Iraqi Insurgent Media: War of Images and Ideas

[Steve Blair]

Another reason that we may have trouble playing an imperial role is that, at the end of the day and for various reasons, Americans seem to WANT to be liked. There appears to be some sort of basic need for external validation and approval. This is, of course, a sweeping cultural generalization, but I've come to believe that there is some truth in it as well. One could argue that the British at the height of their Imperial power (or the French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and others) really didn't care if anyone liked them or not. There was a basic sense of cultural superiority at work that allowed them to take actions routinely that we would shy away from.

The older imperial powers didn't blend in with local cultures: they modified them to suit their needs. The Raj bore little relation to traditional Indian society at the end of the day. We're torn between wanting to preserve and be liked and wanting to remake things in our own image.

Sweeping generalizations to be sure, but as I said before I think there's enough truth in them to validate them on a loose conceptual level. The US really became imperial by default, not necessarily by design. And it shows.

[SteveMetz]

Another reason that we may have trouble playing an imperial role is that, at the end of the day and for various reasons, Americans seem to WANT to be liked. There appears to be some sort of basic need for external validation and approval. This is, of course, a sweeping cultural generalization, but I've come to believe that there is some truth in it as well. One could argue that the British at the height of their Imperial power (or the French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and others) really didn't care if anyone liked them or not. There was a basic sense of cultural superiority at work that allowed them to take actions routinely that we would shy away from.

The older imperial powers didn't blend in with local cultures: they modified them to suit their needs. The Raj bore little relation to traditional Indian society at the end of the day. We're torn between wanting to preserve and be liked and wanting to remake things in our own image.

Sweeping generalizations to be sure, but as I said before I think there's enough truth in them to validate them on a loose conceptual level. The US really became imperial by default, not necessarily by design. And it shows.

We're thinking alike. Here's the introductory section of a paper I wrote for the Stanley Foundation a few months ago:

Because so few Americans alive today remember a time when their nation was not a great power, it is easy to forget just how limited our experience is. And how peculiar. During most of the time that the United States exercised global leadership, we and our partners faced an evil and aggressive opponent. Even when America was clumsy and heavy-handed, the alternative was worse. Our partners—who depended on us for their security--tolerated much. This, we Americans came to believe, was the natural state of affairs.

Throughout history most great powers cared little what others thought of them. Like Machiavelli's prince, they concluded that "one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be in wanting." Americans, though, clung to the notion that we can be both feared and loved. What our partners think of us matters greatly. This insecurity—the need for open affirmation of the rightness of our policies—grows from our tradition of open governance. We simply do not breed (or, at least, empower) leaders so convinced of the validity of their own positions that they are willing to ignore deep opposition. A policy or position which provokes widespread disapproval, we believe, is probably misguided. Domestically, this is a worthy trait, helping sustain democracy. Internationally, though, the need for affirmation renders us dependent on the approval of others and susceptible to angst-ridden hesitation. We lack the egotistic self-confidence that characterizes the great imperial powers of the past. This does not automatically exclude us from global leadership. But it means that we must exercise a specific type of leadership based on cooperation with partners. As with any collaborative endeavor, this can be difficult, requiring regular compromise and a sustained effort to coordinate priorities and objectives.

Somehow, though, we forgot this, believing that the deference which characterized the Cold War and even the years after the demise of the Soviet Union reflected a permanent change in the world. We could be both feared and loved. The U.S. military embraced this notion. Allowing the armed forces to atrophy when a major threat was defeated was an American tradition, continued even after World War II. American military power was like the mythical phoenix bird, repeatedly dying in flames then being reborn from the ashes. But our defense leaders were determined to break this pattern after the Cold War. They quickly found a concept to serve as the locomotive for sustaining American military strength: the "revolution in military affairs." This idea had two components. One was the belief that absence of a major global threat following the demise of the Soviet Union was not a rationale for demobilization, but was a result of American military strength. Second was the conclusion that the nature of armed conflict was undergoing an historic and revolutionary change. By capitalizing on this, the United States could sustain its military dominance which it would, in turn, use to promote "world order."

Events certainly validated the operational beliefs of the revolutionary theorists (even if they were not so kind to the underlying strategic assumptions). The 1991 Gulf War showed that an array of military reforms and acquisitions undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s, which included the extensive integration of new technology, had paid immense benefits. The U.S. military seemed capable of lightening victories over tough opponents with a minimal blood cost, minimizing the chances that the public would turn against a military engagement before it was successful—a vitally important factor for sustaining support for a strong military in the absence of a peer enemy. By the late 1990s, the Department of Defense was committed to a full scale "transformation" in order to capitalize on the revolution in military affairs and sustain American military preponderance. But strangely, there was almost no consideration from either the uniformed military or civilian policymakers that this might be intimidating to other states. Americans took it as an article of faith that they only used force to counter aggression, hence only aggressors had cause to fear their military power.

The election of George W. Bush in 2000 signaled a change in American strategic culture. Influenced by a group of thinkers often labeled "neoconservatives," President Bush had little need (or want) for approval from other states. A nation as powerful as the United States, he and the neoconservatives who helped shape his ideas believed, should be unconcerned with the perceptions and wishes of lesser powers as it pursues its national interests. The need for affirmation was a quaint peccadillo of an inexperienced power, something which could be transcended through strong, confident political leadership. And they concluded, the deference to American power which characterized the Cold War was normal and sustainable, not a product of a specific set of conditions.

During the initial months of the Bush administration, it appeared that China might justify a more aggressive statecraft and an increase in military spending. Then al Qaeda, a terrorist movement little known outside the circles of national security specialists up to that point, volunteered for the role of bete noir. While the American public initially accepted the idea that the United States was at war—increasingly with Islamic extremism writ large rather than simply al Qaeda--and that the war on terrorism was the functional equivalent of the Cold War, there was more skepticism of this construct among America's partners, particularly after the Taliban government was replaced in Afghanistan and al Qaeda's infrastructure there broken up. Deference to the United States was more fragile than it had ever been. Then the 2003 intervention in Iraq shattered it. To the publics and leadership of many other nations, Iraq demonstrated that the United States was willing to use the war on terrorism to justify policies which, in their eyes, had little to do with defeating al Qaeda. At the extreme, they came to believe that President Bush's expansive notion of the war on terrorism was simply a trojan horse for American aggression and imperialism. While Americans clung to the idea that their power was benign, fewer and fewer non-Americans saw it that way.

Most policymakers, military leaders, and opinion shapers concluded that this was simply a problem of "strategic communications." If we can better explain ourselves, the idea goes, other nations will recognize that our power is no threat and that we act in the collective interests of all peace-loving nations. Thus these nations should again accede to our leadership, adopt our notion of the war on terrorism, and do their part to prosecute it. This is an appealing idea, but it is fantasy. Our challenge is not miscommunication but the obsolescence of the mode of leadership we have grown accustomed to.

We now have two options. One is simply to continue along the current path, accepting a long term decline in our influence and global role, sustaining partnerships only with other states who see the world as we do. The other might be called "cooperative leadership." In this, the United States would use its power, both hard and soft, to bolster regional security arrangements and solutions largely defined by the states in a region. We would exercise peer rather than hierarchical leadership in most regions of the world. We would reach agreement with partners on the extent and nature of the threat and the appropriate response rather than simply dictating to them. This would be more than just a change of style. A grand strategy of collective leadership would also require adjustments to American military strategy and posture. This essay will suggest what these might entail.