I was joking with a friend of mine recently about the implications of a subset of the provocative rantings of HWSNBN: those related to his plans for the US to acquire (in no particular order) Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, and Gaza. I suggested that we lay in a stock of 54-star flags to prepare for the “Make (Greater) America Great Again” era now dawning.
Leaving aside the blustering aspects of these pronouncements as a combination of tactical posturing and generic disruption, some are asking whether this is the start of a new era of US imperialism. Having spent some time working on the ways and means of modern empires across the world, I thought it would be good to talk about why it’s a bad idea.
Let’s quickly get the moral issue out of the way. The idea of asserting control over another country for one’s own self-gratification or greed is pretty generally denounced (I was tempted to say “universally” denounced, but such sweeping statements no longer are applicable in our current cultural milieu). Empires in the modern world (predominantly European, but also including the US, Japan, China, Israel(?)) have been universally accompanied by oppression, brutality, and exploitation. There have been, to be sure, most cases, some countervailing benefits, often considerable; but I will not go down the path of trying to tote up a balance sheet on any of them. Most of the benefits have been based on all manner of self-serving rationalizations (such as the French “civilizing mission” theory). Even if we were to conclude that imperial control provided a net benefit to the colonized, we have to acknowledge that there was a lot of ‘bad’ done along the way.
When talking about empire, it’s important to distinguish between “formal” empires (where the (e.g.) British flag flew over Ireland, India, Nyasaland, and New Zealand) and “informal” empires where the country is nominally independent, but is under the influence/domination of the imperial power like the Soviet Empire in Central Europe or the US vis-à-vis South Vietnam, and much of South America from the mid-19C to mid-20C. In the present case, it seems like we’re talking about the formal kind of empire.
Formal empires don’t work in the modern world. They’re expensive to operate and defend and raise all sorts of problems and distractions. That’s part of the reason the British/French/Dutch (and, eventually, the Portuguese) got rid of theirs in the mid 20C. We’ve never quite figured out how to handle Puerto Rico (acquired from the Spanish in 1898). A fascinating study of the costs and benefits of the British Empire to Great Britain showed that it was a net wash to the homeland. (Of course, the benefits went to the commercial elites and the costs were borne by the ordinary taxpayers.)
Another reason they don’t work is that conquest is expensive and continued control is even more expensive. Especially in the fully-connected/globalized world, locals have examples and idealized versions of having a free society and don’t like being blatantly dominated/exploited, much less being forcibly incorporated into another national system. They work less and cause more trouble for the occupying power. Up to WWI, there was a theory that expanding one’s territory and population provided a rationale for conquest and control of other places. It might have worked in a pre-industrial, less educated/interconnected era. The Japanese in China (starting in the 1930s) might have been able to pull it off as might have the Germans in 1940s Central Europe; but in more modern Western Europe they didn’t get the chance since they were only there for a few years before their system crashed and there was already robust resistance.
In the last 75 years, there have been few examples of attempted international conquest, whether forcible/military or otherwise (and it’s hard to think of successful ones). Almost every military conflict during that period has been domestic/civil in nature and most international inventions have been defensive/peace-keeping in nature. Putin’s Ukraine venture might be an exception, but given the strong Russian ethnic presence in the occupied territories, the task of integrating them into Russia might be feasible. It’s not clear how the potential for China taking over Taiwan would actually work in this light. Even if the military invasion was successful, the ensuring destruction and global economic isolation would make the prospects of integration problematic (even in this intra-ethnic context). Formal peaceful transfers of territory and sovereignty are similarly scarce on the ground (leaving aside a handful of negotiated border adjustments).
In a world of nation-states, the thought of forceful integration doesn’t really fit. In a world which hungers for geopolitical stability, only outliers contemplate territorial expansion, even in much of the world (e.g. most of Latin America, Africa, and various parts of southern Asia) where territorial boundaries set up in the last round of European Imperialism were arbitrary and problematic.
Empire is almost exclusively ‘informal’ these days. The US may browbeat Canada and Mexico over tariffs, but most informal empire is much more soft-spoken and most is via the private sector’s control of jobs, investment, and culture. Our global network of military bases is pretty powerful, but not actually used much to control the hosts.
So, let’s keep the stars-and-stripes at its current count (unless we want to add Puerto Rico and DC). We are better off having the US purview “from sea to shining sea” run from the Atlantic to the Pacific and not from the Arctic across the “Gulf of America” and then on to the Mediterranean.
Leaving aside the blustering aspects of these pronouncements as a combination of tactical posturing and generic disruption, some are asking whether this is the start of a new era of US imperialism. Having spent some time working on the ways and means of modern empires across the world, I thought it would be good to talk about why it’s a bad idea.
Let’s quickly get the moral issue out of the way. The idea of asserting control over another country for one’s own self-gratification or greed is pretty generally denounced (I was tempted to say “universally” denounced, but such sweeping statements no longer are applicable in our current cultural milieu). Empires in the modern world (predominantly European, but also including the US, Japan, China, Israel(?)) have been universally accompanied by oppression, brutality, and exploitation. There have been, to be sure, most cases, some countervailing benefits, often considerable; but I will not go down the path of trying to tote up a balance sheet on any of them. Most of the benefits have been based on all manner of self-serving rationalizations (such as the French “civilizing mission” theory). Even if we were to conclude that imperial control provided a net benefit to the colonized, we have to acknowledge that there was a lot of ‘bad’ done along the way.
When talking about empire, it’s important to distinguish between “formal” empires (where the (e.g.) British flag flew over Ireland, India, Nyasaland, and New Zealand) and “informal” empires where the country is nominally independent, but is under the influence/domination of the imperial power like the Soviet Empire in Central Europe or the US vis-à-vis South Vietnam, and much of South America from the mid-19C to mid-20C. In the present case, it seems like we’re talking about the formal kind of empire.
Formal empires don’t work in the modern world. They’re expensive to operate and defend and raise all sorts of problems and distractions. That’s part of the reason the British/French/Dutch (and, eventually, the Portuguese) got rid of theirs in the mid 20C. We’ve never quite figured out how to handle Puerto Rico (acquired from the Spanish in 1898). A fascinating study of the costs and benefits of the British Empire to Great Britain showed that it was a net wash to the homeland. (Of course, the benefits went to the commercial elites and the costs were borne by the ordinary taxpayers.)
Another reason they don’t work is that conquest is expensive and continued control is even more expensive. Especially in the fully-connected/globalized world, locals have examples and idealized versions of having a free society and don’t like being blatantly dominated/exploited, much less being forcibly incorporated into another national system. They work less and cause more trouble for the occupying power. Up to WWI, there was a theory that expanding one’s territory and population provided a rationale for conquest and control of other places. It might have worked in a pre-industrial, less educated/interconnected era. The Japanese in China (starting in the 1930s) might have been able to pull it off as might have the Germans in 1940s Central Europe; but in more modern Western Europe they didn’t get the chance since they were only there for a few years before their system crashed and there was already robust resistance.
In the last 75 years, there have been few examples of attempted international conquest, whether forcible/military or otherwise (and it’s hard to think of successful ones). Almost every military conflict during that period has been domestic/civil in nature and most international inventions have been defensive/peace-keeping in nature. Putin’s Ukraine venture might be an exception, but given the strong Russian ethnic presence in the occupied territories, the task of integrating them into Russia might be feasible. It’s not clear how the potential for China taking over Taiwan would actually work in this light. Even if the military invasion was successful, the ensuring destruction and global economic isolation would make the prospects of integration problematic (even in this intra-ethnic context). Formal peaceful transfers of territory and sovereignty are similarly scarce on the ground (leaving aside a handful of negotiated border adjustments).
In a world of nation-states, the thought of forceful integration doesn’t really fit. In a world which hungers for geopolitical stability, only outliers contemplate territorial expansion, even in much of the world (e.g. most of Latin America, Africa, and various parts of southern Asia) where territorial boundaries set up in the last round of European Imperialism were arbitrary and problematic.
Empire is almost exclusively ‘informal’ these days. The US may browbeat Canada and Mexico over tariffs, but most informal empire is much more soft-spoken and most is via the private sector’s control of jobs, investment, and culture. Our global network of military bases is pretty powerful, but not actually used much to control the hosts.
So, let’s keep the stars-and-stripes at its current count (unless we want to add Puerto Rico and DC). We are better off having the US purview “from sea to shining sea” run from the Atlantic to the Pacific and not from the Arctic across the “Gulf of America” and then on to the Mediterranean.
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