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Empires of old supported themselves by consuming the "edges." Resources of conquered states were consumed by core states. This strategy allowed core states to pay their armies with other people's money, fuel their expansion, and avoid economic strain at home. They used a "pay as you go" strategy.
Modern empires have not been so ruthless. Their strategy has been to provide military security in exchange for political allegiance. As the imperial power expanded its domain, it tended to overpay for security, while protectorate states remained free to use their resources for normal economic improvements and trade. Current examples are Western Europe, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
American foreign policy has stepped up the pace of empire building since September 2001. Although the word "empire" is seldom used, the White House admitted as much in a September 2002 document called the National Security Strategy. NSS promises that "we will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world". It boldly asserts, "Our best defense is a good offense."
NSS continues with, "Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States." This means small states will jump on our bandwagon and large states will be intimidated by an overwhelming military. In a June 2002 address at West Point, Bush said, "We have to be ready for preemptive action…"
This is an expansion of President Wilson's post World War I vision of a multi-nation cooperative with imperial sovereignty. Wilson advocated worldwide protectorates under Western trusteeships. The League of Nations became the United Nations. The goal was to teach them "to elect good men."
Whether you or I agree with this approach, we can agree on the fact that it will be expensive. I submit that the American public would be opposed to empire building if it was honestly put to them. The money to pay for this project must come from taxes, thin air, or future debt. The Federal Reserve has already announced it will simply print more money. The thin air approach creates inflation and monetary devaluation.
Our military strength should be huge, defensive, and at home. It makes no sense to camp out between North and South Korea for fifty years. Europe, Israel, and India should defend themselves.
The excerpts below are from a Lew Rockwell article "Power and Vulnerability" published on Lew Rockwell December 30, 2002.
To be ruled despotically is contrary to the nature of man; that's why every dictator feels himself vulnerable: he knows that what he is doing upsets the natural order. Nor is this behavior limited to autocrats. Indeed, security of themselves and their government is the first concern of all heads of state. Why is that? Power is never absolute. The more it attempts to be, the more it can awaken the human longing for freedom, and inspire the desire to resist.
Ultimately, as Hobbes demonstrated, the use of power requires the cooperation of the subjects. People must be willing to obey. It is for this reason that the more power is used, the more it comes under question. In this impulse and dynamic we find the basis of revolution. To prevent revolution, every dictator would like to will away the freedom of people to think for themselves.
Thomas Jefferson thought that to awaken the revolutionary impulse, and to remind powerful governments that they are vulnerable is a good thing. "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism," he wrote in his Declaration, "it is [the people's] right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
The small, unintrusive government faces few threats to its limited power. Until Lincoln's day, for example, it was possible to walk around Washington unencumbered. One could knock on the White House door and be greeted by the president's butler. No office was closed to citizens. It was like any other town. There was no great fear emanating from the presidential quarters or any other public office. Why? Because power in the modern sense was so small. No one in government had good reason to feel threatened by anyone.
But as the power of DC has grown, so has its fortress mentality. Walking around Washington today, you have the feeling that you are constantly watched. Streets are sealed to traffic. Forget trying to visit any bureaucracy. You can't get in the door without an official invitation. Every movement on the streets is recorded on camera. Employees of every bureau are prone to jump at the slightest odd noise, and arrest anyone who behaves unusually. These are all indications that DC considers its power slippery and treacherous - while, at the same time, being proof of overweening power itself.
Some people rule out the possibility of abusive power in a democracy, which means rule by the people. But Bertrand de Jouvenel describes the reality: "The history of the democratic doctrine furnishes a striking example of an intellectual system blown about by the social wind. Conceived as the foundation of liberty, it (democracy) paves the way for tyranny. Born for the purpose of standing as a bulwark against power, it ends by providing Power with the finest soil it has ever had in which to spread itself over the social field."
Of what does the imperial power of the Bush administration consist? There are the accumulated precedents of all predecessors - every despotic act of every "great" president can be invoked to justify just about anything he wants to do. Then there is the nuts-and-bolts power of the executive branch, which is vastly larger and more managerially invasive than the other branches.
There is the power over public opinion that comes from the media's and people's view that he is somehow the Maximum Leader of the nation. There are his hundreds of billions of discretionary funds to be spent in the course of four years. There is his own moral conviction that he is right and leads a country that is blameless, even infallible, in foreign policy. Finally, there is control of public opinion, which shifted towards passivity in the face of government claims after 9-11.
Now, to say that Bush is an Imperial President is not necessarily to make a personal critique of the man. Benjamin Constant observed that when people are angry at power, they should remember that "it is the measure of force that is the culprit, not its holders. Your indignation needs to be directed against the sword and not against the arm. There are weapons which are too heavy for the hand of man."
We can think of many examples: To seek to "grow an economy," to rid the world of evil, to right every domestic wrong, to manage the evolution of community life, to control the politics of every state and nation-these are absurd ambitions. To seek them is to be imperial, and with empire comes delusion, which intellectuals collude in heralding.
Why can't intellectuals recognize power and its evils, and call it what it is? Aside from their personal interests, it has something to do with the blinding mystery of government itself. It is for the same reason that taxation is not called theft, that the draft is not called kidnapping, that war is not called murder. Wrote St. Augustine:
What are thieves' purchases but little kingdoms? For in thefts, the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander, the confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by the law amongst them. And if those ragamuffins grow but up to be able enough to keep forts, build habitations, possess cities, and conquer adjoining nations, then their government is no more called thievish, but graced with the eminent name of a kingdom.
Our modern despots are graced with the eminent name of president.
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