Bush and Imperialism

I would strongly recommend John Judis' American Prospect article on Iraq as Bush's neoimperialist war. It's an important point, not so much because we need an abusive term to throw at the policy, but because it's important to place the failures of Bush's policies in a broader historical context of failure. The specific questions the United States faces are new, but the broader debate about the viability of a foreign policy centered on assymetrical sovereignty and the coercive domination of smaller countries isn't. It hasn't worked in the past, it's not working today, and most signs are that technological progress is making it harder and harder to act in this way even though America's military might is unrivaled.

John developed these things at greater length in his book, The Folly of Empire which also gets into the ways in which Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson eventually came to learn from the pitfalls of the imperialist ventures they'd once supported and started grasping toward something resembling contemporary liberal internationalism, an approach to world affairs centered on international law and legitimacy with major powers working through stable, rule-governed institutions.

Comments

" ... an approach to world affairs centered on international law and legitimacy with major powers working through stable, rule-governed institutions."

Whadya some kinda Commie?

Posted by DCBob | October 29, 2007 5:43 PM

1) Given that Woodrow Wilson was directly responsible for one of the worse disasters of the 20th century-- the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis -- I think any citation of his actions is more like to DISCREDIT a thesis rather than lend it support.

2) Wilson was good at shooting off his mouth --but his failure to exert a strong hand at Versailles and deliver on the assurances he made to Germany and others spawned the hatred and fury that the Nazis exploited to rise to power.

3) Losing a war is always difficult -- but seeing your country destroyed because you naively believed the soothing promises and high minded principles of a lying shithead is particularly hard to swallow.

4) Woodrow Wilson, of course, established the policy whereby Democratic leaders bring disaster down upon the United States by corrupt whoring for wealthy patrons of the Israel Lobby.

One Britain issued the Balfour Declaration --creating Israel -- Frankfurter, Brandeis , the New York Times and the rest of the American Zionists easily twisted Woodrow's arm.

Posted by Don Williams | October 29, 2007 5:50 PM

The neocon/neocols began with the premise that the failure of colonialism in Vietnam was attributable to an opposing super power. No USSR, no problem for colonizing.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. We lost there because we were "round eyes," not the home team, not even from around here.

Posted by Footloose | October 29, 2007 5:56 PM

"...contemporary liberal internationalism, an approach to world affairs centered on international law and legitimacy with major powers working through stable, rule-governed institutions."

You mean like the kind that brought us Rwanda?

Posted by Jeff | October 29, 2007 6:29 PM

Don, I think one of the crucial things to remember is that Wilson was, arguably, the most racist president we've ever had. It was under his watch that we experienced the worst race relations postbellum. Meanwhile, he was a source for Birth of a Nation, and his wife told darkie jokes in cabinet meetings.

The system he helped design for Germany would have worked, had the British and French publics remained as bloodthirsty as they were in 1918/9.

Wilson's greater mistakes were launching a provocative and useless invasion of Russia (the only time in history anyone has ever tried to invade the country from Vladivostok and MURMANSK for godsake), that caused the Soviets to distrust us for the rest of their existence (Reagan was apparently shocked to learn that the Sovs really thought us capable of a Pearl Harbor; hence his comment that the US does not do Pearl Harbors).

His other massive mistake was that his racism blinded him from doing anything about the ALLIES, particularly regarding the pleas of a French waiter and student who would later inflict the first real defeat on the United States. Furthermore, Wilson's treatment of the Japanese at Versailles, where he treated them worse than he treated his defeated enemies, caused the Japanese to come out of the First World War smarting from slights real and imagined. Unfortunately, the Japanese *do* do Pearl Harbors.

Frankly, the reason neocons are so stupid for bringing up Munich at every occasion is that the situation in 1938 actually *could* have been defused had the French and British done what they said they would do back in 1919. That is to say, full mobilization, attack Germany's defence-less western border, and starve the Reich via blockade.

What Hitler understood, touring the abandoned defences of the Sudetenland, and his generals and Bush did not, is that it is not the guns that matter, but the men behind them. (Of course, he was too blinded by ideology and racism to apply the same standards to the Soviets). Which is why imperial occupations falter in the face of fanatical local resistance.

Posted by Greg | October 29, 2007 7:09 PM

And Matt, coming out of the place where Kissinger expounded on realpolitik, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking liberal internationalism has had many successes.

Or are Srebrenica and Rwanda now to be considered successes?

Luck, and then the Trident II, and the SS-18 kept the peace after Second World War.

A vigilant Royal Navy and an alert French Army should have kept the peace after the first one.

Posted by Greg | October 29, 2007 7:16 PM

"One Britain issued the Balfour Declaration --creating Israel -- Frankfurter, Brandeis , the New York Times and the rest of the American Zionists easily twisted Woodrow's arm."

The Balfour Declaration 'created Israel'? REALLY? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING.

Posted by Rickm | October 29, 2007 7:17 PM

One Britain issued the Balfour Declaration --creating Israel -- Frankfurter, Brandeis , the New York Times and the rest of the American Zionists easily twisted Woodrow's arm."

The Balfour Declaration 'created Israel'? REALLY? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SAYING.

Posted by Rickm | October 29, 2007 7:17 PM

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Guess I didn't quite understand that one either. I suppose the straightest line (if at all) you can draw between Wilson and Israel is that he accepted the British Mandate for Palestine. But it was a long way from there to 1947

Posted by Campesino | October 29, 2007 7:37 PM

an approach to world affairs centered on international law and legitimacy with major powers working through stable, rule-governed institutions.
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Do you really want to square all of the inequities of the Versailles Treaty with this wonderful reliance on "international law and stable, rule-governed institutions"?

Posted by Campesino | October 29, 2007 7:41 PM

Wilson's greater mistakes were launching a provocative and useless invasion of Russia (the only time in history anyone has ever tried to invade the country from Vladivostok and MURMANSK for godsake), that caused the Soviets to distrust us for the rest of their existence
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Well, looking at all the millions of deaths and untold misery caused by the USSR - wouldn't Russia have been better off if Churchill, Wilson, and Clemenceau had succeeded in strangling Bolshevism in its cradle?

Posted by Campesino | October 29, 2007 7:45 PM

I also highly recommend Barbara Tuchman's, March of Folly.

Posted by Cinderella Ferret | October 29, 2007 9:05 PM

You mean like the kind that brought us Rwanda?

Yes. If the worst that happens is a Rwanda type horror once a decade or so the world will still be a vastly better place than it has been throughout all of recorded history. Right now, in addition to the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Iraq, we have a genocide in Sudan (along with a border war with Ethiopia), a major insurgency in Afghanistan, border conflict between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, a low level civil war in Lebanon, an insurgency in Sri Lanka, another in Uganda, and no doubt others I've overlooked. Zimbabwe is on the brink of collapse, which will most likely involve internicine warfare when it finally comes, Pakistan is teetering on the brink, and Burma just had a major military crackdown killing thousands.

The horror of mass killing isn't some weird anomaly - it's almost routine. An international order that manages to at least minimize it would be a very good thing indeed, and those who point out that it's not perfect are either disingenuous or deluded about what is possible. Once we have things sufficiently under control that there is only one brutal horror happening at any given time we can extend whatever got us to that point and try to hit zero. Until then, anything that moves us in the right direction is a good thing.

Posted by togolosh | October 29, 2007 9:30 PM

Well, looking at all the millions of deaths and untold misery caused by the USSR - wouldn't Russia have been better off if Churchill, Wilson, and Clemenceau had succeeded in strangling Bolshevism in its cradle?

Well, actually, if the Americans had joined Wellington's boys in Spain, we could have nipped the whole revolutionary fad back where it really started. Think of all the victims of Napoleon we could have saved with a little common sense!

Posted by sglover | October 29, 2007 10:03 PM

*cough*

Woodrow Wilson believed in the joke that was the League of Nations, and would have backed the joke that is the UN. Stable international institutions work amongst nations that have common interests - not so much with ones that don't.

The problems between Israel and the Arab states will not be solved by the UN, to take one modern example.

Posted by James Robertson | October 29, 2007 10:25 PM

failure to exert a strong hand at Versailles and deliver on the assurances he made to Germany and others

wouldn't Russia have been better off if Churchill, Wilson, and Clemenceau had succeeded in strangling Bolshevism in its cradle?

Green Lantern history. The US was not the senior partner among the WW I Allies. In the aftermath of the bloodiest war in history, the Allies did not have the military or economic werewithal for a war in Russia. No amount of steely-eyed resolve on the part of Wilson, or anyone else, would have made a difference.

Posted by rea | October 29, 2007 10:25 PM

"The problems between Israel and the Arab states will not be solved by the UN, to take one modern example."

The UN is not a building in New York. It is supposedly, at least in the Security Council, several major nations with ninety-nine percent of the industrial, economic, and military strength on the planet.

So the issue is whether those nations can agree on resolving the Palestinian issue and how.

The problem is that ONE such nation - the US - is so deeply ass-raped by Israel that it can't do anything but kowtow, supposedly because that means we get the oil once Israel dominates the ME.

So Robertson is correct about that - the UN doesn't work when one state undermines the rest.

This is the sole problem for the UN - how to cut the US out of the picture. Unfortunately it can't be done by the UN and the Security Council members procedurally.

So Iran will do it for them.

Once Iran rips the US a new one over the next ten years, and Hizballah and Syria rip Israel a new one (with some assistance from Iran) over the next couple years, the ME will look a lot different.

At that point, both the US and Israel will no longer have a leg to stand on - since they will have been amputated by being bled dry militarily, economically and, most importantly, geopolitically.

At that point, the rest of the world - notably Russia and China, plus the Arab world and other nations such as Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and others, possibly even many European nations - through the UN - will be able to put the necessary pressure on Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons, and force an honest appearance at the negotiating table.

That's assuming somebody doesn't steal an Israeli nuke and make Tel Aviv glow in the dark before then.

And if that happens, the rest of the world really will see to it that Israel disarms - by any means necessary - and quite possibly will even reconsider the illegal partitioning of Palestine in 1947 as well.

The bottom line: you have only two choices:

1) Work through international institutions - or follow George Washington's advice and don't get involved at all except via trade.

2) Go it alone and try to conquer the world.

Much as I like supervillains, number 2 rarely works out even in comic books.

If the UN and other regional institutions can't be made to work, then NOTHING can be made to work. Which wouldn't surprise me in the least, given the way chimpanzees think.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 30, 2007 12:00 AM

Richard, FWIW, the original partition plan organized by the UN was agreed upon, but then the states around Israel attacked, while the Hagganah and the other disparate groups that eventually congealed into the IDF fought them off, while missing some land the partition gave them, but gaining more elsewhere (ie. outside the West Bank).

Then the Arab states decided to go to war again, because the US administration in particular appeared lukewarm about the prospect of a Jewish state.

Had the US and the USSR (remember, those Arab states executed their Communists while Israel was basically Socialist) stepped in the original plan might have worked out.

Unfortunately 1948 was not a great year for Soviet-American cooperation.

Posted by Greg | October 30, 2007 1:06 AM

Next thing we know and it's Don Williams arguing that Jewish financiers were responsible for the rise of Hitler.

Posted by novakant | October 30, 2007 4:40 AM

Re: William Lind really believes that we could LOSE the entire US force in Iraq.

While the US cannot conquer Iran (and hopefully will not try) the reverse is also true in spades: Iran cannot conquer the US and would be destroyed if it tried. And for that matter Syria is not going to conquer Israel. That's actually been tried in the past and it failed miserably. Other than the fact that Iraq will ultimately fission into three states or quasi-states and the US will no longer be involved so much, the Middle East is going to look a lot like it does today in ten or twenty years. And the Arab world could do itself a big favor by accepting the fact of Israel in its midst and finally getting over it and moving on.

Posted by Jonf | October 30, 2007 6:31 AM

Green Lantern history. The US was not the senior partner among the WW I Allies. In the aftermath of the bloodiest war in history, the Allies did not have the military or economic werewithal for a war in Russia. No amount of steely-eyed resolve on the part of Wilson, or anyone else, would have made a difference.

Posted by rea | October 29, 2007 10:25 PM
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Actually, not quite so conjectural - like those fools who say we should have started a war with the Soviets in 1945 and avoided the Cold War.

I agree that the Allies couldn't have committed the manpower and resources to conquer Russia in 1919. I think their goal at the time wasn't some much that (though Japan was probably interested in carving off chunks) as much as it was to ensure the supply and support of the White Russian armies to let them do the work of beating the Bolsheviks. Looking at the relative small number of troops committed, the focus on securing ports and the big subsidies Wilson was sending to Admiral Kolchak et al. I think that's the obvious conclusion.

Posted by Campesino | October 30, 2007 12:06 PM

Campesino, if there was one group during the Russian Civil War that was worse than the Bolsheviks, it was the Whites.

Expecting people who wanted to turn the clock back half way to serfdom to win in peasant dominated country was idiocy of the highest order.

If only Wilson had offered Peace, Land, Bread AND the Almighty Dollar (the Bolsheviks offered the first three). Then he might have bribed Ivan.

Posted by Greg | October 30, 2007 1:48 PM

If only Wilson had offered Peace, Land, Bread AND the Almighty Dollar (the Bolsheviks offered the first three). Then he might have bribed Ivan.

Posted by Greg | October 30, 2007 1:48 PM

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You're likely right!

Posted by Campesino | October 30, 2007 5:08 PM