The Party of Empire

Mike Tomasky:

The Republican Party has become, in short, a party of empire. The conservative movement is now a movement dedicated to American hegemonic dominion. And, given the lack of debate, both will likely remain that way for some time. These statements are true not only of the major presidential candidates, but of the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, most conservative foreign-policy think-tankers, and most high-level GOP operatives involved in policy-making. If the travesty that was our invasion of Iraq has not had the power to change these facts, it is difficult to imagine what set of circumstances could.

The context is a review of Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism, but the paragraph has a kind of freestanding validity.

UPDATE: It's been pointed out that I should have seized the opportunity to plug my book, Heads in the Sand, which explains why we need to understand the Bush administration's policies as imperialism in its newest guise, and why Democrats need to stop giving-in to Bush-style policies and return to espousing the sort of liberal internationalism that's guided the party and the country at its best for decades. Woo book!

Comments

As much as it pains me to say this:

Please, as if Democrats haven't gone along happily into this great mess.

Posted by Monster | March 20, 2008 5:34 PM

I really can't see such a difference between the mainstream in both parties, and I thought that was the conclusion of your book. They both seem to be committed to maintaining this 'hegemonic dominion'.

Only fringe candidates on both sides have pushed back vigorously against this, especially the Ron Paul that Tomasky seemed to have his sights on in the article.

Now of course many conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, (the thinking ones) see this empire business as crazy and bound to end in tears sooner rather than later.

Don't kid yourself that a change in party will change approach. Especially where HRC is concerned I can see little prospect of much shift (though the particular nuttiness of the neo-lunies will be history, granted).

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 20, 2008 5:41 PM

It's all about appearances. If we withdraw from Iraq, they're afraid we'll look weak. If we don't rattle our saber at Iran, they're afraid we'll look weak. And god forbid that the United States of America ever do anything to make it look like less than what it is - the greatest and best country in the world! Say anything to the contrary, and we'll bomb you!

Seriously, I love this country. But I love it with eyes wide open. Withdrawing from Iraq is not defeat. To the contrary, allowing extremists to set the terms by which we either "win" or "lose" is a bigger setback for us than anything else.

But Republicans are dead set on showing that they have the most testosterone in the world! And Democrats are afraid that if they oppose such actions, they'll be the ones looking weak. No one wants that.

When did "intelligent, yet prudent" become a bad thing?

Posted by Trigger | March 20, 2008 5:57 PM

I think you forgot to plug your book, dude.

Posted by Eric the Political Hack | March 20, 2008 5:58 PM

I think the war in Iraq was more of a cause of this trend than anything else.

Posted by mpowell | March 20, 2008 6:02 PM

That's why we're so fortunate to have a real alternative to all this Zionism, imperialism, and client state hegemony: the Democrats! PFFFFFFFT!!! LOL!

Posted by Murph | March 20, 2008 6:07 PM

Read this.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Bread%20and%20Circus

Posted by bsd | March 20, 2008 6:09 PM

Well, the Soviet rule of Eastern Europe was also clearly an empire. Then the Soviets went bankrupt, partly because of the stupid guerrilla war they were losing against Osama and his friends. Suddenly no more empire!

Maybe Osama will go two-for-two...

Posted by RKU | March 20, 2008 6:12 PM

P.S.

If Osama does indeed end up knocking off both the Russian Empire AND the American Empire, then those top CCP leaders in Beijing will have to be getting really, really nervous...

Posted by RKU | March 20, 2008 6:22 PM

We only need to recall the 'Project for the New American Century' to know that the Republican Party supports American empire, albeit in a thinly nuanced variation from historical precedents.

Posted by BCM | March 20, 2008 6:33 PM

I don't agree with implying that the Democrats are against imperialism. Hillary Clinton is clearly an imperialist, along with many others. In my opinion, America isn't imperialist because George Bush is a bully. America is imperialist because it is an empire, or at least appears to be an empire. America will stop acting like an empire when its president and congress stop believing that they can get away with arrogant imperialism. I doubt that it will be the power of American citizens that restrains our leaders' arrogance. More likely, they will only be restrained when they are restrained by the power of other countries, which might not be much fun.

Of course the Republicans are worse. For now, I distinguish them as the party of dungeons and torture.

Posted by Gary Sugar | March 20, 2008 6:48 PM

return to espousing the sort of liberal internationalism that's guided the party and the country at its best for decades

But, of course, hte Democratic Party isn't a party of liberal internationalism. It's become a party of isolationism.

Even Matthew, who claims to be a liberal internationalist, is really an old fashioned isolationist. After all, he didn't support the effort to save the Baidoa government of Somalia. That would have been classic liberal internationalism - promoting a government blessed by the United Nations and the African Union in opposition to a illiberal Islamist government. Matthew, instead, just wanted to stay the heck out. Classic isolationism.

Posted by Al | March 20, 2008 6:49 PM

Al speaks as if recent history proved that isolationism is a bad thing, when it proves precisely the opposite.

Posted by Freddie | March 20, 2008 6:51 PM

The post didn't say anything about whether isolationism is bad, Freddie. (To be sure, I think it is.) My only point is that it is just wrong to say, as Matthew seems to, that the direction the Democratic Party is moving is toward liberal internationalism. Heck, Obama's even talking about pulling out of NAFTA - classic isolationism.

Posted by Al | March 20, 2008 6:56 PM

You're confused between descriptive and normative, Al. He's not saying they are, he's saying they should.

And pulling out of NAFTA is not only not "classic isolationism," it's nothing like isolationism at all.

Posted by nolaboyd | March 20, 2008 7:02 PM

The problem is that BOTH political parties could be described as a "movement dedicated to American hegemonic dominion". I haven't seen any serious push back at the idea that we need to have the world's largest military (and a global empire of garrisons on military bases) in order to be a safe and secure nation, and at a scale that dwarfs any other country. Did I miss Obama or Clinton saying we're going to shut down our numerous overseas bases, and that we're going to repudiate the Carter and Monroe Doctrines as well as the Bush Doctrine? Did I not notice the Democratic Party now taking its foreign policy cues from Noam Chomsky?

Chalmers Johnson's American Empire books would be a good example of how the America-as-worldwide-hegemon mode of thinking is riddled throughout BOTH political parties.

Posted by eponymous coward | March 20, 2008 7:10 PM

So, Al: are you being faux-naive just to impress MY's regulars, or are you really that clueless as to what's going on in Somalia?

Yes, the US DID "support the Baidoa Government" (such as it is) - mainly through using Ethiopia as our proxy. And we can see how well that's working out . Not exactly the best advertisement for interventionism.

Posted by Jay C | March 20, 2008 7:21 PM

Oh boy, do you give money back if your book is a case for reforming American Empire, rather than abandoning it?

BTW, before the fall of Berlin Wall, many Eastern European countries attempted to reform socialism rather than do away with it. They all failed, off course.

Posted by ethnic riot | March 20, 2008 7:31 PM

he sort of liberal internationalism that's guided the party and the country at its best for decades

Well, let's see.

Under FDR, you had Marines in Nicaragua ,and Somoza.
Under Truman, you had us helping the French in French Indochina.
Under Kennedy, you had the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam.
Under Johnson, you had MORE Vietnam.
Under Carter, you had the beginnings of buildups against the Soviets that Reagan finished.
Under Clinton, you had Haiti and NAFTA.

If this is liberal internationalism... color me unimpressed. I see it more as a "kinder, gentler" imperialism. We've had some instances of liberal internationalism like the Marshall Plan that are perhaps closer to our ideals, but it's a mixed record at best.

Posted by eponymous coward | March 20, 2008 7:33 PM

But, as JMM keeps pointing out (with his criticism of McCain's total absence of thought/expertise/interest in the US economy -- heck, in most domestic policy at all), and "empire" with a mighty army but a crumbling economy won't remain an empire for long.

The GOP wants to appear as the Party of Empire (and sure, as do some Dems), but they have no actual interest in maintaining or establishing the mechanisms of empire (and, again, yes, some Dems do).

The GOP (... yeah, yeah, yeah -- and some/most elected Dems), rather, is much more interested in the mechanisms of public corruption, in supporting the military rhetorically and fiscally, and in supporting anti-competitive monopolies/oligopolies in most business sectors.

The GOP ain't imperialist -- it's fascist, with impossible/illusory fantasies of empire. Bush's (yeah yeah yeah, and Clinton's/Obama's/McCain's) misadventure in Iraq will be seen, in 50 years' time, as the equivalent of Mussolini's defeat in Ethiopia.

Posted by The Confidence Man | March 20, 2008 7:37 PM

So, Al: are you being faux-naive just to impress MY's regulars,

Silly rabbit, Al is faux-naive just to bash Democrats.

Posted by Pooh | March 20, 2008 7:58 PM

Al, you know, logic would dictate that one not confuse the part with the whole. MY disagreed with you about the merits of a particular foreign policy intervention. That does not mean he opposes intervention, per se, which is what isolationism presumably means. What you should have written but did not is that MY appears to be more isolationist than you under certain conditions. I admit that doesn’t carry the same rhetorical punch as what you wrote, but it’s what accuracy would ask of you. I might add, as for the merits of the Somalia issue, you didn’t discuss his reasons, only disparagingly listed his conclusion, which is not terribly impressive as a tactic, or convincing.

Posted by jason | March 20, 2008 8:13 PM

This topic brings me back to a comment MY made a few weeks back regarding expenditures on such things as F-22s, in preparation for a (I'll agree) totally undesirable war with China. Having spent a fair amount of my career in aerospace, I'm used to the charge that it's all pork, and didn't feel the need to address Matt's thesis.

However, this post reminded me of the rationale for developing military hegemony which had wide play in the '90's:

1) The Cold War sucked. A bi-polar balance of power wasn't all that. We were nearly killed.

2) Therefore, to the best of our ability, we won't allow any other nation or alliance, currently friendly or not, to reach anything approaching strategic parity.

It followed that we'd continue to maintain a substantial lead in fielded military technology and a large standing force.

Unfortunately, in the post 9/11 environment, the President and his advisors elected to use this advantage to blow away a third tier adversary that we were previously content to contain, and now pisses away our resources and resolve to maintain hegemony with a half-assed occupation.

It's just too God damn bad that the requisite number of voters didn't think to elect someone who could walk softly, but carry a big stick.

Posted by cmholm | March 20, 2008 8:44 PM

Real conservatives care what's in America's interest, not what's in the interest of the anti-Western Israel lobby.

"[The Vatican] is a symbol of Western culture . . . a patrimony to be entrusted to the care of the white race." ~ Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (Pope Pius XII ),1938

Posted by Linda | March 20, 2008 8:47 PM

"Under FDR, you had Marines in Nicaragua ,and Somoza."

The US Marines withdrew from Nicaragua in January 1933. FDR stopped sending in troops over bananas, and yet we still were able to buy bananas.

Posted by gcochran | March 20, 2008 11:35 PM

Being opposed to stupid or foolish interventions does not make one an isolationist. There are ways to interact with the world that don't involve dropping bombs. If you define "hegemon" as simply "most powerful nation-state that is both military and economically powerful and culturally influential," we can remain the hegemonic power in the world for decades without being an empire. If we play our cards right (a big if), siding on issues of Sino-American contention will be unpopular in third countries because China is unlikely to become a democracy anytime soon. However, if we decide that proving to everyone that we aren't gay, feminine or poorly endowed as a policy choice (is it me or are Republicans obsessed with overcompensation?), then there will be no default normative drive to support a powerful democracy over a powerful one-party state.

"If Osama does indeed end up knocking off both the Russian Empire AND the American Empire, then those top CCP leaders in Beijing will have to be getting really, really nervous...

Posted by RKU | March 20, 2008 6:22 PM"

One word: Xinjiang. Then again, if bin Laden gets what he wants, he may turn back again against the Soviets and focus on Chechnya.

Posted by Reality Man | March 21, 2008 6:13 AM

Perhaps we should start calling the neo-cons the neo-colonialists.

Posted by RW | March 21, 2008 6:16 AM

Hmm, the Democrats haven't exactly "given in" in quite the way you describe here. There's a fine line between complicity and outright participation, a line the Democrats crossed over 40 years ago in Vietnam.

Posted by Jake in Milwaukee | March 21, 2008 8:19 AM

As others have already noted, both parties are supporters of US imperialism and the preservation of US hegemonic dominion - such as it still exists. They differ mainly over their preferred techniques, with Democrats much more skeptical about brute intimidation through hard power, and much more inclined to rely on diplomacy, public relations, foreign aid and US soft power in order to secure submission to the US will. Democratic foreign policy types also have a highly cultivated fondness for euphemism.

But neither party is talking about doing anything to contract the US military footprint around the world. I haven't heard any of the major candidates suggest they are planning to do anything to seriously alter current military planning to expand the US presence and capabilities through the "arc of instability", or to dismantle any of our major military bases around the world.

The "liberal internationalism" trumpeted by Democratic foreign policy professionals is a hierarchical, institutionalized postwar global order specifically constituted under US leadership. It is designed to buttress and extend US dominion through a network of lesser nobility, vassals and dependents. It's not an alternative to US dominion. And the primary intellectual thrust of liberal internationalism since the end of the Cold War has been to move power out of the United Nations toward an ever-expanding NATO, and possibly into a Concert of Democracies that would have more freedom of action in remaking the world and intervening abroad to subordinate all to the victorious "Free World" coalition

Posted by Dan Kervick | March 21, 2008 8:26 AM

Perhaps we should start calling the neo-cons the neo-colonialists.

Or neo-colons, for short . . .

Posted by rea | March 21, 2008 8:38 AM

The US has been an empire since the Articles of Confederation were abrogated by the Constitution. There has always been at least one imperialist party in the US, and since Pearl Harbor, at least, there have been two. There are tactical disagreements between Democrats and Republicans about how and where to use American power, but on the basic premise that the US must maintain its hegemonic position, and use that power actively, there is a strong, bipartisan consensus, the mere questioning of which consigns one to the Paul/Kucinich fringes of political debate.

It's simply silly for Democrats to be congratulating themselves over the Republicans having been dubbed the party of empire. First, Democrats have frequently, as recently as 1999, when Clinton bombed Serbia, the party of intervention and imperialism, but also from 1939-1968, or pre-Civil War. The crown of imperial boosterism gets passed back and forth. Secondly, war and imperialism have frequently coincided with and made possible state expansion and "progressive" social change. Thirdly, while Democrats have soured on the Iraq misadventure, even Obama, running as the candidate of peace, praised Israel's Lebanon campaign, leaves preemptive war on the table with Iran, threatened to invade Pakistan, and says that bird flu in Indonesia is a security threat to America. He may not like this particular war, but he's fully behind the idea that the US may throw around its weight, and that it has an interest in every hovel on Earth. In other words, he's a consensus imperialist, too.

Posted by TheOtherCyrus | March 21, 2008 11:06 AM

why Democrats need to stop giving-in to Bush-style policies and return to espousing the sort of liberal internationalism that's guided the party and the country at its best for decades

Given that our host initially supported the Iraq War for orthodox liberal internationalist reasons (I'm not trying to point fingers - I reached the same position because I have a very liberal internationalism-influenced foreign policy outlook for a libertarian and ended up looking foolish compared to my more non-interventionist bretheren.), I think there's a different take-away lession here, perhaps something about how a bit of across-the-board increased skepticism of interventionism may be appropriate?

Posted by MattXIV | March 21, 2008 4:09 PM

As Justin Raimondo likes to put it, there are is only one party in the US - the "War Party", of which the Republicans and Democrats are the two wings.

Sort of like "good cop, bad cop" - or maybe "bad cop, worse cop" to quote Kurt Russell in "Tango and Cash".

No matter who gets elected in November, the state gets in power. And war is the health of the state (not the economy, the state - don't confuse the two.)

If McCain gets in, he'll start a war with Iran within six months. If Clinton gets in, she'll start a war with Iran within a year. If Obama gets in, he'll start a war with Iran within two years - slower as he tries some fucked-up notion of "diplomacy" (read: more sanctions) or gets diverted by trying to slow down Iraq.

More war is guaranteed until the military-industrial complex and the oil companies are dismantled in this country - which isn't going to happen.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 21, 2008 7:43 PM