EMPIRE
We
are the new empire—get used to it. This is the message being
promulgated by a number of conservatives, led by William Kristol’s
Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a Washington think-tank
dedicated to enhancing America’s "military, diplomatic,
and moral leadership" around the world.
That
is, as the world’s only remaining superpower we should accept
our responsibilities.
"I
think Americans have become used to running the world and would
be very reluctant to give it up," insists Tom Donnelly, PNAC’s
deputy executive director, who makes the boldest case for an active,
expansionist, engaged American foreign policy. Donnelly refers
longingly to the strategies and tactics of the old British Empire,
policing the Raj and maintaining its "Pax Britannica"—but
the American empire he envisions holds no territorial ambitions.
"The
fundamental difference between American and other, past empires
is that we don’t issue writs in Washington that we expect
others to follow," Donnelly maintains. Rather, our new, manifest
destiny is to disseminate our values.
"We
have seen the spread of liberty in our own country as our power
spreads, as well as around the world," he points out. "The
history of the twentieth century is how, as we have grown more
powerful, we have extended rights to women, to racial minorities,
to everyone."
What’s
more, with our military deployed from Korea to the Balkans, Haiti
to the Persian Gulf, we are already maintaining a de facto "Pax
Americana." It only remains for us to understand the costs
involved, and the sooner the better.
So
far, for PNAC, this has meant mostly constant lobbying for the
Pentagon "to adapt its operations, its forces…[and]
its budgets to the new reality." The new imperialists would
like to see military spending increased by at least $50 to $100
billion per year, and would strongly suggest more than doubling
the defense budget. They want an armed forces that can confront
China over Taiwan, throw up a missile defense, remove Saddam Hussein
from power, fight two conventional wars at the same time, and
effectively hunt down terrorists, drug lords, and guerrillas.
Far
from deterring us from such a global reach, the events of September
11 have only made the need for an American imperialism all the
more urgent.
"We
had better get used to seeing ourselves as others see us,"
says Donnelly. "It doesn’t matter if we don’t consider
ourselves an empire. Others see us as impinging on their lives,
their space, their way of life. If we are going to protect our
enduring interests, in the Middle East and elsewhere, then we
have to do something about it."
Just what this will entail in Afghanistan may bring many Americans
up short. What Donnelly envisions, once the war is over, is a
"longer-term agenda," dedicated to "bringing central
Asia into the modern world." This would include building
"some sort of state structure in Afghanistan," economic
and infrastructure development, "oil pipelines through Pakistan,"
the establishment of "a long-term, strategic relationship
with India"—and a peace-keeping force featuring American
troops.
"Afghanistan
was used as a home by terrorists not because there was something
in the water, but because it was a mess," Donnelly points
out. He does not underestimate how difficult or costly our further
engagement in central Asia could be, but is certain that "an
ounce of military prevention, a pinch of economic development,
certainly beats the cost of the World Trade Center being attacked."
It
also brings Donnelly and PNAC smack up against what are likely
to be their most intractable opponents—fellow conservatives.
Our most ambitious, imperialist projects have traditionally been
undertaken during some of the more progressive eras in American
history. Most remaining liberals have retreated to a sort of neo-isolationism,
though, and as a consequence the debate is taking place almost
solely on the right. As such, it promises to expose deep fissures
in the national, conservative movement.
Prior
to September 11, after all, the sort of commitment Donnelly is
talking about was dismissed by the Bush administration as "nation-building."
Even now, with the war unfinished and Osama bin Laden still at
large, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has suggested that
a quick U.S. withdrawal would be best, even if it left behind
a balkanized Afghanistan divided between the Northern Alliance
and the Taliban. Other conservatives, such as Professor Andrew
Bacevich, accept the premise that a new Pax Americana is inevitable
only with reluctance, worrying that without such an immense global
commitment, we would "have a much better chance of keeping
faith with the intentions and hopes of the Founders" and
that "we'll end up paying a higher cost, morally and materially,
than we currently can imagine."
Donnelly
brushes aside all such objections. To leave Afghanistan "a
festering wound" would be only to invite more terrorist attacks
in the future. The Founding Fathers "believed in a government
with checks and bal ances, but they believed that its ideals were
universally applicable. Autocrats are automatically threatened
by them." In this spirit, PNAC has raised a seemingly irresistible
conservative escutcheon. Kristol and Robert Kagan promise that
the new imperialism will make the Republican party "once
again the party of Reagan; a party that stands for that ‘distinctly
American internationalism’ that we believe a majority of
Americans embrace." But it remains unclear how more than
doubling the national defense budget can ever be reconciled with,
say, the Bush administration’s proposed tax cuts. The whole
idea of empire must find itself at loggerheads with a conservative
dogma that insists upon small government and private enterprise
even when it comes to airport security. The old British Empire,
for instance, did not try to man its security system—the
Royal Navy—by outsourcing to a Swedish personnel company.
How does one police the Raj with a marketplace?
Donnelly
rejects any notion that the U.S.—and its wealthy allies—cannot
afford what he sees as their inevitable global commitments. He
points to the relative ease with which NATO has been able to pacify
the Balkans—so far—despite reservations from the likes
of James Baker, who famously cautioned George H.W. Bush that "we
don’t have a dog in that fight."
"We’re
going to be in central Asia for a long time," Donnelly claims—sounding
as stalwart and even cheery as any Kipling hero. "When you’re
a global superpower, you’ve got a dog in every fight."
©
Copyright The
New York Times
