between the Middle East and the U.S. is a cultural clash that has been coming for hundreds of years and is much more rooted in religious differences than merely political ideologies or national value systems.