Gaddis and Kennedy on Empire

Lots of good stuff in the NYT Book Review this weekend: John Lewis Gaddis reviews Niall Ferguson's Colossus: The Price of America's Empire. Ferguson, who I have been interested in since I wrote a paper on counter-factual histiography a few years back and used his work from Virtual History, has emerged as Simon Schama's heir to the title of foremost historian as pubic intellectual. He is also one of the major proponents of the United States exercising its imperial capabilities more fully. Gaddis, whose own Surprise, Security, and the American Experience is supportive of the Bush administration's neoconservative/hard-Wilsonian democracy crusade (which he identifies as the third revolution in US foreign policy thinking), is generally complimentary about Ferguson's work, but wonders if ferguson's diverse academic interests (ranging from historiography, World War I, financial/economic history, imperialism and current affairs), might be stretching his talents:

"Colossus" reads, in short, like a series of previously published essays too hastily stitched together.This is unfortunate, because whatever his skill at stitching, Ferguson is an accomplished and imaginative scholar. Several of his arguments deserve more careful consideration than they are likely to receive, given the distractions that surround them.
One is that the dismantling of formal empires and the near-universal practice of self-determination have so far failed to produce the orderly, prosperous and equitable world for which liberals since Woodrow Wilson have hoped. Another is that "for some countries some form of imperial governance, meaning a partial or complete suspension of their national sovereignty, might be better than full independence," and that only the United States is in a position to supply, and secure international support for, such tutelage.

Colossus, although I am awaiting my copy to arrive, sounds, from the first chapter and the reviews and interviews I've read, corresponds reasonably closely to own opinions on liberal imperialism (basically, that the United States, as the pre-eminent democratic military and economic power, has a moral obligation to spread its liberal values (though not necessarily democracy) as widely as possible through-out the world, by force as a last resort, if unavoidable).

Next, Paul Kennedy reviews Hugh Thomas's Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, From Columbus to Magellan. European exceptionalism is a difficult and controversial topic, as Kennedy notes:

Many generations of historians have attempted to explain the reasons for Europe's amazing rise to world power. Was it due to its move toward rationality and science during the Renaissance, or its capacity for organization, or the competitiveness of its nation-states (as opposed to the dull uniformity of Oriental empires), or its favorable geographical position, or its gunpowder revolution?

The subject of Thomas's book is the benefits and disadvantages of an empire. This exhaustive study of one of the first modern empires contains lessons that Kennedy suggests the current crop of empire-builders should take note of:

For the past few years, the United States has been attempting its own imperial or demi-imperial experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five hundred years after Cortes, neo-conservative adventurers are leading us eastward and seeking to transform the Middle East. But perhaps they should pause, at least long enough to read Thomas's book. It brings much evidence of imperial arrogance and torture, yet it also contains compelling details of how to treat a conquered nation with compassion. This is worth some reflection.

Kennedy and Gaddis go on to reflect on this in a conversation about the effect of 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy and on the question of an American empire. When asked the question of whether the United States have an empire, these two great historians respond:

GADDIS: Of course. We've always had an empire. The thinking of the founding fathers was we were going to be an empire. Empire is as American as apple pie in that sense. The question is, what kind of an empire do we have? A liberal empire? A responsible empire? I have no problem whatever with the proposition that the United States has an empire.

KENNEDY: I have quite a bit of a problem; I don't like that one bit. The fact is that most of the rest of the world thinks we are imperial, not to mention imperious. And then you have to ask, what are the consequences of that?

GADDIS: The really important question is to look at the uses to which imperial power is put. And in this regard, it seems to me on balance American imperial power in the 20th century has been a remarkable force for good, for democracy, for prosperity. What is striking is that great opposition has not arisen to the American empire. Most empires in history have given rise to their own resistance through their imperious behavior. For most of its history as an empire, the United States did manage to be imperial without being imperious. The great concern I have with the current administration is that it has slid over into imperious behavior.

KENNEDY: John has put his finger on something very interesting, which is this dominant position of the U.S. not yet causing the emergence of counterweights. And I say "yet" because I think there's quite a considerable danger that it will. We now have a Europe with a larger G.D.P., and we have a China growing so fast you can hardly keep your eyes on it. Our great power status is unchallenged at the orthodox military level. But it's beginning to look a little bit more fragmented in other dimensions.

The dilemma is one that Ferguson has been warning about for a while now: how to be a liberal empire and still be liked, or at least not be perceived to be arrogant by the rest of the world. Ferguson identifies the problem as lying in the attitude of the American people to the concept of empire - America refuses to accept the fact that it has an empire and acts as a benevolent uncle, occasionally popping in to do nice things, but not being parental. Gaddis calls this "the dog-and-car syndrome. Dogs spend a lot of time thinking about and chasing cars. But they don't know what to do with a car when they actually catch one. It seems to me this, in a nutshell, is what has happened to the Bush administration in Iraq."

It is an obvious conclusion that the US needs some modern day equivalent of the British Colonial Office, whose role is to step up to construct a state once the military does it job of regime toppling.