Is the US running an empire?

[AmericanPride]

When Napoleon conquered Europe, he did not only introduce the Napoleonic Code and inspire local nationalisms. He also imposed a severe form of political-economic relationships. From each state he subdued, he demanded outright large sums of treasure. There was a massive influx of foreign wealth into the treasury of France and the personal accounts of Napoleon, his siblings, and his bureaucrats and generals. This is empire. His empire faltered not only on the battlefield, but also because he drained the wealth of his conquests and could no longer finance his campaigns.

I use to subscribe to the theory of the United States as an empire in itself. But the events since 2008 have altered my views. I think the 'empire' can more accurately be described as a global financial empire, with a number of extremely wealthy individuals, families, and corporations at the top. What is an empire? An empire is a system of political control that enables the appropriation of one sub-systems wealth for the benefit of another, dominating sub-system. Historically, this was accomplished through the conquest of nations and states by other nations and states, with the wealth simply pillaged from the villages and treasuries. There is a long, obvious list of this process occurring around the world throughout history, with the Soviet Union in my view as the last "great" empire in this traditional sense. Now, the virtual elimination of financial controls and accountability enabled by the digitization of wealth and finance allows empire to evolve from an object to a process.

What is the role of the United States in this system? The weight of America's economic, political, and military power was used to force open the international system. This was not always the role of the US, since this agenda competed with other moral, political, economic, and security interests. I would place the start of financial primacy somewhere in the late 1970s or early 1980s, with its full power revealed in the first decade of the 20th century. But what is the future of the US central role in this process now that it's fragility has been exposed to the world? The deindustrialization was the first stage in this process, followed by its de-financialization, which has culminated in the situation we are facing now. Next, the material wealth of the US will be expropriated to pay off the public debts incurred in the first two stages. This is already occurring in Greece and Italy. The American people are paying for this process, and their wealth is ending up in the pockets of the global financial elite. This is the definition of empire.

[Ken White]

That applies to individuals and has mostly to do with political controls or lack thereof at borders. It didn't have anything to do with a hostile nation state having free access to the oceans so its' navy could roam around easily. That is what I mean. That is what the perimeter looks like it is about.

That's what it looks like to you and to many in the foreign policy establishment.

However, to others, that is a rather narrow view as that hostile nation state is now able to far more easily move far more individuals about and get far more of them in key locations and positions to frustrate your aim to maintain your perimeter.

That has nothing at all to do with what I'm talking about.

Oh but it does. Those adherents and supporters can disrupt, politically and practically, any plans you have. As a minor example, the Viet Nam war protestors did not cause the failure of that effort -- but they did have an effect that aided that failure. Major Nidal Malik Hasan was such an adherent. He was one person performing one sad act -- the potential for dozens of such acts, coordinated over the internet is a very real possibility and, target dependent, can have a significant impact as his one off effort did not.

That communication ability and the transnational mobility can have significant impacts on a nations desire and capability to establish and maintain a perimeter (and or the political will of the political class...). Most such impact may be minor and may be long term but their cumulative effect can be decisive and many other nations are far more patient and less short term focused that the US happens to be.

Well naturally a perimeter has to be maintained. But it is established because there is some benefit to be derived from it. If it falls into disuse you lose the benefit.

If it ceases to be a benefit due to changing circumstance and you continue to maintain it, you lose the benefit and sustain a cost that could be better expended elsewhere...

That is a given and you adjust as things change. The ultimate goal remains the same.

Does it?

I disagree. It looks to me as if we are still pursuing the same strategy. We are doing our best to make sure that potentially hostile countries that may be able to deploy powerful navies can't easily get to the oceans.

The US does not do its best except in rare circumstances and we are not doing our best at that today; it's a half hearted effort nowadays while we adjust. The US also is by design very slow to change its focus and policies. A few folks in Washington are still so focused. Fortunately, more there IMO are more forward looking and preparing for change. This LINK is but one example. There are others even better and more telling. We'll see.

American Pride notes the changes taking place that started with the Cllinton - Rubin - Summers strong move to American economic as opposed to military hegemony, an effort that began rather slowly under Reagan and that George H.W. Bush continued. George W. Bush came in inclined to continue that effort but unfortunately his and Rumsfeld's ideas had to be put aside due to 9/11 -- an incident that has its roots in the flawed 'extended perimeter' theory that was a default position after the true containment that was barely possible during the Cold War no longer had a reason to continue. Presidents from Reagan forward tried to continue to keep stuff out on the periphery. They all failed. Hopefully, the next one will be a bit smarter; the system may aid him or her in doing that -- it's realized that things have changed. So has Professor Doctor Lieutenant Colonel Bacevich (LINK). I don't often agree with him but he's about right on this

As I said, we, by design, change slowly...

[Surferbeetle]

What is the role of the United States in this system? The weight of America's economic, political, and military power was used to force open the international system. This was not always the role of the US, since this agenda competed with other moral, political, economic, and security interests. I would place the start of financial primacy somewhere in the late 1970s or early 1980s, with its full power revealed in the first decade of the 20th century. But what is the future of the US central role in this process now that it's fragility has been exposed to the world? The deindustrialization was the first stage in this process, followed by its de-financialization, which has culminated in the situation we are facing now. Next, the material wealth of the US will be expropriated to pay off the public debts incurred in the first two stages. This is already occurring in Greece and Italy. The American people are paying for this process, and their wealth is ending up in the pockets of the global financial elite. This is the definition of empire.

Hey AP,

This is a very interesting thesis...have you spent time in Iraq, and are you up for sharing some references?

Iraq trade routes (ancient & modern), privatization efforts, land titles, taxation (state and 'informal'), the 'swiss dinar', the banking system, the lack/incapacity of economic (as well as OSHA and EPA type) regulatory structures, and generator cooperatives (private electrical power solutions), were very interesting to observe on the ground ('03-'04 and '10) from a construction and business viewpoint and to contrast with western systems.

Satyajit Das' book Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk, Peter Bernstein's book Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, David S. Landes' book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Jurgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson's book Globalization: A Short History, and the USIP's book Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, are interesting to me. I also enjoy the Financial Times www.ft.com (Lex in particular) and find the blog ZeroHedge http://www.zerohedge.com/ to be interesting.

[Dayuhan]

Any hostile or potentially hostile country that could deploy a powerful navy.

It's been a long time since we were seriously worried about anybody's navy.

Why are they threats? If you are trying to maintain a perimeter, people will try to penetrate it at various places and you are going to end up playing whack-a-mole.

Is anyone, anywhere, trying to "penetrate our perimeter"? For that matter, what is our perimeter?

What is the role of the United States in this system? The weight of America's economic, political, and military power was used to force open the international system.

I'm not entirely sure that's true. The international system opened less because America forced it open than because people took advantage of opportunities that openness provided. Participation in that open system has been largely voluntary and largely driven by the desire to take advantage of opportunity. Others have taken advantage rather more effectively than we have. Certainly openness has been opposed in many places by vested interests that saw it as a threat to their dominance of the status quo, but the pressure to open has generally been internal and outbound rather than America forcing its way in.

But what is the future of the US central role in this process now that it's fragility has been exposed to the world? The deindustrialization was the first stage in this process, followed by its de-financialization, which has culminated in the situation we are facing now. Next, the material wealth of the US will be expropriated to pay off the public debts incurred in the first two stages. This is already occurring in Greece and Italy. The American people are paying for this process, and their wealth is ending up in the pockets of the global financial elite. This is the definition of empire.

Again I think the problem is being misconstrued. It's not so much that wealth is being transferred, it's more that imaginary wealth is being exposed as imaginary. If you look at the great losses of "wealth" that occurred in, say, the stock market crash in 2000/2001 and the recent real estate crash, you see pretty quickly that most of the "wealth" that was "lost" never really existed in the first place, other than through consensual delusion.

American Pride notes the changes taking place that started with the Cllinton - Rubin - Summers strong move to American economic as opposed to military hegemony, an effort that began rather slowly under Reagan and that George H.W. Bush continued.

Possibly that was the intention, but American economic hegemony has substantially declined since that time. Economic hegemony is seldom a product of conscious choice or intent: it emerges from superior economic performance.

[Ken White]

Possibly that was the intention, but American economic hegemony has substantially declined since that time. Economic hegemony is seldom a product of conscious choice or intent: it emerges from superior economic performance.

However, Rubin was able to and did nudge the process a bit due to actual and imaginary performance at the time...

[omarali50]

I prefer to stick to simple definitions and the US is not an empire in my mind. But it is interesting to see how many people on this site don't mind the term at all..one lives and learns. That is why its always good to ask. One can find out a lot by just asking...
The way I usually hear the term used is in postmodern/postcolonial discourse (for some reason, the South Asian upper classes are very heavily invested in this concoction..much more so that the Chinese or the Vietnamese..I have some vague theories about why that may be so). There, it is taken for granted that the US is an empire..in fact it is "the empire" without need for further qualification. I find it very irritating, not because I approve of US foreign policy or all its interventions around the world, but because I find it to be a remarkably useless term; misleading and so far from reality that anyone using it as their main unit of analysis is bound to hit a brick wall very soon....

[AmericanPride]

This is a very interesting thesis...have you spent time in Iraq, and are you up for sharing some references?

Iraq trade routes (ancient & modern), privatization efforts, land titles, taxation (state and 'informal'), the 'swiss dinar', the banking system, the lack/incapacity of economic (as well as OSHA and EPA type) regulatory structures, and generator cooperatives (private electrical power solutions), were very interesting to observe on the ground ('03-'04 and '10) from a construction and business viewpoint and to contrast with western systems.

Satyajit Das' book Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk, Peter Bernstein's book Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, David S. Landes' book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, Jurgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson's book Globalization: A Short History, and the USIP's book Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, are interesting to me. I also enjoy the Financial Times www.ft.com (Lex in particular) and find the blog ZeroHedge http://www.zerohedge.com/ to be interesting.

Surf, I have not spent any time in Iraq. My overseas time was spent in northern Kunar and eastern Nuristan in Afghanistan. While I was there, it was announced in the media that Afghanistan had an estimated 3 trillion dollars in untapped mineral wealth. This of course was known since the 1960s. In addition, there has been decades worth of discussions about accessing Central Asian energy resources via Afghanistan, including the Clinton administration's negotiations with the Taliban. So I doubt that we've spent nearly a half trillion dollars fighting in the country for the sole purpose of killing/capturing the fifty or so Al Qaeda operatives that ISAF estimates to be there (on a side note, the Taliban did initially offer to surrender bin Laden, but to a third country; the easy way to capture him at that time would have been to accept and then to interdict his transportation, similar to Reagan in 1985; isn't he a Republican hero?).

The most useful books for me have been Antonio Negri's Empire, which argues that there exists a new global constitution independent of any one nation-state, and the first part of Michael Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon, which discusses some of the political motivation behind US interest in Central Asia. I don't buy the conclusion of either book, I do find their constructs useful for explaining political and security developments.

I'm not entirely sure that's true. The international system opened less because America forced it open than because people took advantage of opportunities that openness provided. Participation in that open system has been largely voluntary and largely driven by the desire to take advantage of opportunity. Others have taken advantage rather more effectively than we have. Certainly openness has been opposed in many places by vested interests that saw it as a threat to their dominance of the status quo, but the pressure to open has generally been internal and outbound rather than America forcing its way in.

I'd say the truth is somewhere closer to the middle. The Europeans only accepted after their imperial economies were destroyed in a series of global wars. Same with Japan. Much of the struggle of the Cold War was not about two lifestyles or ideologies, but two incompatible economic systems of power. The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in a final victory, with the eventually acceptance of China, Russia, etc into this new world order. But I think it should be clarified that any voluntary decision, full or partial, was made by a nation-state's elites and not by its populace. Resistance remains around the world, most notably in the form of Islamic radicalism. However, a growing multitude of dissidents, "global citizens," are also voicing their concerns and taking to the streets. Only recently has the attention of the global financial class have turned to Europeans and Americans. And in there lies my greatest criticism.

Again I think the problem is being misconstrued. It's not so much that wealth is being transferred, it's more that imaginary wealth is being exposed as imaginary. If you look at the great losses of "wealth" that occurred in, say, the stock market crash in 2000/2001 and the recent real estate crash, you see pretty quickly that most of the "wealth" that was "lost" never really existed in the first place, other than through consensual delusion.

This I agree with, insofar that the digitization of wealth and its decoupling from a mineral standard (i.e. gold) has contributed to the explosion of money, specifically in the finance industry, which has ballooned from 13% of US GDP to over 150% since the 1970s. It is like a runaway virus. Much of contemporary discussion focuses on its economic implications. I am more interested in its political and security consequences. So it is my view that finanicalization has produced a global regime, fragmented, haphazard, and short-sighted, but with a universalizing mission nonetheless. And it has now set its sights on expropriating the real wealth of Americans (and Europeans). Instead of using armies and navies, it uses parliaments and laws.

[jmm99]

Online downloads (here) and Negri Wiki.

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

Again I think the problem is being misconstrued. It's not so much that wealth is being transferred, it's more that imaginary wealth is being exposed as imaginary. If you look at the great losses of "wealth" that occurred in, say, the stock market crash in 2000/2001 and the recent real estate crash, you see pretty quickly that most of the "wealth" that was "lost" never really existed in the first place, other than through consensual delusion.

in his book Zombie capitalism: global crisis and the relevance of Marx. You don’t to know anything about Marx to come to that conclusion, but coming to it via Marx doesn’t make it wrong, either.

[Tukhachevskii]

This kind of question has to start with a definition...



OED. QED.

The operative terms: "ruled over", "supreme political power", "control".

Unless someone can tell us who America rules or controls, there is no empire. The term may be used as a rhetorical flourish, but there's little substance to it. The only way you can speak of an American Empire is to dilute the definition of the term "empire" to a point where it no longer means anything at all.

Empire is very much a flaccid / non-rigid designator (to use Kripke’s suggestive term) as it seems to possess different qualities or denote differing activities depending upon the purpose of the enunciator. This is a problem that socio-linguists call “field specific vocabulary”. Very often the sense and reference of a word or proper noun (&c) may diverge in actual usage (often called semantic slippage). Dictionary definitions (and I’ve said this before) don’t really help considering (quoting Wittgenstein) that usage defines meaning. Can you guess that I despise analytical philosophy / logical positivism That said I agree with Prof. Finley when he says ...

Historians, we are told on all sides, have signally failed to clarify the terms 'empire' and 'imperialism', though they employ them all the time. The man in the street, curiously enough, sees no great problem, and I shall argue that he is right. Much of the trouble in the professional literature stems from a elementary confusion between a definition and a typology. It would not be a useful definition of empire, for example, that excluded either the Athenian or the Persian empire because Athens was a democratic city-state or Persia an autocratic monarchy; whereas that distinction might be important in both a typology and an analysis.

Here, here. Historians and international relations theorists have pro-offered their own definitions. Alexander Moytl, in Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse and Revival of Empires offers this definition...

• I define empire as a hierarchically organized political system with a hub like structure—a rimless wheel—within which a core elite and state dominate peripheral elites and societies by serving as intermediaries for their significant interactions and by channelling resource flows from the periphery to the core and back to the periphery.
• Continuous empires are tightly massed and, in all likelihood, territorially contiguous; discontinuous empires are loosely arranged and often involve overseas territories.
• The core elite’s rule of the periphery may be formal, involving substantial meddling in the personnel and policies of the periphery, or informal, involving significantly less interference and control.
• Decay is the weakening of the core’s rule of the periphery.
• Decline is a reduction in the imperial state’s power in general and military capability in particular.
• Disassemblage entails the emergence of significant interperiphery relations and spells the end of empire as a peculiarly structured political system.
• Attrition is the progressive loss of bits and pieces of peripheral territories.
• Collapse is the rapid and comprehensive breakdown of the hub like imperial structure.
• Revival, or reimperialization, is the re-emergence of empire—that is to say, the reconstitution of a hub like structure between a former core and all or some of the former periphery. (p. 4-5)

Moytl’s “hub-like structure” is similar to the that discussed in “What’s at Stake in the American Empire Debate”.


Peter Turchin, in War and Peace and War, offers this...

An empire is a large, multiethnic territorial state with a complex power structure. The key variable is the size. When large enough, states invariably encompass ethnically diverse people; this makes them into multiethnic states. And given the difficulties of communication in pre-industrial times, large states had to come up with a variety of ad hoc ways to bind far-flung territories to the centre. One of the typical expedients was to incorporate smaller neighbours as self-contained units, imposing tribute on them and taking over their foreign relations, but otherwise leaving their internal functioning alone. Such a process of piecemeal accumulation usually leads to complicated chains of command and the coexistence of heterogeneous territories within one state.( p.3)

I think a working definition of empire would be command (which includes the fuzzier notion of influence) –itself derived from the ancient Greek notion of Hegemony- of one territorial polity over another whether formally or informally (often also called hegemony in some circles). This approach deployed by David Healy in his article ‘Imperialism’, in the Encyclopaedia of American Foreign Policy, Vol. 2, 2nd Ed which takes his analysis through the US’s formal imperial phase (i.e., continental expansion, the annexation of Texas, the Philippines, etc.) through to its modern informal stage (I highly recommend this to Dayuhan). However, Prof. Finley’s typology is also helpful ...

A crude typology of the various ways in which one state may exercise its power over others for its own benefit will be helpful at this point:
1) restriction of freedom of action in interstate relations;
2) political, administrative, or judicial interference in local affairs;
3) military and naval conscription;
4) the exaction of 'tribute' in some form, whether in the narrow sense of a regular lump sum or as a land tax or as transport tolls or in other ways;
5) confiscation of land, with or without subsequent emigration of settlers from the imperial state;
6) other forms of economic subordination or exploitation, ranging from control of the seas, trade embargoes, and 'Navigation Acts' to compulsory delivery of goods below the prevailing market price, and the like.

I stress the word 'may': inclusion in the 'empire' category does not depend on the presence of all these forms of exploitation together.

I think those with more time on their hands than I currently have can provide examples for the US for each of these (and, of course, for other countries!).


A different typological definition would be that of archaeologists Michael E. Smith and Lisa Montiel (cf. JPEG below). Jan Nederveen Pieterse seems to be using a number of these when discussing U.S. “Neoliberal Empire” ;

‘Universalistic empires, in their dominant political culture and/or political practice, do not recognize other polities as legitimate equals.’ This is in other words ‘empire without end’ (as Virgil described the Roman Empire). Neoliberal globalization was universalistic as an economic regime (free markets are the sole effective system); the war on terrorism is universalistic in giving the United States the exclusive and combined roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner. Major previous empires claimed legal status. That the Roman and British Empires brought the rule of law was the basis of their claim to constitute a ‘Pax’. Neoliberal globalization was rules-based, but the new empire is founded on the rule of power, not the rule of law. The United States doesn’t endorse the International Criminal Court, claims exemption from its mandate for American nationals and uses this in negotiating trade and aid. The US exists in a state of ‘international legal nihilism’ with a steadily growing record of breaches of international law. These features are encoded in the Bush Doctrine: ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’; and the threat of preventive strike, including nuclear strike. The former sets the terms for universalism and the latter places the United States outside international law (p.121).

[cont. below]

[Tukhachevskii]

It would appear from a book review in Orbis that various authors also see the US as an empire but with varying accents on “empire” as a concept. However, I feel only a dictionary definition, for all its non-rigidness (an oxymoron I know given the purpose of dictionaries) will suffice for Duyahan. As such, I see your definition and raise you this, with the aid of my magnifying glass, from The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 1, A-O (I knew it would come in handy some day);

Empire:

Owing partly to historical circumstances, and partly to the sense of the etymological connexion between the two words, empire has always had the specific sense ‘rule or territory of an Emperor’ [which see Finley’s comments above-T] as well as the wider meaning which it derives from its etymology.
I. Imperial Rule or dignity.
1. Supreme and extensive political dominion; esp. that exercised by an ‘emperor’ (in the earlier senses), or by a sovereign state over its dependencies.
2. transf. and fig. Paramount influence, absolute sway, supreme command or control [NATO anyone?! I would have included S. Korea but C&C reverts to them soon!- T]
3. The dignity or position of an emperor also the reign of an emperor.
4. A government in which the sovereign has the title of emperor.

II That which is subject to imperial rule.
5. An extensive territory (esp. an aggregate of many separate states) under the sway of an emperor or supreme ruler; also, an aggregate of subject territories ruled over by a sovereign state.
6. transf. and fig. (cf. realm).
7. A country of which the sovereign owes no allegiance to any foreign superior.

III. 8. attrib. and Comp., as empire-plan, -race, etc.; (in matters of dress, of the first Napoleonic empire) Empire City, State; in U.S. a name for the City and State of New York.
(p.854)

So much for clarification.

[ganulv]

Dictionary definitions (and I’ve said this before) don’t really help considering (quoting Wittgenstein) that usage defines meaning.

Lexicography has come a long way since Herr Wittgenstein’s time. Any contemporary dictionary worth consulting has utilized corpora in the process of article creation.

Very often the sense and reference of a word or proper noun (&c) may diverge in actual usage (often called semantic slippage).

I’m guessing that anyone who has spent any amount of time in the military could probably act as an expert witness in spotting this phenomenon.

A different typological definition would be that of archaeologists Michael E. Smith and Lisa Montiel (cf. JPEG below).

Professor Smith’s work is interesting enough, but IMHO he’s still trying to formulate typologies and explain the real world by hammering facts into them. My own take is that trying to explain complexity is bogged down by the formulation, justification, and reformulation of typologies. A 1:1 map of the world doesn’t do a bit of good, either, of course…

[carl]

However, to others, that is a rather narrow view as that hostile nation state is now able to far more easily move far more individuals about and get far more of them in key locations and positions to frustrate your aim to maintain your perimeter.Oh but it does. Those adherents and supporters can disrupt, politically and practically, any plans you have. As a minor example, the Viet Nam war protestors did not cause the failure of that effort -- but they did have an effect that aided that failure. Major Nidal Malik Hasan was such an adherent. He was one person performing one sad act -- the potential for dozens of such acts, coordinated over the internet is a very real possibility and, target dependent, can have a significant impact as his one off effort did not.

What you are talking about are networks of agents and saboteurs. Those have been around since the beginning of time, and have been controlled, or not controlled since the beginning of time. There is no fundamental change there. James Wilkerson, the senior American general in the early 1800s, was a Spanish spy. So, no, I think it doesn't. Everybody wants to ascribe to the internet, iphones and tweets some revolutionary effects. There are some effect, but I don't think they have been revolutionary.

Just as freedom of movement of people across borders hasn't changed much. In fact in some places and ways, it was far easier in the old days. Look at American migration to Texas. That resulted in Mexico losing the state. So again, no. Nothing fundamental has changed.

If it ceases to be a benefit due to changing circumstance and you continue to maintain it, you lose the benefit and sustain a cost that could be better expended elsewhere...

The question isn't if a strategic arrangement, maintaining a far perimeter, can become obsolete and not be worth the cost. That is of course true. The question is has it. I think it may still have considerable value.

Fortunately, more there IMO are more forward looking and preparing for change. This LINK is but one example. There are others even better and more telling. We'll see.

This may turn out to be a game changer on the order of ocean going ships. I doubt it. It will more likely be another in a long line of technological marvels that makes war more deadly, but does not change the basic patterns. Hypersonic bombs delivering warheads from far away are really cool but you still have to find the target, actually hit the target, do enough damage to disable or destroy the target and do it often enough to make a difference. We'll see. I don't think it will make navies or the importance of freedom of navigation for big ships less important.

Presidents from Reagan forward tried to continue to keep stuff out on the periphery. They all failed.

What failure? Most of our fights have been on the periphery. After 9-11 we moved out quick to the periphery as best we could figure it. I think the driving force in many American actions has been to preserve the advantage that primitive technology and distance gave us for the first 120 years or so of our existence. That being that all those wars happened over there, not over here. Tech changed with development of motorized ships and we had to change with it to keep the wars over there. We no longer just depend the wars being over there because they couldn't come over here. We had to fight on the periphery of over there to keep the wars from coming here.

The internet wows the young and the beltway people but it hasn't had the effect that motorized long range ships have had on the strategic calculus of the world.

[Ken White]

What you are talking about are networks of agents and saboteurs. Those have been around since the beginning of time...Look at American migration to Texas. That resulted in Mexico losing the state. So again, no. Nothing fundamental has changed.

Nothing fundamental has changed. However, the capability to organize efforts in both those aspects in this era has changed. As could the numbers of such folks and the effects they can try to achieve. That coupled with the decreased power of States and the societal softening changes worldwide introduced in the last 50 years so provide some opportunities for others and some significant restraints on our actions -- some domestic political -- which never before existed.

The question isn't if a strategic arrangement, maintaining a far perimeter, can become obsolete and not be worth the cost...

This may turn out to be a game changer on the order of ocean going ships...I don't think it will make navies or the importance of freedom of navigation for big ships less important.

Others agree with you. Many do not, I don't. We'll see.

What failure? Most of our fights have been on the periphery.

The failures which demonstrate the flaws in the theory in the current era. Those include the failure to react properly against the Embassy seizure in Tehran, all the foolishness and waste in Lebanon, all the other probes and provocations from the ME to which we reacted poorly or not at all, the flaws of Desert Storm, diddling around in Somalia, even Libya -- all flawed, all misapplications of force which due to poor execution exposed weaknesses in our capabilities that invite further failures.

After 9-11 we moved out quick to the periphery as best we could figure it. I think the driving force in many American actions has been to preserve the advantage that primitive technology and distance gave us for the first 120 years or so of our existence. That being that all those wars happened over there, not over here... We had to fight on the periphery of over there to keep the wars from coming here.

We can agree on that.

The internet wows the young and the beltway people but it hasn't had the effect that motorized long range ships have had on the strategic calculus of the world.

We can also agree on that.

However, a lesser effect is not no effect. Put simply, opponents have capabilities and flexibility they did not have before and we do not have all the capabilities and freedom of action that we once possessed. The world has changed -- is still changing -- and we are behind the curve.

Where we disagree is on the utility today of trying to keep things out on the periphery. In my view that Internet and the speed of today's movement versus that of even 50 years ago negate the advantages of a far perimeter in an era where we have become far larger -- and a wealthier, more juicy target -- more clumsy, far more domestically politically polarized and for many reasons considerably less flexible in our abilities to react...

Ponder overextension (LINK)..

[carl]

Nothing fundamental has changed. However, the capability to organize efforts in both those aspects in this era has changed. As could the numbers of such folks and the effects they can try to achieve. That coupled with the decreased power of States and the societal softening changes worldwide introduced in the last 50 years so provide some opportunities for others and some significant restraints on our actions -- some domestic political -- which never before existed.

We'll have to disagree on this. I don't see much change in capability either. You want capability look at the old Comintern. Those guys had capability and not a twitter account among them. I don't see the decreased power of "States" either. I see some weak States and some strong ones, just like always.

The failures which demonstrate the flaws in the theory in the current era. Those include the failure to react properly against the Embassy seizure in Tehran, all the foolishness and waste in Lebanon, all the other probes and provocations from the ME to which we reacted poorly or not at all, the flaws of Desert Storm, diddling around in Somalia, even Libya -- all flawed, all misapplications of force which due to poor execution exposed weaknesses in our capabilities that invite further failures.

Your original statement was this "Presidents from Reagan forward tried to continue to keep stuff out on the periphery. They all failed." All the places you mentioned are out on the periphery. They may have been failures of execution but they were failures of execution on the periphery, where we can afford them. There was no failure to keep stuff out on the periphery. All those things are still in a state of flux, out on the periphery.

9-11 is the glaring exception and we moved lickety-split to try and push that threat back out.

However, a lesser effect is not no effect. Put simply, opponents have capabilities and flexibility they did not have before and we do not have all the capabilities and freedom of action that we once possessed. The world has changed -- is still changing -- and we are behind the curve.

Where we disagree is on the utility today of trying to keep things out on the periphery. In my view that Internet and the speed of today's movement versus that of even 50 years ago negate the advantages of a far perimeter in an era where we have become far larger -- and a wealthier, more juicy target -- more clumsy, far more domestically politically polarized and for many reasons considerably less flexible in our abilities to react...

It is always a competition between what we can do and what they can do and how fast both can do it.

The far perimeter in my view is still important because the things that move and apply real power are still the physical things, the ships and organized bodies of men. Keeping them on the other side of the oceans is still a matter of holding, with the help of friends, that far perimeter. The internet and immigration don't affect those things so much.

[Ken White]

We'll have to disagree on this.You want capability look at the old Comintern. Those guys had capability and not a twitter account among them.

Very familiar with them. Hopefully you noted that the bulk of their true successes, many of which still bedevil us, were in the areas of Agitprop and Intel ops; their actual military successes were virtually nil.

All the places you mentioned are out on the periphery. They may have been failures of execution but they were failures of execution on the periphery, where we can afford them...There was no failure to keep stuff out on the periphery. All those things are still in a state of flux, out on the periphery.

Can we afford them? As even you go on to note, most are still in a state of flux and that periphery affects us significantly (among many other things like Afghanistan, see TSA and the costs of added 'security' to our economy...)

9-11 is the glaring exception and we moved lickety-split to try and push that threat back out.

Uh huh. How we doing on that? Lickety split is rarely the best way to handle threats.

It is always a competition between what we can do and what they can do and how fast both can do it.

Picture Joe wearing 90 pounds of stuff leaving his air conditioned billet in an air conditioned MRAP after a breakfast of SOS and Eggs in the air conditioned DFAC and then picture his Afghan opponent with maybe 20 pounds of stuff and a rice ball for breakfast. No freon. Who's going to be the most agile...

Picture a US intel Analyst who picks up a good intercept and tries to get some action on it but the Chain of Command has other priorities - versus his Afghan counterpart who has no chain, just a direct boss. Who's going to be the most agile.

That carries all the way to the top. There is no competition on speed and their speed far outweighs our "what we can do"...

The far perimeter in my view is still important because the things that move and apply real power are still the physical things, the ships and organized bodies of men.

Really? Would it were so. We're going broke fighting shadows out on the periphery...

Keeping them on the other side of the oceans is still a matter of holding, with the help of friends, that far perimeter. The internet and immigration don't affect those things so much.

We can disagree on all that. Same old story -- don't fight the other guy on his turf using his rules...

[carl]

Very familiar with them. Hopefully you noted that the bulk of their true successes, many of which still bedevil us, were in the areas of Agitprop and Intel ops; their actual military successes were virtually nil.

I take you basic position vis-a-vis the movement of people and modern internet commo to be the following. "Those adherents and supporters can disrupt, politically and practically, any plans you have. As a minor example, the Viet Nam war protestors did not cause the failure of that effort -- but they did have an effect that aided that failure." Now that seems to be related to what you say the bulk of the true successes of the Comintern were, agitprop and intel ops. Which is why I said that that all this internet, people movement stuff isn't anything new, that is has been done for forever. Where did "actual military successes" come from?

Can we afford them? As even you go on to note, most are still in a state of flux and that periphery affects us significantly (among many other things like Afghanistan, see TSA and the costs of added 'security' to our economy...)

I would answer, can we afford not to keep them on the periphery? That cost of keeping them on the periphery is significant but not fatal, or even close to fatal. The costs of letting them get close would I judge be far greater.

TSA is not on the periphery. It is security theatre staged right here.

Uh huh. How we doing on that? Lickety split is rarely the best way to handle threats.

Well, so far we haven't had another 9-11. That may change in the next 5 minutes, but up to now it has worked out pretty good in that respect.

Picture Joe wearing 90 pounds of stuff leaving his air conditioned billet in an air conditioned MRAP after a breakfast of SOS and Eggs in the air conditioned DFAC and then picture his Afghan opponent with maybe 20 pounds of stuff and a rice ball for breakfast. No freon. Who's going to be the most agile...

Picture a US intel Analyst who picks up a good intercept and tries to get some action on it but the Chain of Command has other priorities - versus his Afghan counterpart who has no chain, just a direct boss. Who's going to be the most agile.

What does that have to do with the comment that prompted it? What does this have to do with strategy of maintaining a far perimeter? It has a lot to do with a less than proficient military though.

Same old story -- don't fight the other guy on his turf using his rules...

Beats the hell out of fighting him on our turf, which is the whole point of maintaining the far perimeter.

[Ken White]

Where did "actual military successes" come from?

Here:"The far perimeter in my view is still important because the things that move and apply real power are still the physical things, the ships and organized bodies of men."

I would answer, can we afford not to keep them on the periphery? That cost of keeping them on the periphery is significant but not fatal, or even close to fatal. The costs of letting them get close would I judge be far greater.

Perhaps. Much depends on who 'they' are -- and how we respond to them. As I keep unsuccessfully trying to show, the situation and the 'rules' have changed. You don't appear to think so, I do so we're unlikely to agree and that's okay.

TSA is not on the periphery. It is security theatre staged right here.

Obviously. It's also quite expensive security theater in more ways than the cost of the service. The impact on US productivity is real and as unnecessary as is periphery theater. That's not a slam; there's a place for periphery line holding but as a general rule, the result is not worth the expense. One size fits all seldom is effective be it airport screening or line monitoring / holding.

Well, so far we haven't had another 9-11. That may change in the next 5 minutes, but up to now it has worked out pretty good in that respect.

We'll never know how other options might have accomplished the same thing...

What does that have to do with the comment that prompted it? What does this have to do with strategy of maintaining a far perimeter? It has a lot to do with a less than proficient military though.

Can't believe you missed the connection. It has to with just that, the proficiency thing -- but not just the military, that too -- rather the entire spectrum of action and responses. Our total government lack of flexibility and more importantly our self imposed restraints will be consistently out run or circumvented by those who are more adept and less concerned with rules.

Beats the hell out of fighting him on our turf, which is the whole point of maintaining the far perimeter.

Or we could lure him to turf or time of our choosing where our rules work not to his advantage but to ours...

[carl]

I still don't understand how military success got in there since I contend that movement of people and internet is nothing new and nothing more than networks of agents controlled from outside if that. They really aren't that important and don't mean much militarily. I used Comintern as an example of how effective networks existed in the past. They you said the Comintern had virtually nil military success. I'll buy that. What has military success are military forces normally, not twitter enabled enthusiasts.

I still don't understand what TSA airport security theatre has to do with keeping trouble far out on the periphery.

We will never know if things other than what we did overseas post 9-11 would have worked better. But still we know what we did has worked so far.

I did and still miss the connection. My original comment was a banal observation that there is always competition between them and us relative to capabilities and speed of application. You responded with examples of ineptitude. There would be a connection if we were by nature incapable of competing. I don't buy that. Where we are showing deficiencies we should identify and fix them, not throw up our hands and say, we just can't.

What are these rules you mention that we are concerned with and they are not?

Luring the enemy to our turf sounds great but there is the how are we going to do that problem combined with we are seeking mostly to maintain a status quo and they want to change things. That gives them the initiative, unless we go out to where they are, the periphery, and keep them occupied. That is taking the big picture initiative away from them I think.

[Ken White]

on most all of that...