History and the American Empire

Over the last few days I’ve been reading a fair number of articles and essays which seem to imply that the United States in bent on creating an empire. I don’t necessarily think that’s true, if anything I think we’re going to slightly disengage from the world. Plus, America just isn’t cut out to create an empire.

Empires nearly allows have three factors in common: a dominant military, a monarchial or dictatorial form of government, and a lack of access to needed resources. There are other factors which also play a part in empire building, but these are the big three as I see it.

Empire building nations always have a dominant military. Usually they have found some technological advantage that creates a power gap between the empire and its rivals. The Romans had a flexibility advantage over the Greeks. The British had a naval advantage over the other European nations. The US has an electronic advantage over everyone else. With military force being absolutely critical, it would seem as though the critics of the US could be on the right track – we have a major military advantage over everyone else.

But our form of government is wrong for creating the American empire. The democratic Athenians never formed an empire. But the dictatorial Romans did. The monarchies of England, France and Spain all created empires. But the representative governments in those countries have let the empire disband. Why can’t a representative government create an empire when a dictator can? It’s actually pretty simple. In a democracy (or republic) the power of each voter is diluted as the empire expands (one person, one vote). In a dictatorship, the leaders power increases as more people of subjugated to achieving his goals. The President of the United States does not gain any additional power for leading more people; neither does Congress. Empire building would dilute the importance of each state and each person. Which is why our government is all wrong for creating the American Empire.

We also are one of the most resource-blessed countries on earth. Other than oil, we are basically able to be self-supportive. The Europeans needed hard currency. Japan needed more basic building resources. We don’t need to take over the oil supplies; free market economics ensure that there will always be someone willing to sell us what we need. In addition, we could make a few policy changes and probably become completely independent of the oil ticks in the Middle East. We have every resource – tangible and intangible – that we need to survive and thrive. Economic specialization is the only reason we need to trade with others – it allows everyone to benefit. But we could go it alone and survive quite well, thank you.

So, of the big three reasons for empire building, we fail on two of them and the third is merely a result of our industriousness. The US has no designs on building an empire; we’re not even prepared to undertake such a course. But what if we decided to make empire building work as a democracy?

We already know what kind of conqueror the US is. We conquered Germany and Japan in WWII. Never in the history of civilization has there been as benevolent a conqueror as the United States. We most often get compared to the Caesars of Rome. The Romans hit the maximum breadth of their empire in the mid-2nd century. It wasn’t until the end of the 3rd century that they finally left a conquest. And then it was only because they could no longer provide security to the region. In contrast, we turned Japan and Germany back over to their citizens in less than a decade – after we paid to help rebuild both nations.

Empires have always been of great benefit to the mother country because of the tribute that gets remitted back to the capital. Tribute, pillaging and violent oppression have always been hallmarks of a military conquest. Rome used to send slaves, loot and leaders back to Rome to be paraded through the streets of the city. When we conquered Germany and Japan we reversed the flow of money. We essentially paid tribute to those nations for the right to occupy and rebuild before giving the nations back. That is simply unheard of in world history.

We don’t butcher people. We don’t humiliate or abuse people. We don’t “conquer” people in the traditional sense. We truly do liberate people. There has never been another nation in history that has always liberated people simply because it was the right thing to do. Yet that is all that we ever do (excepting the Spanish-American War at the end of the nineteenth century). And that is why the fears of the coming American Empire are unfounded.

Of course, if I were living in a third world nation and I had to choose whether I was going to be part of the American Empire or part of the French Empire, there is no doubt which I would choose. I much prefer American cheese on my hamburgers.