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August 18, 2004
Peel: an interesting commentary on US and Iraq and Empire
I shall quote this in extenso as I think it useful and imporant.
Quentin Peel: No way to change the world
By Quentin Peel
Published: August 18 2004 20:52 | Last updated: August 18 2004 20:52
Ommiting the first sectoin about the troop redeployments.
The timing of the announcement certainly has a lot to do with Mr Bush's re-election campaign. But whichever way you read it, the decision also seems to have been affected by a growing awareness of US imperial overstretch: the world's most magnificent fighting machine can no longer handle all the global security tasks it has set itself.
Hmm, I am not sure this is fully supportable, but the argument goes on.
It is a pity that what is rather a sensible move should be tarnished by a whiff of panic, precipitated by the strains of the ill-judged campaign in Iraq. For that is what has put such a strain on US military resources.
Yes. A whiff of panic. Well, more like blundering, but let us not parse words too closely.
Here is the meat:
It is not the US force reductions that are misguided, but the muddled thinking in the wider context of this comprehensive review of American “global force posture”. Unchallenged as the sole superpower, technologically capable of demolishing any threat within days if not weeks, this US administration is nonetheless attempting to do too much on its own, and in the wrong way. It is attempting to run a global empire without admitting it, and without making the essential compromises needed to win enough allies to its cause. Indeed, instead of winning friends, all too often it alienates them with heavy-handed intervention, whether military or diplomatic.
Brilliantly put. Emphasis added of course.
Americans insist that their power is not imperial. Their whole history is one of resisting empires, especially the British one. ....
Some fear that if the situation in Iraq deteriorates further, we will face an American withdrawal and a new era of isolationism. That is not the greatest threat. The terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 demonstrated that US defences are not enough - even the most sophisticated missile defence system cannot stop suicide bombers. The US must engage internationally. The awful dilemma for the sole superpower, however, is when and how to intervene without making matters worse. For in the very act of intervention - whether militarily, as in Iraq, or politically, as in backing opponents of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela - the US tends to stoke opposition because of its overwhelming power. It may not wish to behave like an imperial power but it is condemned to be seen as one and can seldom resisting behaving like one.
Again, emphasis added.
Here we have something called the security paradox, in which at some point seeking ever more security actually diminishes security.
Law of dminishing, and in this case, even to the point of being negative, returns.
It was so much easier for empires in the past, before the days of instant communication. The Romans and the British did not have to worry too much about popular opinion. They ran their territories by co-opting local leaders and conscripting local armies. They did not try to do it all themselves. If a heavier hand were needed, the British could usually rely on their famous gunboat diplomacy to quell incipient insurrection from a safe distance offshore.
But this US administration is altogether more ideological. It believes in exporting democracy. Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at Washington's Cato Institute, calls it “democratic imperialism”. In his recent essay “The Unrealism of American Empire”, he points out that the proponents of a democratic empire too often ignore the still more powerful forces of nationalism.
That is what has gone wrong in Iraq: Iraqis want their country back more than they want to import some idealised form of liberal democracy. Which leaves the Americans trying to impose it through the barrel of a gun, so far without success, and the empire feeling sorely overstretched.
Bingo.
I hardly feel a need, other than in my emphasis added, to comment on this and the problematics.
Again, competence.
Posted by The Lounsbury at August 18, 2004 10:39 PM
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Aug-Dec 2004
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