Sunday, August 21, 2011

What is Empire?

Emperor Napoleon I

EMPIRE is a term which is often used today to describe US policies, or rather specifically reactive US domestic and foreign policies since September 11, 2001.

To analyze this properly we need a clear ideal type as to what "Empire" is, what makes it distinct from say "the State", which is the usual apparatus of control for political communities. In 2005, Dr. Herfried Münkler published a book entitled Imperien, which was published two years later in English as Empires. I will refer to the English translation in order to present Münkler's ideal type of Empire. Münkler's a professor of political theory which is a broad discipline which would include not only Clausewitzian strategic theory but the political theories providing context to it. He has been described as a "one man thinktank" and deserves a wide dissemination of his ideas.

Once we have an ideal type as a yardstick, we can then compare it to what we see in reality and present those views for discussion. My goal here is to create a dialectic whereby through presentation, question and response we all attain a higher appreciation and understanding of this current political phenomenon which affects the entire world. Since we have had whatever varying success with this type of discussion numerous times here on MilPub in the past, I have every reason to assume that we will do so again this time around.

Everyone reading is welcome to comment, in fact I would specifically encourage some of the great number of silent readers we have to express their views . . . Such comments/questions could be about the strengths or weaknesses of Münkler's ideal type, or how effectively it describes specific political entities today . . .

Now to Münkler's ideal type. The elements should be clear and well-defined, expressing extremes of various sorts. Ideal types are not found in reality, but contain exaggerated characteristics found in reality. There is also no morality associated with the "ideal" in ideal type, one could describe an ideal type whorehouse or political machine. I refer here to pages 5-8 in Empires:

Quotes from the book are within "--".

--

First, an empire must be distinguished from a state, or more precisely, from an institutional territorial state, which operates according to completely different imperatives and a completely different action logic. This begins with the way the population is internally integrated and extends to how boundaries are conceived. the boundary line typical of states is sharp and clearly demarcated; it indicates the transition from one state to another. Such precise dividing lines are exceptional in the case of empires. To be sure, the boundaries of an empire are no longer lost in those wide expanses in which tribes and nomadic peoples sometimes obeyed imperial requirement and sometimes resisted them, but even since the disappearance of those unruled spaces into which the classical empires were able to expand, imperial boundaries have remained different from state borders. Imperial boundaries do not divide political units possessing equal rights; instead they involve gradations of power and influence. Moreover, in contrast to state boundaries, they are not equally permeable in both directions; those who wish to enter an imperial space must satisfy different conditions from those who leave it. This is connected to the economic as well as the cultural attraction of imperial powers; more want to enter than to leave, and this has consequences for the border regime. --

Or in a nutshell -- Empires have no neighbors which they recognize as equals, that is as possessing equal rights; with states, by contrast, this is the rule. In other words, states are always in the plural, empires mostly in the singular.--

Second, but related -- States integrate their populations equally, above all, grant them equal rights whether they live at the core of the state or in its border regions - this is not the case with empires: there is almost always a scale of integration descending from center to periphery, which usually corresponds to decreasing right and an increasingly limited capacity to determine the politics of the center.

Third, empires must be delineated in contrast to hegemonic structures of dominance. The line between hegemonic supremacy and imperial dominance may be fluid, but it is still meaningful to distinguish the two. Hegemony is supremacy within a group of formally equal political players; imperiality, by contrast, dissolves this - at least formal - equality and reduces subordinates to the status of client states or satellites. They stand in a more or less recognized dependence in relation to the center.

Fourth, empires may be delineated in contrast to what has since the 19th Century been called imperialism. A distinction between theories of empire and theories of imperialism makes it possible to disregard the normative perspective of nearly all theories of imperialism and to sharpen our descriptive-analytic focus on the imperatives of empire. The concept of imperialism also includes theories of empire-formation as a unilateral process running from center to periphery; which proves to be rather a hindrance in the observation of real empires. Imperialism means that there is a will to empire. Whether from political or economic motives, this is seen as decisive, if not the only, cause of world empire-building. . . [However] most empires have owed their existence to a mixture of chance and contingency, often taken up by individuals who were in no way legitimately authorized to do so. In that sense, almost all empires have been created 'in a fit of absence of mind'. A focus on the center, characteristic of imperialism theory, must be supplemented with a focus on the periphery - on power vacuums and economic dynamics, requests for intervention by losers in regional conflicts and decisions made by local authorities. --

I'm adding a fifth characteristic, which Münkler does not place here, but describes later (page 84 & 96). Fifth, -- All empires that have lasted any length of time have chosen as their self-justifying objective a world-historical task or mission that confers cosmological or redemptive meaning on their activity. Hegemonic powers do not need a mission, but empires cannot do without one. . . The persausiveness of an imperial mission depends to a large extent on the discursive construction of what it is directed against, or which forces it is meant to keep from becoming politically dominant. This will here be considered under the generic term of the barbarian of the barbaric . . . Imperial frontiers are thus also frontiers between cosmos and chaos.

--

So, that's my initial ideal type based on Münkler's Empires.

Let's dance!

Postscript:

We really seem to be at something of a crossroads. There is in general a resistance to taking on board the significant, even fundamental changes that have take place in the country since 2000. It's always easier to simply tell ourselves that this has "all happened before", but does that really stand up to any serious scrutiny? I find it more the need to find some commonality, some sense of bearings that could indicate where the country will go from here.

It's scary to think, as I do, that we are in essentially "uncharted waters". More to follow.

54 comments:

  1. So, based on your five points we, the United States is either entering an imperial stage, or exiting one because I see us more of a pseudo-empire...i.e. one with ambitions of imperialism, or one skating on the edge of imperialism.

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  2. Interesting. I will have to think about this some more, but I would possibly like to add a sixth dimension, which is the characteristics of empire collapse as contrasted with state collapse.

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  3. Based on what you've shown us so far, I have to agree with the "one man think-tank" concept.

    I'm not sure I agree with Sheera, the only Imperial test I can see that we don't pass with flying colors is the second (citizens in the centers of power have more rights than the hicks in the sticks) and we're slowly getting closer on that one.

    Seydlitz, does the good Doctor offer any tasty tidbits on the staying power of empires or how they end?

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  4. A state is a people.
    An empire is a collection of peoples.

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  5. Seydlitz-

    Interesting is that we do have a portion of the population that has no qualms about suppressing and exploiting others for self interest, be they domestic or foreign. Exploiting is a common American pastime. In that regard, we exhibit the characteristics of empirialism.

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  6. "Imperial frontiers are thus also frontiers between cosmos and chaos"

    In the mind of the imperial, of course. Looking from the outside in, however, the imperial frontier might look like the opening in the neck-hole of a slave-collar.

    “Plunderers of the world, after they, laying everything waste, run out of land, they probe even the sea: if their enemy has wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; neither East nor West has sated them; alone of mankind they covet poverty with the same passion as wealth." says Tacitus' Pictish chieftan; "Robbery, butchery, rape they misname empire: they make a wasteland and call it peace.”

    As Al points out, from the Penobscots to Puebla to the Philippines, Americans have never had a problem screwing their courage to the sticking point and screwing other people out of what was theirs. So in that respect, we have always carried the seeds of imperialism in our pockets.

    I will say that I think your man Münkler is a little to fine in parsing terms. Rome, for example, was an imperial power in fact if not in name in the Mediterranean Basin starting early in the First Century B.C., but they were also a hegemonic power for a long time before that. The imperium started from hegemony; first with rivals...then client states...then vassal states...then provinces...then parts of the home territories. By 1AD a resident of Veii would have been hard put to remember being a deadly enemy of Rome 400 years earlier. So I think the veil between the two is more diaphanous that your guy suggests; you make the point that empires often exist before the imperial center recognizes them as such.

    And Rome is also a good example of an empire without a "mission". Roman imperial rule was simply to keep the barbs out. If they were Romanized and civilized that was a mere byproduct of Roman rule, not the object of it. To the end of the empire Transalpine Gaul was never accorded the status of Roma itself, for all the Gauls who may have become citizens of the Empire.

    So, in a word, the U.S. has many of the characteristics of an imperial/hegemonic state. That in and of itself is neither a good nor an evil, it simply IS. However, part of being a good imperium is recognizing what smart and successful imperiums do well, recognizing - as Pluto mentions - what brings them down, and having the presence of mind to make choices that favor the former and avoid the latter.

    I think a huge part of our present troubles stem from the fact that we ARE a de-facto imperium and yet we insist we're not, and we tend to lurch from classic imperial behavior to bouts of anti-imperial denial. IMO we'd be better off if we were able to have an open and honest national discussion of the "Washington Rules", decide whether we want to be an empire, and, if so, what kind of empire we want to be. From there we'd be much better able to navigate toward the inevitable end of empire Andy mentions, since all empires do end, and there are better endings for some than others, as we've seen...

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  7. FDChief-

    Since you've brought up a couple of very important points, I'll break my silence and respond. I intend in time to respond to all, but I wish to make sure we don't lose the thread here . . .

    "So, in a word, the U.S. has many of the characteristics of an imperial/hegemonic state."

    It was the latter after 1945, but the former after roughly 2000, which is the point, please don't conflate the two, otherwise we're right back where we started from. The real distinction is between "empire" and "state" . . . especially in terms of the "center", "mission" and "rule of law" . . .

    "your man Münkler is a little to fine in parsing terms. Rome . . ."

    That is the point of having an ideal type, something that will cover all empires, but not necessarily fit one perfectly. In these respects Rome was not an "empire" . . . following this ideal type.

    I find the second element very interesting . . . explains for me the Washington Rules, or do you disagree?

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  8. Nice post seydlitz.

    "Imperial boundaries do not divide political units possessing equal rights; instead they involve gradations of power and influence. Moreover, in contrast to state boundaries, they are not equally permeable in both directions; those who wish to enter an imperial space must satisfy different conditions from those who leave it."

    Couple thoughts to add:

    1) Has modern information technology increased the permeability of boundaries (of all types)?

    2) Does/could that render a "classical" definition of empire inadequate?

    Personally I think cultural hegemony is a more useful concept analytically--especially when talking about domestic exploitation--in that: "The cultural hegemony is manifest in and maintained by an existence of minor, different circumstances, that are not always fully perceived by the people living it" (from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony).

    Especially relevant in light of the recent discussion of propaganda in the US media I think. Helps explain the willing ignorance of many people...

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  9. "That is the point of having an ideal type, something that will cover all empires, but not necessarily fit one perfectly."

    Hmmm...

    The problem here, see, is that this is officer-grade thinking. "An ideal type" is a nice...ideal. But being a dirty-knuckle NCO, my thought is "Okay...but then how do you reconcile all the differences that will inevitably result from changes in technology, society, and political capabilities?"

    So I think it's impossible to come up with an "ideal type" of empire, simply because empires in every epoch are different. The U.S. of 1900 was an literal "empire" complete with colonies...but who would argue that the U.S. of 2011 is a more powerful empire (in fact if not in name) than the official empire of 111 years ago dreamed of being?

    The real point of any sort of this sort of exercise should be to figure out what GENERAL characteristics separate a purely local/regional nation-state type power from a hemispheric or global power. And your five criteria seem like a good sort of generic guideline as such. But ISTM that trying to find a bright line - or even a dim line - between a "hegemonic" state and an "imperial" one runs the risk of deciding to drive your stake in...HERE...and so Spain in 1558 ends up on one side and Rome in 150BC on the other...rather than linked together on a gradational scale of imperialism from a true nation-state, with neither ambition nor power to influence events more than several miles beyond its borders to a true imperium, with grades of citizenship, subject peoples, vassal states, client states...and legions out in the barbarian lands beyond.

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  10. And as Nick points out - one of the immense changes in human civilization between 1945 and 2011 is the twin pervasiveness of the electronic media and commercial hucksterism.

    So you can have a sort of invisible imperial corona, outside even the furthest-flung outpost, that beams the manners, mores, and imperatives of the "imperial" power into the "barbarian" lands as effectively as a Roman garrison in pushing and pulling the barbs into the imperial civilization - and simultaneously fires a backlash from the local hard men who don't want Axe with their Bud Lights...

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  11. And since I'm throwing monkey wrenches in the conceptual works...

    The entire concept of empire pre-1945 pretty much depended on a military transaction; that the imperial troops would always be able to buy land and riches for less than they had to spend in lives and treasure.

    Imperials typically had huge technical and tactical advantages over the barbarians, and in the pre-1945 world that translated into one-sided butchery of the natives; Germanicus slaughtering Germans, Aztecs Tlascalans, Mongols Russians, Spanish Aztecs and Incas, Britons pretty much everyone.

    But the cheap automatic weapon and the explosive charge changed that. Old-school empire - with imperials wog-bashing with careless ease - became a mug's game, and even more so as the Western societies became wealthy and birthrates dropped.

    So the entire Western style of empire had to change, and has; we've watched the old style struggle and fail (in Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan) while the new style (in Afghanistan 2002 and now in Libya) has done noticeably better.

    Note that local occupations don't have this problem - so the Sri Lankans can slaughter Tamils with the innocent heart of a child and succeed with the merest of tut-tuts...

    So the problem with trying to craft a single standard for empire runs into the pre/post 1945 break point...

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  12. FDChief-

    "So I think it's impossible to come up with an "ideal type" of empire, simply because empires in every epoch are different."

    Disagree, but then I'm a Clausewitzian who believes in "universalities".

    Why do we bring up the examples of Rome or 17th Century Spain in comparison then? Both of us have used them numerous times in the past. This does not preclude that one could come up with a 21st Century "ideal type" of empire btw . . .

    But, is not what is important the human element? Social relations? All power is relative, Rome or Spain were the great powers of their day and how other lesser powers reacted/interacted with them casts important light on our own reality, if not then why have historical examples?

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  13. Nick-

    Nice comment. How did the invention of the printing press affect the reach/influence of empires?

    Physical presence is the determiner in this case I think, the ability to physically move across frontiers. Anyone in the world with an Internet-linked computer can virtually visit NYC, so why do so many insist on going through the visa formalities (potentially disappointing endurance run actually for some) in order to actually travel there?

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  14. Pluto-

    Yes, there is a temporal element, but I'm saving that for later . . .

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  15. Andy-

    Very interested in your sixth characteristic . . .

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  16. sheer-

    A "pseudo-empire" would be a "failed empire" from this perspective.

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  17. TrT-

    Agree. An empire would include "captive peoples" . . . be something quite different from a (nation) state.

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  18. FDChief-

    I've saved this excellent comment of yours for last since I find it the crux of the problem . . .

    "I think a huge part of our present troubles stem from the fact that we ARE a de-facto imperium and yet we insist we're not, and we tend to lurch from classic imperial behavior to bouts of anti-imperial denial. IMO we'd be better off if we were able to have an open and honest national discussion of the "Washington Rules", decide whether we want to be an empire, and, if so, what kind of empire we want to be."

    -

    That's the problem, empires are by definition monarchies or aristocracies, not democracies, or at least not in the long run. Hobbes and even before him Thucydides spoke of this. The requirement of empire does not lend itself to popular control, but rather to elite interest. For instance how does one include the subject peoples in the collective, which is what the US anti-imperialist argument was back in 1902 when we did in fact have an open discussion. I would also note that at that time the imperialists were at the same time the most progressive domestic reformers. "Empire" was seen as the wave of the future in 1902, whereas it is obviously the last gasp of entrenched and corrupt reactionaries in 2011?

    Historically empires don't promise freedom, they promise peace, stability, predictability . . . is this not the same thing we've been promised since 2001? Does not our "freedom" come down to consumerist choice?

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  19. seydlitz-

    I think sheer's "pseudo-empire" is a good term. The US lacks the unitary sovereign leader to be a real empire, but the right wing, amongst others would like us to be able to exercise empire-like behavior. So, as Chief often notes, "We don't have the balls to go Roman". So our behavior is at times very "Imperialist", but our political structure holds us back.

    Perhaps the recent over use of the title "Commander in Chief" for the President has been an attempt at granting him unitary sovereign status?

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  20. Al-

    I'm not saying it's not an interesting term, but would not a "pseudo-empire" be a "failed empire" (one of Münkler's terms) since it was as you describe unable to deal as a political community with the reality of empire? Essentially political dysfunction?

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  21. seydlitz-

    Pseudo, faux, wannabe? I'd not say "failed", simply because that connotes previously having succeeded.

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  22. "That's the problem, empires are by definition monarchies or aristocracies, not democracies, or at least not in the long run.

    But it's very possible to be a domestic democracy or at least semi-democracy and a foreign empire.

    The British Empire was nominally a democracy between the mid-19th Century and the early 20th and a genuine semi-democracy from there to the end of empire in the mid-Sixties. France was a domestic Republic with an overseas empire. Even Rome had a very limited sort of republic at home but was imperial beyond the walls.

    So that doesn't really hold up, does it?

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  23. I think the crux of the biscuit here is an attempt to figure out what the fuck the U.S. circa 2011 is.

    Rather than keep going around on this, let me propose a solution.

    Let's call an empire an empire by the Webster's definition: "a major political unit having territories of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority"

    So that takes in all our "empires" of history, from Sumer to the Soviet Union, and even the sorta-kinda empires like the German, which, for all that imperial Germany had colonies, was a very ramshackle sort of empire due largely to the German inability to project its seapower much beyond the Dogger Bank. All these empires at one point of another THOUGHT of themselves as "empires" - that's another crucial distinction; the internal concept of an empire AS an empire in the minds of both the imperials and their neighbors/enemies/allies. A 1st Century BC Roman of the senatorial class would have thought of his polity as a "republic"...but his attitude towards the people outside his borders was imperial in the classical sense.

    The U.S. is, in this respect, sui generis.

    We are, in terms of our abilities to project our physical and political power, an "empire". And we have in many ways an "imperial" mindset. We do not consider, say, what we're doing in the Middle East "wrong" or "foolish" or "bad", most American citizens and nearly all our governing classes consider our interventions around the world to be beneficial and "in a good cause".

    But the effects are not different in fact from sending a Roman legion or a British battle squadron out to put the natives on notice that doing something that the hegemon back in Rome or London...or Washington D.C....wouldn't "like".

    So. While the U.S. 2011 doesn't fit the definition of an "empire" down to our self-image as "not an empire" our acts and mindset towards those peoples and places outside our borders are near as dammit to those of an imperial Roman or Briton or Aztec.

    We are an "imperial Great Power", if you will.

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  24. "Historically empires don't promise freedom, they promise peace, stability, predictability . . . is this not the same thing we've been promised since 2001?"

    Since at least the early 1800s, rather.

    Remember, "manifest destiny" meant that the white man's order and industry would replace the untamed savagery of the natives, or the chaotic Mexicanness of the Mexicans, or the poi-eating Hawaiians, or the LBFMs of the Philippines...

    I would argue that your arbitrary break in 2000 is 20/20 hindsight based on our preception of the Bushies as a radical new force in U.S. politics, rather than the same old hegemonic/imperial/manifest-destiny/national greatness conservatives (albeit with new ballsiness to circumvent the old republican norms) who agitated to push the frontier over the Appalachians...

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  25. Al-

    Not really since you can have failed in an attempt . . .

    Thus failed empire. I'm not saying there isn't another category, but rather we have to give Münkler the benefit of the doubt on this.

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  26. FDChief-

    I don't think we are "going around on this" we're discussing it. Your dictionary definition accomplishes what exactly? Essentially there is no distinction between a powerful state and an empire . . . and the US was an empire all along?

    Nothing to see here folks, just move along . . .

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  27. No, a discussion would have some sort of endpoint; all we're doing now is arguing about semantics. "Empire" has been defined a number of ways, the Münkler definition is just another collection of terms or descriptions, and one that, as I'm trying to point out, doesn't exactly help us with our present dilemma because the U.S. 2011 is such an unusual critter.

    For example, the Webster's definition almost exactly mirrors what Tr T said above; a nation is effectively a relatively homogeneous state, while an empire is a heterogeneous congeries of different peoples. By that definition, the U.S. is technically a "nation state", although one that is heterogeneous to an unusual degree.

    But at the same time, the U.S. has always had many characteristics of an empire. Formally, in the period 1898-1946 (unless you count Guam and PR as still "colonies") as we swallowed up foreign peoples and places, and informally since the end of WW2, as we exercised imperial-type power without direct colonialism. But what would you can the Diem coup, or the DomRep invasion in '65, or Panama '89, if not "imperial" - in that the great power used military force and political pressure to forcibly change a notionally independent foreign land?

    So while I loves me some definitions and forensic wrangling (otherwise why would I be here) my thought is that trying to establish some sort of imperial archtype and then trying to figure out where the U.S. fits into it isn't really going to help - BECAUSE the U.S. is such an atypical "empire" (or "imperial Great Power" or "hegemonic nation-state" or whatever the hell we are.

    More to the point, I think, would be trying to establish what we're NOT; a classical "empire", or, conversely, a pure nation-state.

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  28. FDChief-

    Well maybe we haven't got to that endpoint yet . . . I'm not in hurry, so why are you?

    I think it good for people to contemplate what they read and maybe think about it a while, let it sink in. I'm a Southerner, we like to do some things slow . . .

    For instance does this ideal type shed any light on why exactly torture became US state policy (with no debate whatsoever) after 2001? Exactly what was our history in regards to that? Just asking . . .

    In reality, we created a new legal category out of the blue - "illegal combatants" - which allowed us to do anything with those we so designated, including torture. Something quite new, what?

    The majority of those that we did capture or buy from Pakistani/Northern Alliance types didn't quite fit the bill of national threats, but that didn't really influence us did it? Since it was all about precedent?

    Instead we carted them off to Gitmo and as the Brits say, Bob was your uncle. We then went through a whole embarrassing process of letting the majority of them go over a period of years, including, as the Brits and Germans will tell you, some pretty heavy handed arm twisting to cover up all our screw ups . . .

    Why? The transition from "state" to "empire" . . . .

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  29. seydlitz-

    If you are trying to identify the "national psyche" of the US, then I think you have set us off on The Impossible Mission. Unlike most empires, we have no unifying national ethnic identity. we have obfuscating factors, such as being a nation of immigrants. For example, Brits have been Brits for a couple of millenia. The construct of Anglo-Saxon "American" is relatively new (in demographic historical terms), and its roots are not from the continent.

    Mussolini at least had Imperial Rome to foster the renewed Italian identity. What do we have? Hell, we didn't even become any sort of a "power" until a century ago.

    Some claim we are a "Christian Nation"? Hell most of the wing nuts that make that claim belong to denominations that didn't exist until a century or more after the signing of the Constitution.

    As far as a "national psyche", we are a delusional, paranoid schizophrenic nation that harbors imperial tendencies without the guts, vision nor unity of purpose to carry it out.

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  30. Now that I have raised the notion of "national psyche", I am reminded of the idea of "The King is dead. Long live the King", and how we have recently seen that such a tradition of national continuity (regardless of form of government) is clearly not currently imbued in our national psyche. To wit, the threat to force a government default by the GOP. In short, as I have posted before, the willingness to voluntarily reneg on the legally made obligations of previous governments indicated a notion that the US is a transitory creature subject to the whims and fancies of passing ideologies. We exist from election to election. There is no "nation" or "state" just who's in power. We may harbor imperial desires, but lack the willingness for the continuity that an empire must have, even if it's illusory.

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  31. Al-

    "As far as a "national psyche", we are a delusional, paranoid schizophrenic nation that harbors imperial tendencies without the guts, vision nor unity of purpose to carry it out. "

    Well put and I agree. So how can this in fact be so? Due to the simple fact in my mind that 'national psyche' has nothing to do with Empire in the US case, rather reflects the emotional "beating" - actually manipulation - the people have suffered since 2000. Our metamorphosis from state to empire is the work of a group of elites who essentially had given up on representative government and the former republic and intend to establish the new structures of power to promote their own interests, there is no national project here, rather narrow interest feeding off the resources of the nation.

    Why torture? Torture is about domination and manipulation, it is not about gaining intelligence. After OBL was liquidated, former AG Mukasey argued that we got him due to information divulged under torture. ??? That is not from an intelligence source, but from the former head cop of the country, what does that tell you? The enemy is also not exclusively foreign, but also very openly domestic as well. Why make it so public? Because you implicate the masses in the policy as well, make them complicit, just as a gang requires an aspiring member to commit a crime. There is also the promotion of constant yet subliminal fear of which this is a part . . . The real focus of all this imo is the establishment of a policestate to ensure the survival and continuing consolidation of the center.

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  32. seydlitz:
    there is no national project here, rather narrow interest feeding off the resources of the nation.

    Another way of saying what I have said before on several occasions. The "general well being" is not a concern, and only becomes one when there is a real existential threat to the general population, such as WWII or the Great Depression.

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  33. Al-

    "The "general well being" is not a concern, and only becomes one when there is a real existential threat to the general population, such as WWII or the Great Depression."

    OK, the "business of America is business", but we're talking about something fundamentally different here. Along with torture, and the re-direction of the surveillance technologies to monitor the American people (the illegal FISA abuses which were whitewashed and retroactively legalized) we have an open ended war against a method (terror) which consumes a good bit of the government budget to the advantage of war profiteers who in turn are also political investors. When have we had anything like that in the past?

    Consider something else: How much of the current US middle class works for the defense industries or in homeland security or associated functions? That is their continued prosperity is intimately tied with the continuance of empire . . .

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  34. "...why exactly torture became US state policy (with no debate whatsoever) after 2001? Exactly what was our history in regards to that?"

    Well, we know that there was some pretty dirty doin's at the crossroads in Central America in the 80's, and before that in Southeast Asia in the 60's. My guess is that there has always been a "torture 'em all and let God sort 'em out" faction in the black ops community.

    The Bushies let them out of their box. It's happened before (in the PI) under an openly imperial administration. I don't consider that the worst. That would be that we're not entirely sure (since the "black sites" in including Bagram are still operational) whether it is no longer the official policy of a supposedly "non-imperial" administration. Thus does the creeping imperatives of great power imperialism force its way into standard operating procedures...

    But I'm with Al here; I think what we're seeing isn't a rational transition from state to empire, but a lurch from fierce paranoid imperialist thrashing about the global husting to spastic attempts to confine our efforts to true national interests...all the while being hijacked by the obscene return of wealth into the electoral process and a real hammering of the old middle and upper-tier working class.

    It's not imperialism we're looking at, it's feudalism, with the consequent flurries of incoherent national "policy" attendant on the Madness of King George and his successors...

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  35. "Our metamorphosis from state to empire is the work of a group of elites who essentially had given up on representative government and the former republic and intend to establish the new structures of power to promote their own interests, there is no national project here, rather narrow interest feeding off the resources of the nation."

    No argument with the concept, but I'd argue the timeline. These elites rode in with Reagan in 1980, and before that were Goldwater Republicans in the Sixties and Taft Republicans in the Forties and Fifties. Before that they were just the oligarchic elites that pretty much ran the place in the Gilded Age.

    If you look at the wide scope of U.S. history our politics have always been a contest between the elites and the mass. Recently we flirted with the mass after the Nixon resignation, but the mass proved (as always) too gullible, too lazy, and too stupid to keep the elites down for long. It didn't take more than 8 years for the top rail to get back on top, and now both parties have become so openly corporatist that I honestly think that only the cumulative effect of their incompetence and greed will change anything, and, sadly, that is likely to be a monumental crack-up...

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  36. FDChief-

    Torture may not be the "worst" but it's a symptom of what I'm talking about. Comparing what happened under Bush with the Philippine War only highlights the distinctions. In 1899 it was a response from troops in the field to the frustrations of dealing with a guerrilla war and "the water cure" was a scandal and launched Congressional hearings when it became public. TR condemned the practice.

    With Bush the incentive came from the top, it was declared state policy and government officials actually bragged about it, "taking the gloves off" . . . AG Mukasey argued that maybe it was legal to waterboard . . . The differences could not be more stark.

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  37. FDChief-

    "what we're seeing isn't a rational transition from state to empire"

    Where have I said it's "rational". "Lurch" is a good word to describe it. I don't see it so much going according to a plan, but kinda playing out in a very deterministic way due to the assumptions of those behind it. The elites simply think that America is "too big to fail" and that they can continue to use the powers of the state for their own purposes. The commodification of politics provides them with a great return on their investments, hollows out representative government and centralizes power in DC/the beltway all at the same time.

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  38. As to the difference between a powerful state and an empire, look at Mexico, or Ukraine for that matter. Both border powerful states which have the interest that they remain weak states, with a low level of material/structural cohesion so as to favor the interests of these stronger states. A weak Mexico has always been in the interest of the US, as has been a weak Ukraine in that of Russia since 1991.

    In the 1920s US oil companies ran their own private armies in the Mexican oil fields, was that a symptom of empire? I think not, more the influence of commercial interest on a powerful state, a "liberal" state . . .

    It has taken the US some time and the occurrence of certain events to become an actual empire.

    Truth is that we are not very good at it, as has been stated and is obvious.

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  39. "In the 1920s US oil companies ran their own private armies in the Mexican oil fields, was that a symptom of empire?"

    No. But in the 1920s the U.S. Marines ran their own wars in Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala. Was that a symptom of empire?

    Sure it was.

    I just finished writing up the "Mock Battle of Manila", 1898. Was that imperial? Sure it was.

    We've been an empire of sorts, in some places, for some time. Like I said; we'd a real oddity, truly sui generis, as an empire. I think it has a lot to do with the timing, a lot to do with changes in technology, especially media and military technology, and a lot to do with our political system.

    But the imperial impulse is there, has been there, almost since we sent from colony to nation. The same impulses that have led us to invade Mexico from time to time led Russia (and then the Soviets, and then Russia again) to invade, absorb, and then meddle with the Ukraine.

    We're just, as you point out, not as "good" at it as the Russians, so the results are less consistent.

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  40. That's actually the distinction isn't it? Which group takes the lead . . .

    In 1898 and 2001 it was the politicians looking for commercial backers and during the rest of our history it has been the commercial interests looking for political favors . . . Difference is that in 1898 it actually made some sense given the historical context, whereas in 2001 it simply showed how out of touch the Busheviks were . . .

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  41. If you think of it, even in 1898 it made little "sense" for Joe and Mary Lunchpail American (and even less for Jose and Maria Cubo del Almuerzo Cuban or Filipino or Honduran or Nicaraguan...). Imperialism made money for those wealthy enough to get into the import-export trade. But how did importing cheap Philippine rice help the rice farmers of California? Would it have broken the soda fountains in Chicago to pay an extra two bits per banana to pull the campesinos in Nicaragua into the middle class?

    Imperialism, regardless of its supposed benefits (which largely go to the rentier classes both in the colony and the colonizer, is a mug's game for the average citizen.

    The Bushies were just the usual dopes looking to fellate their owners, no different in that respect from the bought-and-paid-for administrations of the 1880s and 1890s. The difference is that in the Gilded Age we still had the Maxim Gun and they had not, whereas by 2000 we had SEEN the effect of the cheap automatic weapon, the land mine/booby trap and the news camera on rebellion suppression and everyone but those dumb fucks knew it WAS a mug's game...

    As far as which group "takes the leads"...well, the essence of a corporatist state, whether it's the McKinley or the Bush 43 administration, is that trade follows the flag...after pushing the flag into places trade wants to go. So just as we've seen, the national military acts at the supposed behest of the government...but the government is thoroughly co-opted by the oligarchs. The difference I see between the open oligarchy of 2011 Russia and the closet oligarchy of the 2011 U.S. is a matter of degree ,not of nature...

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  42. "In reality, we created a new legal category out of the blue - "illegal combatants" - which allowed us to do anything with those we so designated, including torture. Something quite new, what?"

    Illegal Combatat / Enemy Combatant is no different than Disarmed Enemy Forces, Surrendered Enemy Forces, Surrendered Enemy Personnel
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmed_Enemy_Forces

    We deceided not to call them POWS so the geneva convention doesnt apply.

    Nothing new I'm afraid.

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  43. TrT-

    Interesting link, but the treatment described does not include systematic torture, which was my point. The goal has been to make torture state policy, and it continues . . . thus part of what I see as the transition from state to empire.

    Btw, Al has gone into some detail discussing the nasty side of US occupation policy after WWII . . .

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  44. FDChief-

    "The difference I see between the open oligarchy of 2011 Russia and the closet oligarchy of the 2011 U.S. is a matter of degree ,not of nature... "

    Disagree, in our case what is going on is a collapse of our political ideals, of even our institutions and how they were designed to function, whereas in Russia it's a return to the historic Russian way of doing things.

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  45. seydlitz-

    Funny thing you should mention Occupied Germany. Definitely was not the high point in US behavior. For the first two years, our policy didn't even rise to the level of benign neglect. Our intent was for the German people to suffer, and suffer they did. JCS 1067, the Order detailing the conduct of the Occupation by US Forces ordered that starvation, disease and civil unrest were only to be kept to below such levels where they not would pose a danger to the troops of occupation. In Oct 1945, German civilian adult death rates had risen to four times the pre-war levels and death rates amongst the German children had risen by 10 times the pre-war levels. In 46-7, it was estimated that average caloric intake for Germans was just under 1,100 calories, and no relief supplies of food were being allowed.

    The subsequent reversal of that policy and the Marshall Plan tend to obscure our initial policy.

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  46. Don't know whether our "ideals" are collapsing; even the open autocrats like Darth Cheney have to pretend to genuflect to the altar of the Founders. Rather, the actual practice of popular sovereignty, which hit its zenith between about 1950 and 1980, has been in retreat, aided by a combination of comglomeratization of the news media, public ignorance, greed, and sloth, and the acts of the combination of oligarchs and governing classes that benefit from the concentration of power.

    This was the "historic way of doing things" in this country for much of the 19th Century and the first half of the 20th; the post-WW2 Era is the exception, not the norm, driven by the enormous expansion of the middle class that occurred because of our industrial prosperity and deliberate egalitarian policies in government, things like the GI Bill.

    Admittedly, the Bushiviks pushed even this envelope, so I do agree with you that they were anomalous in that respect. But I'd still argue that this isn't a black swan; as the discussion we're having about the PI shows, we've been here before. It's just been so long that we've forgotten the trip.

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  47. FDChief-

    "forgotten the trip"? It actually made some sense in 1898/99, we were just acting like everyone else, trying to expand our power, but with Iraq in 2003? An anachronism, but also the work of incredibly arrogant and at the same time naive manipulators/usurpers/traitors. TR for all his faults, was a statesman and a great American. Bush, is simply a wastrel and a squanderer. Yet both adequately represent the US political elites of their respective times . . .

    Cheney's actions are those of a former mob boss in fear that he'll end up in the docket somewhere, which if there is any justice in the world . . .

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  48. Iraq in 2003 is a major setback in our "world citizenship", if one believes the dream that we were becoming a more and more civilized state. Amazing what one wastrel can do to prove otherwise. I am willing to bet that there were millions who supported the invasion simply because we could and therefore should. Similarly, our "world citizenship" took another huge hit when the global economy was threatened with a voluntary default, just to win domestic political advantage.

    Actually, in the main, since the Spanish American War, we have only shown fits of global benevolence, but not a sustained pattern. We didn't really give a crap about Europe in 1939, and we sure as hell had no humanitarian concern for the post war Germans in 45-47, until our allies made it clear that the whole continent depended upon a fully recovered and functional Germany, both economically and to face off the USSR.

    For major portions of our more recent history, we really haven't been nice people. At home or abroad.

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  49. Al-

    "For major portions of our more recent history, we really haven't been nice people. At home or abroad."

    Which definitely does not argue for empire prior to 2000, which is my point. After that it was essentially Cheney's world view which held sway, but didn't work either . . . the question is why and how did Shotgun Dick get the opportunity he had?

    The reluctance of the current administration in delving into the secrets of the "Cheney bunker" has a lot to do with our current political dysfunction, or do you read it otherwise?

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  50. "For major portions of our more recent history, we really haven't been nice people. At home or abroad." Which definitely does not argue for empire prior to 2000, which is my point."

    ???

    Rather the opposite, wouldn't you say? Since the whole point of imperialism is being a pretty bad neighbor, at least from the standpoint of the "victims". I think Al's point is that the aggressive/intrusive/imperial streak had been there all along; we just elected a crew whose open disregard for post-1945 norms allowed us to go openly full gonzo in the Third World. But it's not like we weren't there all along; ask Mossadeigh, Juan Bosch, Diem, Allende...the list goes on.

    Again, I think it's too much to call our political dysfunction just "current". It's the latest cycle in the perennial contest between the governing class that gets benefits from imperial behavior versus the governing class that doesn't...much. The American sheeple don't really figure in at all; between misinformation and basic ignorance we have a hard time telling Iraq from Iran.

    What IS troubling about the Obama Administration's refusal to revise the basic foreign policy mindset that the Bushies staked out - the "open imperial" one - is that they're supposed to be the "doesn't...much" group. What appears to be happening is that the two sides, to the extent that they ever did disagree on the best approach to dealing with foreign polities, seem to have both coalesced AND moved towards the "open imperial" position.

    Historically the U.S. has been pulled back from its imperial adventures by a combination of overseas difficulties and domestic opposition. But the current adventures couldn't seem to be less promising and yet there seems to be no significant faction pushing towards retrenchment. And domestic opposition to almost every aspect of the "New American Century" - from creeping plutocracy at home to imperial overstretch abroad - has either collapsed or never developed.

    In short, I see nothing on the horizon that promises to change our course other than economic collapse. And that seems unlikely to be catastrophic enough to have a "shock effect". I suspect we're looking at 19th Century Spain rather than 5th Century Rome or post-1945 Britain.

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  51. FDChief-

    One needs to refer to the entire exchange. My conclusion was that empire had no real history in the US outside 1898 and 2000 . . . which we see . . . the elites of the late 1940s had no to little interest in the advantages of empire.

    But what was the case 55 years later?

    In between? Lackluster . . . abortions.

    2000 was very different . . . malignant.

    At this point it all gets very Hobbesian . . .

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  52. Chief-

    I think there has been a bit of a dangling "ethos" from WWII. That war was "good", and winning it was a positive benefit for the world. Following WWII, we just didn't do a lot "winning" when we went to war, and none of those wars were, as in the case of WWII, based upon an attack on the US. Following Pearl Harbor, we declared war on Japan as well as their Axis allies as they declared war against us, even though it was only Japan who attacked us.

    In 2001, there was an attack on the US, and all the Bush imperialists had to do was make it "Pearl Harbor Part II". We did the present day questionable equivalent of declaring war on Al-Qaeda/Taliban, Bush defined an "Axis of Evil", which conveniently included Saddam's Iraq, and the war was broadened to that ill advised invasion. Lots of legal and historical differences, but the Bushies used "echos", albeit totally inaccurate, of WWII to rally the sheeple to their cause.

    Now to a purely unscientific observation. My experience has been that many Americans are culturally intolerant to the point where they have no respect for other nations' sovereignty. In short, any culture that is different (including those within our own borders) are just plain wrong. So people with the "wrong" skin color, religion, social practices, political system are all wrong, and as such, we lily white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant Americans have every right to correct such wrongs and make them right, even if it means violating their national sovereignty and killing them until they act like (although inferior) Real Americans. After all, when Jesus ghost wrote the US Constitution, he intended everyone in creation to abide by it.

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  53. Al-

    I agree with your last comment to a point, but there are nuances that you are missing.

    First, one of the reasons for "isolationism" in 1939-41 was due to simple public distrust of the military as an institution. Memories of systemic cock-ups in the Spanish American and First World Wars were all living and constantly retold. There was also some healthy mistrust of the "American way" and the "sucker rally" stuff that people had been told in the 1920s, in fact up to 1933.

    The common people could identify their interests and knew instinctively when they were being hoodwinked. Jingo patriotism and financial scams were not good sellers. Now consider our current reality - just over ten years down the line - in comparison.

    Second, I think it impossible to avoid the fundamental changes that have taken place since 2000, simply put it's a different country now imo . . . and not just the changes but how and why they were implemented . . . along those lines . . .

    http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

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  54. seydlitz-

    There is plenty of pre-2000 literature where neocons wished to pursue a foreign policy which they admitted was "imperial", but had to find euphemisms and "code words" as they admitted the term "imperial" or "empire" would not be acceptable to the US general public. The desire and dogma were there from the 30's, but not truly and overtly executed until GWB's "preventative" strike against Iraq, which he had to falsely paint as "pre-emptive" to avoid legal and moral issues inherent in a "preventative war".

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