Philosophy.Com

Empire

Now this makes a lot of sense. It is Daniel Mahoney's War of words: a diversion from true battle on the conflict between the US and France. It critically addresses the common view of "many Americans (and Australians) that French policy is fundamentally irrational, and that it is guided by nothing more than a reckless desire to obstruct US efforts to deal with terrorist threats in a post 9/11 world."

Daniel says:

"It is no doubt a good deal of fun for stand-up comedians, syndicated columnists and internet bloggers to mock French cowardice and to exaggerate the extent to which anti-Americanism underscores French foreign policy.

But these popular expressions of anti-French sentiment overlook some crucial distinctions. In my view, French foreign policy is guided by considerations of national interest that are not reducible to crude anti-Americanism, no matter what the talking heads say. And French intellectual life long ago ceased to be dominated by the crass anti-Americanism and leftism that Revel rightly continues to excoriate."

The minimium that we should do is make a distinction between anti-Americanism in Europe ( and Australia) and being critical of the conduct of the US on the world stage. The long journalist essay by Eric Alterman, called' Red, white and blues, which can be found in Australian Financial Review(22 Feb. 2003, p. 41ff. archived, payment required) does just that. In this piece Alterman Alterman usefully explores the distinction between anti-Americanism and critically taking issue with the neo-con policies of the Bush Administration. It is hardly anti-American to take issue with the Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming; its opposition to further restrictions on nuclear weapons tests or land mines, or its antagonism to other existing and projected international accords.

If anti-Americanism is not the key to understanding French foreign policy, then what is? Scott Wickstein acknowledges this. He says:

"Hostility to American policy is clearly part of [current French actions], but that isn't really a sufficient explaination- such levels of hostility to American policy are evident in Australia, yet the Australian government has been one of the US government's strongest supporters. Nor the Muslim minority, which is also present in the UK. I have no idea what is driving the French government on such a reckless course, but it's quite potent, whatever it is."

Daniel gives us a clue, when he says:

"The people around Chirac, such as Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, are a sober lot and are generally immune to ideological anti-Americanism of the Left and the Right. They have genuine concerns about American imperial overreach, concerns that should not be dismissed out of hand without further consideration. "

The phrase that is of interest is 'American imperial overreach'. John Quiggin uses 'world hegemon' in his 'Pick your hegemon' post , by which he means "one country with unquestioned military superiority over all others and the right to use it as and when it sees fit."

The classic word for hegemon is empire or imperial power. This means that after 9/11 the national security state under the Bush administration considers that the best way protect the US is to achieve national security through the strategy of empire. This means that the US will shape, coerce or structure the international system of nation states under its enlightened hegemony that furthers its national interest.

'Overreach', refers to both the strategy of empire going beyond the resources of the US economy and the backlash that it would create amongst other nation-states and people. They would then seek an insurance policy to protect themselves from American military power.

I have taken a bit of flack in the past for suggesting that the US has taken the path to empire as a way to bring order into a chaotic world of nation-states. American patriots dislike the word empire. Their objection has been that this means the US is enslaving/colonizing other nation-states--'determined efforts on our part to subjugate and dominate the people' says William A Whittle that amounts to imperialism. yet the historical record since 1945 shows otherwise (Europe, Japan, Korea and Iraq in 1991. As Whittle says:

"For the first time in history, a nation powerful enough to rule world has simply refused to do so. It is a moral and ethical choice we make as a people. More than that; it is data. It is evidence...There is no American Empire."

The objection is true. But things cannot be left standing there. Not all Americans think that way. See here But what if empire here is not meant in the bad sense of conquering or pacifying dangerous corners of the world inhabited by terrorists and rogue states and ocupying, their lands and incoporating them into the nation state? The key word is enlightened, as this refers to the civilising mission of the US in world affairs. That means that the US establishes it hegemony through liberal democracy, liberal markets and free trade and brings other nation states under its sphere of influence.

William Whittle in his great essay on empireacknowledges this when he says that:

"We are an empire of the mind, a place whose dreams and ideals have colonized the world. We are a black hole of desire upon which billions place their unfocused hopes. And yet, to them it seems as if we turn them away. We dangle freedom and hope and comfort in front of them with a glimpse into our everyday lives though television and movies."

Now America is not just another nation-state equal amongst others. It is a superpower able to shape the course of events in a way that Australia never could. Is it not then a hegemonic state? William Whittle acknowledges this possibility in the sense of having “authority over others”; only he goes to reject this in terms of cultural imperialism of US pop culture over elitist Europen culture. He says that that American culture is an expression of American myths, fantasies and dreams that "come from our common heritage and our common beliefs'.

He adds, linking Stephen de Beste that these are attractive to Europeans and the Arab street. They are attracted by the American ethos of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is and deep and strong foundation upon which the edifice of prosperity and success is built. It is what they---we ---do not have.

This is a patriotic celebration of the American way of life. But it does not addess the issue of American military power in the world of nations; nor acknowledge the mechanisms used by the national security state to protect its national interestby shaping the conduct of other nation-states. Basically the US has shrugged off its traditional isolationism, and under the Bush administration it now seeks security through empire. Security through empire is the ethos of the US as a national security state.

The US aims to achieve stability in a disordered world through bothopening up the protective walls of other nation-states to liberal democracy and markets, and using its military power to assimilating them into an over-reaching order. It is able to establish this order because it is a global power. Such a state has military power which it is willing to use to further its interests. This is an imperial state as has a strategic design to shape the conduct of the world of nations as well. That global strategy used to be one of deterrence and containment (close to 50 years), which was deployed against the Soviet Union when it too was a superpower.

That global strategy has been rejected by the neo-con hawks in the Bush administration in favour of an aggressive unilateralism centred around a pre-emptive strike against those nation states, such as Iraq, who challenge US interests. Its antagonism to the UN indicates that the US wants as little constraiint on its potential military actions as possible---it desires absolute freedom.

It is strategy that is resulting in an American occupation of Iraq, a military presence in Afghanistan, central Asia, the Gulf and Turkey to ensure that political shifts in the rest of the region facilitate US interests.

And Europe? On this empire model the US would act to hinder, forestall or prevent an autonomous federated Europe that has sufficient economic, political and military muscle to challenge US hegemony. Europe's autonomous action would destablise the way a hegemonic US orders the world of nation-states. In 'The crisis in NATO: A geopolitical earthquake?' Gabriel Kolko argues this in relation to NATO"

"When the Soviet Union capsized over a decade ago, NATO's nominal rationale for existence died with it. But the principal reason for its creation - to forestall European autonomy - remains...Long before September 11, 2001, Washington was determined to avoid the serious constraints [on its smilitary operations]that NATO could impose. The only question was of timing and how the United States would escape NATO's clear obligations while maintaining its hegemony over its members. It wanted to preserve NATO for the very reason it had created it; to keep Europe from developing an independent political as well as military organisation."

Kolko says that:

"Coordinating NATO's command structure with that of any all-European military organization that may be created impinges directly on America's power over Europe's actions and reflects its deep ambiguity....Washington has decided that its allies must now accept its objectives and work solely on its terms, and it has no intention whatsoever of discussing the merits of its actions in NATO conferences. "

On this account the resistance to US strategic design comes from France and Germany. Unlike Australia, which accept US objectives and work solely on US terms, a united Germany and France are asserting their independence and acting in terms of their national interests. They are hostile to the attempts by the US to regain the mastery over Europe it had during the peak of the Cold War and deeply critical of determined of the Bush administration not to be bound by European concerns and interests.

As Kolko says:

"Washington cannot have it both ways. Its commitment to aggressive unilateralism is the antithesis of an alliance system that involves real consultation. France and Germany are now far too powerful to be treated as obsequious dependents. They also believe in sovereignty, as does every nation which is strong enough to exercise it."

This then is the answer to the question that Scott Wickstein raised about what drives the French government to take on the US over Iraq. Australia may be content to be a dependent on the US---but not France or Germany. Why should they? Chutney at MyIrony puts it so well. She uses Simone Weil to suggest that oppressive power gets too big for its britches. Sums up what France and Germany would be thinking rather well, don't you think. rather neatly, don't you think?

Kolko concludes his article with this judgement and warning for the neo-con hawks in the Bush administration:

"The reality is that the world is increasingly multipolar, economically and technologically, and that the US' desire to maintain absolute military superiority over the world is a chimera."

It is a chimera because of both the overreach of empire and the impossibility of absolute freedom in a world of nation-states. See Chutney's Empire strikes back for some good insights on this overreach from an American perspective.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at February 21, 2003 01:30 PM | TrackBack