Is the US running an empire?

[Bob's World]

In a piece I am preparing for work I lay out five points that I am currently labeling as "Strategic Assertions" (open to good ideas for a better heading). The first assertion could probably be informally called "relax and breathe":

1. The U.S. is incredibly secure and stable. No other nation enjoys the strong geo-strategic and geo-political reality enjoyed by the U.S., and this reality is not challenged in any existential way. The U.S. possesses global key terrain, is rich in resources of every nature and secure from invasion. The nature of the U.S populace and construct and evolution of our political systems are uniquely suited to the populace-empowered environment emerging on the back of rapid technological advances. While these advances do empower new challengers difficult for states to control, such control is not necessary to guard our future security. It is critical to the security of the nation to recognize while yes, the U.S. has troops in combat; the U.S. absolutely is not a nation at war. To assert a “war” status for every combat action creates unnecessary strategic risks for our nation and limits far more options than it enables. Freeing senior leaders from the strategic burden of “winning” the current fight empowers them to embrace more effective approaches across the span of domestic and foreign policy designed to secure our vital interests into the future.

More than "running an Empire" the US is working to maintain its national interests as it has come to define them, in a manner it has grown accustomed to applying. As the environment has evolved there have emerged new challengers that are not well addressed by the old tools of statecraft, and that make the degree of certainty we have grown used to in recent years increasingly difficult to sustain at a reasonable cost. This first assertion is to simply offer a reminder that in the big scheme of things we are sitting pretty damn good.

[davidbfpo]

Robert's quest:

In a piece I am preparing for work I lay out five points that I am currently labeling as "Strategic Assertions" (open to good ideas for a better heading).

It seems to be an educational awareness project from the first point.

So my offer of a heading is: Less Shock, More Awe: Know where the USA is.

[AmericanPride]

In a piece I am preparing for work I lay out five points that I am currently labeling as "Strategic Assertions" (open to good ideas for a better heading). The first assertion could probably be informally called "relax and breathe":

1. The U.S. is incredibly secure and stable. No other nation enjoys the strong geo-strategic and geo-political reality enjoyed by the U.S., and this reality is not challenged in any existential way. The U.S. possesses global key terrain, is rich in resources of every nature and secure from invasion. The nature of the U.S populace and construct and evolution of our political systems are uniquely suited to the populace-empowered environment emerging on the back of rapid technological advances. While these advances do empower new challengers difficult for states to control, such control is not necessary to guard our future security. It is critical to the security of the nation to recognize while yes, the U.S. has troops in combat; the U.S. absolutely is not a nation at war. To assert a “war” status for every combat action creates unnecessary strategic risks for our nation and limits far more options than it enables. Freeing senior leaders from the strategic burden of “winning” the current fight empowers them to embrace more effective approaches across the span of domestic and foreign policy designed to secure our vital interests into the future.

More than "running an Empire" the US is working to maintain its national interests as it has come to define them, in a manner it has grown accustomed to applying. As the environment has evolved there have emerged new challengers that are not well addressed by the old tools of statecraft, and that make the degree of certainty we have grown used to in recent years increasingly difficult to sustain at a reasonable cost. This first assertion is to simply offer a reminder that in the big scheme of things we are sitting pretty damn good.

In a strictly national security sense, I would agree with you that the United States is "incredibly secure and stable". But much of this strength does not depend on America's favorable "geo-strategic" position. The United States is also incredibly sick from decaying infrastructure and education, a structurally unsound economy, and declining military capabilities. No single power may currently have the ability to unilaterally challenge the United States politically, economically, or militarily, but unless substantial reforms are made, specifically in the economy and the defense economy, the United States will find itself standing alone. It is my personal belief that a confrontation with China over Taiwan will play out much the same way the 1956 Suez Crisis turned out for the UK. That will be the final end of "empire".

[carl]

Mr. Jones:

I rather like what you wrote.

American Pride:

After Suez, Britain faded away militarily. If Red China took Taiwan, I think John Lehman or his ghost would finally see a 600 ship US Navy.

[Dayuhan]

This is getting into a generic discussion of US foreign policy, and drifting away from the initial question of whether or not the US is an empire. Going back a ways (I've been busy)...

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.

If a term means whatever the person using it wants it to mean, it means nothing at all. We might as well ask whether the US is a zucchini.

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.

I don't necessarily need a dictionary definition, but a discussion of whether or not the US (or anyone) is an empire has to be built around some consensus over what an empire is, or there's nothing to talk about.

I realize that, as Omar points out, in much of the world the idea of an American Empire is simply taken for granted. That perception seems less around any clear idea of what an empire is than around a vague notion of size and power that controls all.

There is a curious human attraction to the idea of what might be called "malevolent design"... the idea that all that happens is planned by some omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force intent on advancing its own designs. For much or the world the "US Empire", usually through some combination of the CIA, the military, The Oil Companies, etc, or all of them working in concert, fills this role. For Americans it's more likely to be The Bankers, or the Global Financial Elite.

Of course none of these theories hold up to serious scrutiny, but it doesn't matter: people believe them anyway. Somehow the belief is more comforting that a chaotic, undesigned and generally blundering reality.

It might approach accuracy to say that while the US is not an empire by any accepted or reasonably arguable definition of empire, the perception of imperial presence and design is widespread and does affect people's decisions and actions, and therefore must be taken into account. Since that perception will prevail no matter what the US says or does, there's little point in trying to reverse it, but its impact on reactions and decisions must be taken into account in planning.

[Dayuhan]

The whole topic of the US, China, and Taiwan runs way off the topic of the thread and might deserve one of its own. There's probably already one out there.

[Fuchs]

What "economic" threat" can the PRC bring to bear on the US that will not have as great or greater adverse impact on them?

# To not increase the value of the Renminbi.

# To spend a couple hundred billion USD on buying control of key U.S. companies (with shares in supposedly scattered ownership), and let them move HQ and factories (if any of the latter are still in the U.S.).

# To undermine the lead currency role of the USD with strategies based on PRC buying power and currency reserves, thus degrading the U.S.'s ability to print money without severe inflation effects.

# To stop rare earths exports or keep them small.

# To aim at key U.S. industry sectors with camouflaged subsidies for competing PRC industries., in order to push them over the cliff during the next crisis.

# To aim at U.S. companies of medium size but great importance with bank credits, withdrawing the credits in the worst possible moment in order to break the companies.

# To make U.S. companies (say, car makers) dependent on PRC and PRC-controlled suppliers in a few bottlenecks and then cut off the supply in order to break those companies.

# To lure U.S. government and corporations into deals which will then be cancelled according to PRC plan; meant to steal two to three years from U.S. strategies (having hoped for pay-off from the deal and then needing to find a substitute after wasting years).

[carl]

Fuchs:

Most of those seem a little far fetched or would require us to sit by idly while our pockets get picked. Buy up companies and move them to China?!

As far as rare earths go, they aren't very rare. The only reason the Chinese dominate that market is they don't bother much with environmental protection and can mine them cheaper. If they started to squeeze, all the old mines would open up again and there goes their leverage.

[Bob's World]

"Control" and "how do we relinquish what we do not have."

A fair question that a peer at work often asks as well for slightly different reasons. Much of this debate comes down to differences of definition and shades of meaning I suspect.

After all, how many of those in any walk of life who rely heavily on controlling measures are truly in control of anything? In fact, one clear sign that a leader is out of control is the degree of his reliance on controlling techniques to accomplish his or her mission. Usually at the root of such approaches are inflated senses of fear, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, or perhaps even an overblown sense of how right one is that anything else is "wrong" so therefore one is helping others by "sharing" this goodness with them.

For me the primary difference between "control" and "influence" is not in the degree of actual ownership one has on what occurs, but rather in how narrowly one defines desired outcomes and acceptable approaches to achieve the same.

As an example, in 1945 the US committed itself to preserve Ibn Saud and his family in power over the Arabian Peninsula. Now, the Saudis got to power on their own (ok, with significant British and Wahabist power leveraged artfully to that purpose), and have largely stayed there on their own (equally artfully leveraging US and Wahabist power). These are guys who understand power and who are not shy about doing whatever needs to be done to sustain it. Even striking such a deal as the one Ibn struck with FDR there on the deck of the Quincy. Certainly the U.S. does not "control" this in the purest sense of the word. The Saudi family absolutely has free will and many could make strong arguments that in many ways and instances it is they who have exercised excessive control over the U.S.

But the U.S. has defined a specific outcome (Rule by the Saudi family) and has dedicated itself to preserving that outcome. It is not the Royals who are under our control by this approach, rather it is the people of Arabia who have lost control of their governmental process through this approach. As I have mentioned before on this site, insurgency does not happen when the government loses control of the people, insurgency happens when the people perceive that they have lost control of the government. US foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia robs the populace of that region of such control. This is a reality fully appreciated by the populace there, and this is a reality fully exploited by AQ in their messaging to those citizens of the region most dissatisfied with this state of affairs.

We also act in a controlling way when we play "king-maker" as we did in elevating the Northern Alliance into power in Afghanistan and selecting Mr. Karzai as the leader we felt most apt to support our interests there. It is our desire to preserve this outcome we selected that keeps us pinned to the mat in Afghanistan to this day.

"Influence," on the other hand simply lays out a broad range of acceptable ends, and ways and means to achieve and preserve the same; and then encourages or facilitates as necessary efforts to move in that general direction.

Controlling approaches are never appreciated, but in some rare cases are reasonably justifiable, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons. A problem I see in US foreign policy is that we have come so used to the employment of controlling approaches that we now use it on our "friends" (as exampled most recently in our leveraging of NATO to garner support to our efforts in Afghanistan) and in situations where there really is no need to specify a specific result or approach (Egypt).

So, is it a literal "control" over the thoughts and actions of other governments? No, but no less offensive and dangerous all the same. So, does this mean the U.S. is "running an Empire"? History will be the best lens to judge that through. One thing is more certain, however, and that is that such "empire-lite" or "empire-like" approaches do create a growing point of vulnerablity in the emerging operating environment.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs:

Most of those seem a little far fetched or would require us to sit by idly while our pockets get picked. Buy up companies and move them to China?!

As far as rare earths go, they aren't very rare. The only reason the Chinese dominate that market is they don't bother much with environmental protection and can mine them cheaper. If they started to squeeze, all the old mines would open up again and there goes their leverage.

I looked into the rare earths thing and yes, they are rare. My source was a dedicated document from the German geological office (BGR).
Besides; one year shutdown of rare earth deliveries means the businesses depending on them crash long before some alternative source is ready to fill the gap.

http://www.bgr.bund.de/cln_116/DE/Ge...f/31_erden.pdf

http://www.bgr.bund.de/cln_116/DE/Ge...nikmetalle.pdf


You can buy shares of corporations from a stock exchange, and you can do so using many agents and many accounts. It's possible to gain critical influence (25%) or control (50%) of many corporations this way, for the possession of their shares is often scattered. Add one or two minor purchases (5-15%) and you've succeeded without NSA et al taking notice.

[AmericanPride]

I would address it if I could figure out what it was.

I stated it in very plain in English in Post #54.

[Fuchs]

About the thread's supposed topic:

Nowadays I wouldn't say the U.S. is running or trying to build an empire.

There's just 'something' that makes U.S. politicians and their groupies very interested in getting involved in and designing foreign places. You may call this thing missionary drive, think tank dynamics, bureaucratic dynamics (especially USN-related), boredom, distraction from domestic failures and much else, but it's distinct from actually running an empire.

This interest in foreign troubles looks on the surface paradoxical in light of the world-famous shortcomings in regard to geography and foreign culture awareness.


Long story short; I don't think that this special interest in foreign troubles serves the country well.

[carl]

carl: My use of 1956 Suez Crisis is not to illustrate the military impotence of a declining imperial power. Instead, its important to acknowledge that the event (1) demonstrated British acknowledgement of its own decline and (2) illustrated the role of economic and political power in undermining military capabilities.

Ok let's see if I can figure this out.

Point (1). The British had already acknowledged their declining power. They had been pulling out of colonies for years. By doing that they had acknowledged they didn't have the stuff to hang on anymore.

Point (2). Strength of economy and political power help with military power. But you said that it doesn't illustrate the military impotence of declining imperial power. That confuses me.

Point (3). (my point). What you say relies on the premise that the US is in a similar position of weakness and decline as Great Britain was in 1956. I don't accept that premise at all.

And in another place you said NATO didn't have to fire a shot to get Britain and France out of there. But Britain was part of NATO so they never would have fired a shot.

So, no. I still can't figure it out.

[ganulv]

This interest in foreign troubles looks on the surface paradoxical in light of the world-famous shortcomings in regard to geography and foreign culture awareness.

Maybe rather than paradoxical the latter in fact has something to do with the former.*

*And should anyone think it, no, I am not beating up on my country or my countrymen. I, for one, am an American who knows quite a bit about geography and foreign (and domestic!) cultures. And I know plenty of Americans who know more about the two than do I. I am not convinced that many of those pulling the policy strings even care to know, however.

[carl]

Ganulv:

Nobody thinks you are beating up on your country or countrymen. Besides if you were and we deserved it, we're the better for it.

[AmericanPride]

Point (1). The British had already acknowledged their declining power. They had been pulling out of colonies for years. By doing that they had acknowledged they didn't have the stuff to hang on anymore.

The Suez adventure is a clear example of an imperial power seeking to assert its authority in the method with which it is most accustomed without acknowledging significant changes in international security dynamics that renders its past practices ineffective. Which leads to point 2...

Point (2). Strength of economy and political power help with military power. But you said that it doesn't illustrate the military impotence of declining imperial power. That confuses me.

The combined forces of Britain, France, and Israel were defeated by economic pressure by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the remainder of the NATO alliance. The importance of overt military power was undone by economic intrigue and political isolation. Britain and France did not recognize this potentiality in the emerging American system as they were conceptually trapped in the age of bald-faced imperial designs. As a result, they were thoroughly surprised, embarrassed, and emasculated.

Point (3). (my point). What you say relies on the premise that the US is in a similar position of weakness and decline as Great Britain was in 1956. I don't accept that premise at all.

The US is in a similar position insofar the international security system is gradually changing and that America's security posture and structure is ill-suited for future threat scenarios. A military confrontation with the PRC over the independence of Taiwan is one such scenario.

The argument is rather straightforward.

[carl]

American Pride:

Ok, I get it now and can see you point as stated following, "The Suez adventure is a clear example of an imperial power seeking to assert its authority in the method with which it is most accustomed without acknowledging significant changes in international security dynamics that renders its past practices ineffective." I would quibble a bit on some of the words but I see it.

I am not too sure it applies. I get the broad point but in Suez all the economic and political power was applied by friends and allies to restrain an ally. That is a difference so great from our situation in the western Pacific as to perhaps negate your point.

The world is changing but I think we do recognize it and are adapting, though slowly. But that is another question.

[davidbfpo]

Moderator's Note

The whole topic of the US, China, and Taiwan runs way off the topic of the thread and might deserve one of its own. There's probably already one out there.

Yes many of the posts here have drifted onto the defence of Taiwan, Republic of China / RoC, but on a quick check there is no existing thread on the subject. I do recall the issue being discussed before and someone posting a comprehensive assessment of the issues (maybe Entropy IIRC).

I shall ponder a new thread and copying the posts here to it.

[Dayuhan]

But the U.S. has defined a specific outcome (Rule by the Saudi family) and has dedicated itself to preserving that outcome. It is not the Royals who are under our control by this approach, rather it is the people of Arabia who have lost control of their governmental process through this approach.

Has the US dedicated itself to preserving rule by the Saud family? How do you know? Certainly the US has and will continue to protect the Saudi family against external aggression, especially from powers perceived as hostile to the US. We don't know if the US would protect the Saud family from domestic dissent, because so far they haven't required any such protection.

In any event an attempt to portray Saudi Arabia or Taiwan as part of an American Empire would be treading on pretty thin ice... again, unless we completely redefine "empire".

About the thread's supposed topic:

Nowadays I wouldn't say the U.S. is running or trying to build an empire.

There's just 'something' that makes U.S. politicians and their groupies very interested in getting involved in and designing foreign places. You may call this thing missionary drive, think tank dynamics, bureaucratic dynamics (especially USN-related), boredom, distraction from domestic failures and much else, but it's distinct from actually running an empire.

This interest in foreign troubles looks on the surface paradoxical in light of the world-famous shortcomings in regard to geography and foreign culture awareness.

Long story short; I don't think that this special interest in foreign troubles serves the country well.

I agree with you for the most part, which might be a historic first.

There are some consistently contradictory streaks in America's engagement with the rest of the world. Americans have a strong isolationist impulse and a strong expansionist impulse, a strong desire to be (and be perceived as) hard-nosed minders of their own interests and an equally strong desire to be (and be seen as) a benevolent force acting for The Greater Good. Oscillation across these spectra is unpredictable and not always rational, which gets messy at times.

I looked into the rare earths thing and yes, they are rare.

Not entirely rare, but not common in commercially exploitable concentrations, which is reasonably close to being the same thing. It's like they only exist in China, though. The US has a major deposit in CA and was a major producer until '94, when the operation was closed due to cheaper and less environmentally contentious imports from China. That operation could of course be restarted. There's a very large deposit in Greenland and significant ones in Australia, Canada, and other locations. The current Chinese near-monopoly has attracted attention and it's not likely to last long.

You can buy shares of corporations from a stock exchange, and you can do so using many agents and many accounts. It's possible to gain critical influence (25%) or control (50%) of many corporations this way, for the possession of their shares is often scattered. Add one or two minor purchases (5-15%) and you've succeeded without NSA et al taking notice.

This would be much easier in theory than in practice.

Overall, the list of economic "threats" doesn't look terribly threatening and would be insufficient to really impact the US or to deter it from any course of action that is was really intent on pursuing.

[davidbfpo]

I follow the logic of citing the Suez adventure or episode within this thread, although I have m' doubts it is a lesson learnt by the USA.

In my limited reading, now years ago on Suez in 1956 I was struck by the political naivety of both France and the UK, notably over "taking on" Arab nationalism as personified by Nasser and the assumption military action would be a strategic success.

A few years ago a BBC radio documentary returned to the issue, probably in 2006 and had a stunning revelation. They interviewed a SAS officer who had accompanied a group of anti-Nasser Egyptian exiles far south of the Anglo-French military advance and the group went onto to a RV with sympathisers inside Egypt prepared to help overthrow Nasser. Slight snag it was all a state security set-up and the exiles were executed.

There are a number of factors at play in using the lessons of Suez for the USA to learn and how does the Bay of Pigs compare for example?