Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
Germany
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff is the Washington bureau chief of the German newsweekly,
Die Zeit.
The Abuse of "Empire"
In the recent past, nothing has fascinated theorists more than the idea of America as an
empire. If Google is the arbiter of modern intellectual races, 33,400,000 hits place
"American empire" among the lead contestants. The theory of empire comes with a few
standard arguments. First among them is power. There has never been anything quite like
America's dominance of the world, the argument contends. While there have been other
dominant powers, none has towered over other rivals quite the way the United States
does. Just look at defense spending and compare it with the rest of the world. But
American dominance is not just military, the theorists of empire claim. In their thinking,
economic power and cultural attraction are also elements of empire.
The theorists love to compare America with great powers in history, usually to Britain in
the 19th century. Ancient Rome is also popular. Now Vanity Fair editor Cullen Murphy
has devoted a book to the question: "Are we Rome?" He sees parallels: the multicultural
state, burdened with an expensive and overstretched military, a messianic sense of global
mission, the exaggerated sense of self-importance and the tendency to belittle other
countries. Murphy recognizes that there are differences. America is not the static slave
state that Rome was at times. And some of the parallels are more metaphorical, others are
nothing but superficial. Sure, Washington’s Union Station takes architectural cues from
ancient Rome, but then again, the whole neoclassical era of building does. The
comparison is nothing but an historical allusion.
If the theorists believe their own theory, America is the shortest empire in world history.
While Rome enjoyed 12 centuries of rise and fall before the barbarians began
overwhelming the gates in the fifth century, America had to compress its imperial
experience into 12 years, from the end of the Soviet Union to the urban war of Baghdad.
That is unless you date the beginning of the American empire back to the Spanish
American War of 1898, or Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territory or even the
displacement of Native Americans prior to the American Revolution.
Some of the theorists know that there is something wrong with the idea of empire, so they
modify the term while clinging to the idea. There is the "benevolent empire" because
America just doesn't annex territories. There is the "empire lite" because America lacks
the appetite to permanently occupy. And then there is the "empire in denial" that British
scholar Niall Ferguson prefers. According to Ferguson, everybody knows America is an
empire -- except for the Americans themselves.
Never mind that America does not even fit the classical Oxford English Dictionary
definition of an empire. America is not ruled by an emperor. It doesn't rule and doesn't
expect others to obey. If others do not obey there is no punishment. America is neither
despotic nor arbitrary. "An empire remains powerful so long as its subjects rejoice in it,"
writes Roman historian Livy. Do Americans rejoice in empire? Have they ever? Is a
modern Republic with a democratic system even capable of becoming an empire? How
do you control the Middle East if your military can't control one country and your people
want nothing but to get out?
As Princeton's international relations scholar Fred Ikenberry writes: "The United States
has pursued imperial policies, especially toward weak countries in the periphery. But
U.S. relations with Europe, Japan, China, and Russia cannot be described as imperial...
the use or threat of force is unthinkable. Their economies are deeply interwoven. They
form a political order built on bargains, diffuse reciprocity, and an array of
intergovernmental institutions and ad hoc working relationships. This is not empire; it is a
U.S.-led democratic political order."
Empire is the most overused and abused term of the Google-age.
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Posted by Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff on July 8, 2007 3:39 PM