The American Empire

Attaturk has been to many lands, mostly in the developed world, where Democracy is shared, but religious zealotry has burned out. It is also there that men who refer to themselves in the third person are held in high renown.

That first paragraph was brought to you by the "write like Tolkein" society.

American liberals, progressives, conservatives, moderates, etc. you live in an imperial state. Like it or not, believe it or not, that is the case.

It is not an empire in the way that the 19th Century Empires were established through the miracle of metal and gunpowder.

It is more in line with the Renaissance Empires of Italy, a confederation with a predominant economic state. The United States is the hub of the most powerful economic confederation in history, a confederation that is at both its economic and military height, but also sowing the seeds of its own destruction through the efforts of the Bush Administration.

Who are the members of this Imperial Confederation?

-- The United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and most other European Countries, Japan.

All the rich countries of the world.

Those nations all join forces with us in a balance of power world, where the balance is maintaining the world's wealth (i.e. their wealth) even allowing the other poor states to succeed can happen, as long as the joined confederates maintain their place at the top of the heap.

If you live in America you hear little about any other country. A bit about Iraq (but we are at war there), a bit about the U.K., a chunk about Israel, a smidgen occasionally on Germany, Japan, France or Russia. In the United States, for whatever reason -- perhaps because we are at the top of the heap -- we care little for what goes on outside our borders.

How many Americans can name more the 10 World leaders? Go ahead and try this at home with your spouse -- "that fat guy from Israel" is NOT a proper answer, nor is "the Pope" (he has a name).

You might get a Tony Blair, an Arafat, a Putin or a Mandela. However, how many can even make it more than half-way to ten?

We are willfully stupid in a manner only the nation at the top of the heap can be.

Go to the France, Italy or the UK, however and you will find a different dynamic. Not only do those nations know their own leaders (at least 10% of Americans don't know who "Go Fuck Yourself" is); they also know Americas. They know who Bush is, Clinton, Powell, Rummy, they even know who John Kerry is.

...Quick, name the prominent opposition leaders in the U.K. or Germany?

It is not really because the people of those nations are necessarily harder working or brighter than us, it is that they have a reason to know who we are and who their neighbors are...they have to get along, we don't. We rule, we kick ass, etc. So disproportionately powerful are we that we don't need to know these things. However, they do.

In the "Real School" of International politics, such as I belong to, being on top is great to some extent. We get to have the biggest say. As long as this power is used responsibly, it is in the interest of our confederates to cooperate. But if the power is used irrationally or against the will of the majority of confederates, the system becomes more dangerous, conflict more difficult.

What is the goal of International Politics when you are at the Top?

Easy -- to stay that way -- to maintain the current political structure as stable as possible.

The easiest way to do that is to keep your confederates satisfied.

Not a one of our traditional allies had a problem with the United States going into Afghanistan, just as there was no real dispute over the first Gulf War. In the former Afghanistan was a lawless state. A nation essentially subordinated to a terrorist group that struck most famously against the United States, but also a group which posed an obvious threat in Europe and throughout the Middle East. No one begrudged America's actions in 2001, 2002 in Afghanistan.

Nor did anyone begrudge 1991's first Gulf War, a war that came about because Iraq violated the most fundamental precept of international politics, the violation of another nation's sovereignty in a war of annexation. The first post-cold war war was built upon concepts of international relations that were older than Hugo Grotius.

Likewise, the action in the mid-to-late 1990s in the former Yugoslavia was primarily a cooperative action because of the threat of destabilization of the European continent. Historically, war in the Balkans had really bad historical connotations.

So three wars, three instances of allied cooperation.

Which brings us to the invasion of Iraq.

When the United States went into Vietnam, it too violated the maxim that it should not upset the balance of power. Indochina served no vital national interest. Whether or not the Vietcong prevailed in that locale would not, and did not, have any effect on the relationship between the United States and Russia. All it did is cost America 57,000 boys, civil strife, and ultimately a massive deficit that killed the greatest social undertaking in the nation's history [it likely cost us, for example, universal health care coverage]. It made no difference at all in the Cold War. But such were the dynamics of the bi-polar world of the Cold War that such a war was not going to drive our allies into the arms of the Soviets. It might bring down an Italian Government here and there, but they were not going to join the Warsaw Pact.

With the effort to go into Iraq, to invade it, without sufficient evidence of an imminent threat, the United States not only violated the oldest rule of International Law, it caused a major split in this confederation. Can it be healed? Most likely, but it will heal more certainly and better without the one individual that needlessly harmed it, George W. Bush.

We need a new Imperial leader.