Imperial America and War

On November 11, 2000, Richard Haass -- a member of the National Security Council and special assistant to the president under the elder Bush, soon to be appointed director of policy planning in the state department of newly elected President George W. Bush -- delivered a paper in Atlanta entitled "Imperial America." For the United States to succeed at its objective of global preeminence, he declared, it would be necessary for Americans to "re-conceive their role from a traditional nation-state to an imperial power." Haass eschewed the term "imperialist" in describing America's role, preferring "imperial," since the former connoted "exploitation, normally for commercial ends," and "territorial control." Nevertheless, the intent was perfectly clear:

To advocate an imperial foreign policy is to call for a foreign policy that attempts to organize the world along certain principles affecting relations between states and conditions within them. The U.S. role would resemble 19th century Great Britain ... Coercion and the use of force would normally be a last resort; what was written by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson about Britain a century and a half ago, that "The British policy followed the principle of extending control informally if possible and formally if necessary," could be applied to the American role at the start of the new century.

The existence of an American empire is no secret. It is widely, even universally, recognized in most parts of the world, though traditionally denied by the powers that be in the United States. What Haass was calling for, however, was a much more open acknowledgement of this imperial role by Washington, in full view of the American population and the world, in order to further Washington's imperial ambitions. "The fundamental question that continues to confront American foreign policy," he explained, "is what to do with a surplus of power and the many and considerable advantages this surplus confers on the United States." This surplus of power could only be put to use by recognizing that the United States had imperial interests on the scale of Britain in the nineteenth century. The world should therefore be given notice that Washington is prepared to "extend its control," informally if possible and formally if not, to secure what it considers to be its legitimate interests across the face of the globe. The final section of Haass' paper carried the heading "Imperialism Begins at Home." It concluded: "the greater risk facing the United States at this juncture...is that it will squander the opportunity to bring about a world supportive of its core interests by doing too little. Imperial understretch, not overstretch, appears the greater danger of the two."

There is every reason to believe that the "Imperial America" argument espoused by Haass represents in broad outline the now dominant view of the U.S. ruling class, together with the U.S. state that primarily serves that class. After many years of denying the existence of U.S. empire, received opinion in the United States has now adopted a position that glories in the "American imperium," with its "imperial military," and "imperial protectorates." This shift in external posture first occurred at the end of the 1990s, when it became apparent that not only was the United States the sole remaining superpower following the demise of the Soviet Union, but also that Europe and Japan, due to slowdowns in their rates of economic growth relative to that of the United States, were now less able to rival it economically. Nor did Europe seem to be able to act militarily without the United States even within its own region, in relation to the debacle of the Yugoslavian civil wars.

After Washington launched its global War on Terrorism, following September 11, 2001, the imperial dimensions of U.S. foreign policy were increasingly obvious. U.S. empire is therefore now portrayed by political pundits and the mainstream media as a necessary "burden" falling on the United States as a result of its unparalleled role on the world stage. The United States is said to be at the head of a new kind of empire, divorced from national interest, economic exploitation, racism, or colonialism, and that exists only to promote freedom and human rights. As Michael Ignatieff, Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, proclaimed in the New York Times Magazine (January 5, 2003), "America's empire is not like empires of times past, built on colonies, conquest and the white man's burden ... The 21st century imperium is a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known."