The Arrogance — and Sorrows — of Empire
Book Review by William H. Slavick
Empire has been in our blood from our beginnings, and it may well be too
late to recognize the sorrowful consequences of our imperial global economic
and military dominance. It is only in George W. Bush's naked claim to
suzerainty of the universe that many have taken notice that our presumption
to be the instrument of liberty for everybody is far more self-serving than
generous — and will cost us dearly.
The evidence was there all along — our heavy hand in Central and South
America, the Caribbean, southeast Asia, and the Middle East and a foreign
policy increasingly in the service of imperial power and global economic
exploitation of the Third World. It has taken W's arrogant and selfish
messianism for some to see that this is empire. The books are tumbling
forth, raising a clamor, focusing on the radical abandonment of
multilateralism and containment for unilateralism; on the zealots in
control; on Bush's overweening righteousness; on the emergence of
capitalist-militarist fascism, on the lies and distortions of government and
media that mark our reach for global; hegemony, and on our grab for control
of oil as the supply peaks.
The key book among the many is Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire:
Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (Metropolitan Books, $25).
In Blowback, Johnson traced the "unanticipated consequences of (our)
unacknowledged acts in other peoples' countries." This book offers a much
larger canvas, examining how a self-conscious, openly-proclaimed new Rome,
spurning international law, concern for allies, and military constraints
(including accountability for war crimes), is bent on global domination, all
the while ignorant of why we are roundly hated.
Johnson argues that the rise and fall of empire is all but unstoppable:
". . . The growth of militarism, official secrecy, and a belief that the
United States is no longer bound, as the Declaration of Independence so
famously puts it, by Œa decent respect for the opinions of mankind' is
probably irreversible. A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon
back under democratic control, or to abolish the Central Intelligence
Agency, or even to contemplate enforcing Article 1, section 9, clause 7 of
the Constitution" which requires appropriations to expend funds.
Johnson fleshes out the accoutrements of empire. Bounded by oceans and
friendly neighbors, we have 725 bases in 153 countries — 325 in Germany, 60
years after the war ended. Where we go, we stay. These bases do not bring
the revenues of the old colonial exploitation. Instead, our contempt for
international law subverts trade and its profits; trade depends on norms of
reciprocity. Our arms expenditures are obscene. We have 18,000 nukes. Empire
will inevitably bankrupt us.
No matter. The military-industrial complex is piloting the Titanic. Their
think tank patriots have set our course — opening all nations to US
exploitation, American-style capitalism, and our macho, sexually orthodox,
health-for-the-wealthy-few, low pay, stressed and violent family life, and
politically conservative culture. The Pentagon is now the de facto State
Department. Military preparation is our highest priority: we spend 16 times
as much preparing for as preventing war.
We run schools to train agents of destabilization. We violate treaties, deny
prisoners' human rights. Space must be ours — to protect high-tech military
apparatus. Our wars show off weaponry, are outside the law, and
indiscriminately kill by remote control. They spawn terrorist resistance.
Our only allies are those useful to our grab for oil. Our support of Saddam
Hussein, wars on him, and consequent ring of permanent Persian Gulf and
Central Asian bases is emblematic of our imperialism. Convenient to this
grab has been Likud's heavy influence in Washington — the Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, John Bolton, and Michael Ledeen
Pentagon policy set bent upon eliminating any military threat to Israel in
its expansion pursuits.
The neoliberal globalization of the 80's served to cripple third world
countries so they would never be able to challenge the imperial powers. The
"market as God" has benefited only transnational corporations, leaving 130
economies nonviable and some in ungovernable chaos. The protectionism that
produced American, Japanese, and South Korean success have been denied them.
Now the World Bank and IMF squeeze debt payments from poor debtors (that
should be borne by irresponsible lenders) — by reducing social spending,
selling state enterprises, and opening their economies to dependence on
imports. Our economic imperialism extends to patents of native medicines and
bio-piracy of native seeds and their replacement with agribusiness products
requiring commercial fertilizers. Resistance, as at Seattle, is met by cries
of "anti-democratic hooliganism" (Tony Blair) and insinuations of
connections with terrorists. Strict conformity with IMF dictates created
Argentina's economic meltdown.
Signs of empire's collapse are evident in the mounting US trade deficit and
Washington's refusal to recognize any connection between our military
unilateralism and the health of world commerce.
Bill Slavick is coordinator of Pax Christi Maine and a founder of Maine
Peace and Justice in Israel/Palestine and Maine Haiti Solidarity.
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Talk Index, Spring 2005