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United States is entering an era of reluctant imperialism. That
era will be neither a clash of civilizations nor the end of history,
but will contain elements of both. The new American imperialism
forces us out of a strictly realist posture, in which we nurture
our own democracy while trying to achieve a stable balance of forces
among our not always democratic civilizational counterparts. Instead,
as military success grants us greater control over portions of the
non-Western world, we will undertake experiments in democratization.
Those experiments in democratization will encounter cultural limits,
both at home and abroad, forcing a partial reversion to realism.
The challenge of an era of reluctant imperialism will be to find
the proper balance between active democratization and realist prudence.
Given overwhelming
support for this war and for the president, it may seem odd to call
our coming imperialism "reluctant." Yet the swift and
nearly cost-free success of the war in Afghanistan obscures two
post-war problems of fundamental importance — our culture,
and theirs. The problem in our culture is our reluctance to take
casualties and make sacrifices in the service of "nation-building."
The problem in their culture is the lack of fit between many non-Western
societies — particularly Muslim societies — and democracy.
Since the collapse
of communism, America has been the dominant power in the world.
Nonetheless — and notwithstanding the claims of the Left to
the contrary — we have not been imperialists in any conventional
sense. Our refusal to "finish the job," by ousting Saddam
Hussein after the Persian Gulf War, and our "abandonment"
of Afghanistan after the retreat of the Soviets, reflect America's
reluctance to take on an imperial role. Yet now that we have conquered
Afghanistan and are about to conquer Iraq (and maybe other countries
as well), we will be forced to confront the cultural complications,
both at home and abroad.
Concerns about
taking casualties have kept the American presence in Afghanistan
small, inhibiting our efforts to root out the leadership of al Qaeda.
Major questions remain about the size of the post-war peacekeeping
force (which, out of concern for casualties, America has declined
to join), about the nature of the emerging Afghan government, and
about the problem of consolidating that government's power over
local warlords and across the different ethnic groups. All of these
problems will emerge again in Iraq after we have conquered it.
This is not
to counsel passivity or doom. We can and must win a broad-based
war against terrorism and rogue states. That war has only just begun.
The question is not whether we can or should win such a war, but
what happens after we do. In the wake of victory, reluctant imperialism
will emerge — both as a problem, and as wise policy.
The ultimate
reluctant imperialist is George Bush, who disavowed any interest
in nation building during the campaign, yet is prosecuting a war
that will force us to reconstitute not a few governments in culturally
alien lands. The president rightly refuses to stand idly by while
terrorists and hostile nations prepare to use weapons of mass destruction
against the United States. But that does not mean the president's
concerns about nation-building have altogether disappeared. On the
contrary, as noted, the administration's post-war policy in Afghanistan
has already been inhibited by worries over casualties.
The advance
and spread of technology has both forced us into imperialism and
temporarily obscured the nature of our new imperial dilemma. The
technology of mass destruction, and the turning of even "conventional"
technology into an agent of mass murder, are forcing America to
impose itself upon the world with surprising thoroughness. The British
were able to rule Afghanistan indirectly. If we're lucky, we may
be able to do the same. But the British did not have to contend
with the possibility that a few rogue Afghans might blow up London.
The new situation means that we may now require not only a fully
cooperative Afghan government, but an historically rare extension
of that government's power to the point where the local warlords
are defanged — something we may not be able to accomplish without
a serious ongoing Western military presence, perhaps including casualties.
Technological
advance, in the form of pilotless drones and laser-guided bombs,
has kept the new imperialism painless and successful so far. But
that technological success has also obscured the coming test. The
problem is less a war against Iraq, in which casualties will be
expected and accepted, than it is long-term de facto American rule
in the Muslim world, where persistent problems could strain the
unity and resolve of the American public.
Quite possibly,
these problems can be avoided through the installation of stable
and friendly Middle Eastern governments that can act as proxy police
against a resurgence of terrorism. But a great deal turns on just
how successful our "nation building" will be. It's not
hard to imagine a scenario in which growing reaction against America
and its proxies in the Muslim world and elsewhere forces the United
States itself into continued international police action or war.
Will we see model governments installed in Muslim lands, the growth
of civil society, and eventual American withdrawal after the establishment
of democratic bastions in the Middle East? Or will we, like the
Israelis, be forced to deal with a series of anti-American "intifadahs?"
Somewhere between those two scenarios is where the era of reluctant
imperialism will play out.
We like to
think that America has already been put to the test by this war
and proven itself though a restored spirit of patriotism and willingness
to sacrifice. But no such test yet has taken place. It's still difficult
to say exactly what the current renewal of American patriotism means
— to figure the extent to which it is the fashion of the moment,
or a true return to the something like the spirit of the generation
of the Second World War. During that war, men took it for granted
that they would serve, and maybe die. Today, we wonder whether significant
casualties in even in an all-volunteer force will be acceptable
to Americans — especially in the post-war peacekeeping phase.
Some believe
that the war itself will suffice to regenerate the spirit of patriotism
and sacrifice that was lost in the sixties. But the cultural changes
of the sixties cannot be explained simply, or even mostly, by post-war
demobilization and prosperity. What really changed after World War
II was the way we lived. The decline of small towns and the breakup
of tightly knit ethnic neighborhoods in cities gave way to expanding
suburbs and impersonal urban apartment complexes. The heightened
cultural individualism that followed is rooted in these changes
in the structure of our lives, and not only in the presence or absence
of war or a national enemy.
Sixties individualism
disguises a deeper yearning for some grand collective enterprise.
That, in fact, is the secret of the leftward turn in the liberalism
of recent decades. As I argued in "The
Church of the Left," the need to enroll in a mass crusade
for liberty is what drives the Left to exaggerate oppression —
or imagine oppression where it does not exist. Without some grand
and fundamental threat to liberty or equality against which to crusade,
the tedium of "bourgeois" life threatens to reassert itself.
It's true that
the Left's crusades against imaginary dangers cannot survive undiminished
in the face of a genuine threat to the nation's life and liberty
from a foreign foe. The war will definitely suck out a good deal
of the air that the Left depends upon to fuel its P.C. fire. But
the crusading spirit of the sixties and its aftermath was never
particularly serious to begin with. Commitments were generally more
a question of display than of sacrifice. That is why even a replacement
of the bogus crusades of the P.C. Left by a genuine battle for American
survival and democracy may not be able to sustain itself under pressure,
if the post-war going gets tough. The American ethic of collective
sacrifice has been undermined by the new conditions of our lives
in a way that the war may only partially regenerate.
And even the
traditional American spirit of democracy is divided on the question
of our role in the world. We want to spread democracy, yet our democratic
ethos resists imposing our ways upon others. The problem is that
the technology of terrorism and mass destruction now gives us little
choice but to literally become the world's policeman.
So one side
of America's reluctant imperialism — our low tolerance for
casualties and our general distaste for the imperial role —
presents a potentially serious long-term problem in the new international
environment. But in another sense, America's imperial reluctance
may not be an entirely bad thing. That's because of problems with
"their" culture, not ours.
Americans are
generally overly optimistic about the appeal of our democratic system
and culture to the rest of the world. The American way does in fact
have a powerful international appeal, in no small part because,
to a much lesser extent than we have experienced here in the West,
traditional social networks throughout the world are loosening up
giving way to greater individualism. But to say the least, those
changes have been only partial and intermittent. The persistence
of kinship structures and other traditional forms of local political
organization around the world continues to place significant barriers
in the way of democratization.
We are therefore
caught in a bit of a trap. The advent of techno-terrorism and weapons
of mass destruction means that we haven't the luxury of leaving
the non-Western world alone. Islamic fundamentalism cannot be allowed
to flourish while we wait for a long-term transformation of the
Muslim world, lest we all be killed in the meantime. That means
some sort of effort at democratization of the Muslim world by a
de facto American imperial power will inevitably be made.
It just might
work, too. The pressure of the war itself — the sobering effect
of defeat on the Muslim world — could conceivably create enough
space for a democratic experiment to succeed in one of the newly
conquered Muslim states, or perhaps in Iran after an anti-fundamentalist
revolution. But given the profound social and cultural barriers
to modernization in the Middle East, it's equally possible that
our experiments in democratization will fall flat, leaving us mired
in a Middle Eastern mess. And unlike Vietnam, the ongoing threat
of terrorism will make it impossible for us to entirely wash our
hands of that mess.
So given the
fact that our survival is literally at stake, and given the fact
that there is no turning back from our expanded involvement in the
world, a little reluctance mixed in with our zeal for democratic
reform might not be such a bad thing. What the post-war world really
holds in store in a complicated series of experiments in "nation
building." Kemalism — the total rejection of tradition
in favor of modernity — isn't going to work. It hasn't even
worked in Turkey, where special historical circumstances allowed
it to be imposed from within. How much less will Kemalism work if
forced on the Muslim world by an imperial America? So whatever we
try will require delicacy, and a willingness to make changes in
light of events.
The war to
date has appeared to teach the opposite lesson. Worries about the
Muslim "street," the tenacity of Afghan fighters, even
the harshness of the Afghan winter, all came to naught in the face
of American power — a power so boosted by technological advance
that it surprised even the hawks. The war party, of which I count
myself a member, is therefore now in full flower. Yet the lesson
of the war so far is misleading. When the guns fall silent and the
lasers are switched off, when the righteous and welcome enthusiasm
of the day gives way to the post-war world, make way (for good and
for ill) for the reluctant imperialist.
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