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By Niall Ferguson. Penguin Press, 2004, 302 pages, $25.95
WRITING
STYLE: More academic than not, but accessible to students
and others who begin with an interest in the subject. The book
is much less about laying out the grand strategy to move forward
than it is about laying out the historical detail (including
data) that underpins the following argument…
CORE
THESIS: America has always been an empire, but one
that lacks an imperial cast of mind. Like the British Empire,
the U.S. believes it can spread the values of freedom and economic
prosperity to foreign lands; unlike its British predecessors,
it lacks the “will to power” needed to accomplish
this. Many of today’s failed states -- sources of terrorism,
infectious diseases, human misery -- have failed because they
lack the public institutions (financial, political, legal) necessary
for economic growth and investment. These regions would benefit
from an assertive liberal empire that would spread such globalization-friendly
institutions. America can be that empire -- but, because of
a looming domestic fiscal crisis and its consistent imperial
denial, America’s empire may unravel just as quickly as
empires before it.
CHANGE-LEADERSHIP
PERSPECTIVE: "Consistent imperial denial"
indicates that America, despite being a superpower with proven
ideals and palpable security needs, is conflicted in its SPONSOR
role. It "launches" ambitious foreign-policy change
endeavors, but pulls back and sometimes "caves" in
the MIDDLE of the campaign. Rosabeth Moss Kantor warned in 1999:
"My personal law of management…is that everything
can look like a failure in the middle. One of the mistakes leaders
make in change processes is to launch them and leave them."
And this book by Ferguson shows how this "conflicted sponsor"
tendency existed long before the late 1960s social unrest over
U.S. behavior in Southeast Asia.
STRUCTURE:
The book’s first half -- titled “Rise” --
is a history of America’s empire (and the limits of it)
told through its major foreign interventions. Ferguson covers
the limits of American power in the 19th century, America’s
“Imperialism of Anti-Imperialism” during the Cold
War, U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the historical
roots of 9/11, and its awkward relationship with the United
Nations during the 1990s. The second half -- titled “Fall?”
-- focuses on the case for liberal empire, America’s ability
to live up to the related requirements, Europe as possible rival
empire, and America’s looming fiscal crisis.
WHO
NEEDS THIS BOOK: (a) Anybody interested in America’s
role in the world; (b) those in the White House who need intellectual
and historical reinforcement about the importance of resolve
and “settling in for the long haul” -- speaking
about Iraq, of course -- and (c) development economists and
members of the international aid community interested in how
institution-building within developing countries can promote
growth within those countries.
WHO SHOULD STEER CLEAR: Those looking for a book that
catalogs American misdeeds abroad in order to argue (with whatever
degree of justification) that America will pay a price for those
actions. The title can be read that way, but this is not that
book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Niall Ferguson is Herzog Professor
of Financial History at the Stern School of Business, New York
University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College,
Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford
University.
EDITOR’s
INSERT: Ferguson produced, right before Colossus,
an astonishing book on his declared specialty. It was called
The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World,
1700-2000. Most of the chapters carry the depth of entire books,
and are well-written to boot. For that segment of a wider Ferguson
interview, see
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Ferguson/ferguson-con3.html
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Kevin James recently graduated
from Virginia Tech with degrees in Political Science and Computer
Science. He works as a Software Engineer and enjoys reading
about politics and current affairs on the side.
For
those who like essay-style book critiques, here’s one
– for the same book…
COLOSSUS:
The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
by Niall Ferguson
This book’s title is easy to read incorrectly. Given all
the talk of American arrogance, you might think that Ferguson
is aiming at U.S. heavy-handedness around the world. In fact,
he makes an excellent case for something quite the opposite.
Many of the problems in the world today, from poverty to terrorism,
to tyranny and war, are prevalent in countries cut off from
the benefits of globalization. Those same states are cut off
from globalization because they lack the well-functioning institutions
necessary for economic development. Instead of pulling back
from the world, it is precisely an assertive and self-confident
America -- acting as a “liberal empire” -- that
the world needs most.
But that’s obviously not everything in the title, nor
the whole of the author’s thesis. While Ferguson makes
a strong case for empire centered on the ideas above, this is
not a book designed to lay out all of the details of a new framework
for American foreign policy. (Leave that to Pentagon planners…)
Instead, the noticeably small Statue of Liberty on the cover
of the hardback edition -- it is dwarfed by her immense black
shadow -- lets the reader glimpse what the author will say.
The world may need an assertive, self-confident America, but
is America really up for playing that role? Ferguson is not
so sure:
[T]he
global power of the United States today…rests on much
weaker foundations than is commonly supposed. The United States
has acquired an empire, but Americans themselves lack the
imperial cast of mind. They would rather consume than conquer.
They would rather build shopping malls than nations. They
crave for themselves protracted old age and dread, even for
other Americans who have volunteered for military service,
untimely death in battle. It is not just that, like their
British predecessors, they gained their empire in “a
fit of absence of mind.” The problem is that despite
occasional flashes of self-knowledge, they have remained absent-minded
-- or rather, in denial -- about their imperial power all
along. Consequently, and very regrettably, it is quite conceivable
that their empire could unravel as swiftly as the equally
“anti-imperial” empire that was the Soviet Union.
Now that you have a general idea of the central argument, let’s
take a step back. To jump right into arguments over the virtues
of American empire in our time is to not give Ferguson enough
credit for the amount of history in the book.
WEAKER FOES, LESS RESOLVE
The
first half recounts America’s imperial history, including
how changes in the global context affected America’s imperial
mindset. And the opening chapter covers American expansion from
our founding through World War One -- a must-read for anyone
interested in the topic of America’s role in the world.
It’s sobering to read about the sheer number of U.S. interventions
within our hemisphere during the 19th century, with almost universal
failure to achieve the desired results.
According to Ferguson, the “empire of liberty” [had]
much to offer places like Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico, to say
nothing of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. “But the
will to make [these places] permanent components of a greater
American Republic turned out to be lacking; Hawaii and Puerto
Rico alone were retained, not least because they were the most
docile of the candidates for colonial status. The rest were
offered a combination of sermons about political and fiscal
rectitude and occasional military raids.”
Based on these interventions, including the Philippines (one
that more closely resembles our recent interventions than the
more oft cited examples of Japan and Germany), Ferguson lays
out seven characteristic phases of American intervention:
(1) Impressive initial military success,
(2) A flawed assessment of indigenous sentiment,
(3) A strategy of limited war and gradual escalation of forces,
(4) Domestic disillusionment in the face of protracted and
nasty conflict,
(5) Premature democratization,
(6) The ascendancy of domestic economic considerations, and
(7) Ultimate withdrawal
It’s not the just the similarity of intentions and outcome
that should make you take note. This is also a time when the
U.S. had much more of a free hand in our own region. If you’re
tempted to argue, now, that the collapse of the Soviet Union
gives the U.S. much more of a free hand in the world and therefore
more of an ability to follow through on interventions, this
wouldn’t be America’s first time in such a position.
(Granted, the power difference may be greater now, but the coverage
and mandate are also larger.)
All in all, the 19th century seemed to show the limits of American
imperial power as much as its strength. Ultimately, and perhaps
ironically, “the paradox is that [America’s] imperial
grip proved more firm when it was confronted with the bigger
challenge of global power.”
Ferguson uses the phrase “Imperialism of Anti-Imperialism”
to describe America’s Cold War mindset. Even as a long
period of decolonization began (instigated by an American President,
Franklin Roosevelt), America became more assertive in establishing
itself abroad -- an action recognized by many as the beginnings
of an American empire. Here’s why that matters: “For
a self-consciously anti-imperial culture, containment offered
the resolution of all the earlier tensions between republican
virtue and the exercise of global power. It had one immediate
and profoundly important consequence: …it dramatically
accelerated the pace of economic recovery in Japan and West
Germany.”
Ferguson discusses those interventions in Japan and West Germany,
but the more important (though not necessarily novel) conclusion
he draws is about the Korean War and Vietnam: “The paradox
of the imperial Republic was that it was the civilian political
elite -- along with sections of the military -- that favored
limited war, much more than the wider electorate.” In
that sense, the lessons of Vietnam had already been laid out,
but not necessarily learned, by the time that war came along.
“Those South Vietnamese who acted on the assumption that
the Americans would stay…underestimated the growing power
of liberalism and a bad conscience within the American elite.”
It is Vietnam that ultimately takes the wind out of the sails
of American empire, for, at least in the minds of many in the
American public, it’s hard to be gung-ho about Imperialism
of Anti-Imperialism when you’re not sure whether you’re
the evil empire, or at least no better than the other guy.
This provides a good lead-in to Ferguson’s chapter on
U.S. relations with the Middle East, which contributes two important
items to our current discourse. First, he inverts Samuel Huntington’s
famous phrase, turning it into “civilization of clashes.”
He means a region -- the Middle East -- in an almost constant
state of conflict across several dimensions (religion and natural
resources, to name two).
The second item is a good analysis of the driving motivations
for U.S. involvement in the region since World War Two. Ferguson
lists four: the Soviet Union, oil, Israel, and terrorism. Combined,
the term “civilization of clashes” and the analysis
lead us away from caricatures of the motivations of either side:
The
notion of a “clash of civilizations” is as much
of a caricature as the idea that the United States is interested
solely in the Middle East’s oil. It is rather more illuminating
to conceive of the American role as that of a less than eager
participant in the region’s distinctive civilization
of clashes, a dysfunctional culture in which rival religions
and natural resources supply much of the content of political
conflict, but the form is the really distinctive thing. That
form is of course terrorism.
It was our entanglement in this “civilization of clashes”
over the past several decades that most led to 9/11, Ferguson
argues. Given this, the conflict ahead in the war on terror
is much more than just one of defeating a single group of extremists.
It is one of ultimately reforming the internal politics of a
region in conflict so that it may be at peace with itself and
its neighbors. The Cold War’s end offered the context
here, by giving the U.S. much more of a free hand in the region
than it has ever had previously.
On the other hand, having that power is one thing and asserting
it another. Here Ferguson makes the point that America must
take on an imperial mindset in order to achieve the mission
above -- “liberal empires will be hypocritical
at times.” The example he uses is Britain’s occupation
of Egypt 100 years ago, arguing that “it is possible to
occupy a country for decades, while consistently denying that
you have intention of doing so.” “This is known
as hypocrisy,” he adds, “and it is something that
liberal empires must sometimes resort to.”
The more important question is this: What can actually be accomplished
in the Middle East, or any other of the world’s underdeveloped
regions, through occupation by an external power? Plus, as this
book later argues, if we are to continue to value sovereignty
and self-determination above almost all else, how viable of
a model is that for solving problems like terrorism, spread
of disease, and extreme poverty if those problems thrive in
environments -- failed states, economic underdevelopment, or
autocracy -- that are not easily corrected from within?
LACKING ATTENTION, DOLLARS and “MANPOWER”
The most valuable 29 pages of Colossus make “The
Case for Liberal Empire.” “Impelled forward by a
combination of European exhaustion, non-European nationalism
and American idealism,” writes the author, “the
world embarked on an epochal experiment, an experiment to test
the hypothesis that it was imperialism that caused both poverty
and wars and that self-determination would ultimately pave the
way to prosperity and peace… That hypothesis has been
largely proved false.”
Here’s the case, in short: Despite the claims of many
(including many in Europe) that globalization is what has widened
income gaps between developed and underdeveloped countries,
globalization “is not truly global at all.” In fact,
most of the benefits of free trade and foreign investment are
seen within the developed world because many developing countries
lack the proper legal, financial, and political institutions
conducive to growth.
In that sense, building these institutions is the political
counterpart to economic globalization. It was the expansion
of the British Empire in the 19th century that provided the
mechanism for expanding these institutions, and it would be
an assertive American liberal empire playing a similar role
today.
It keeps coming back not to “who” or even “how,”
but whether: Is the United States really up for this
responsibility?
Ferguson argues that America faces three much more critical
impediments: A manpower deficit, an attention deficit, and a
looming fiscal crisis. Contrary to many theories of America’s
imperial overstretch (which predict American exhaustion abroad),
Ferguson argues that the three elements above reveal an America
not interested in such heavy-duty -- or heavy-handed -- responsibilities.
What does he mean by “manpower deficit”? A shortage
of Americans who want to spend their lives abroad. Under the
British Empire, for example, only one-third of British troops
were actually in Britain, while four-fifths of American soldiers
today reside on home soil. America’s foreign language
deficit is also well-known, as is item two, our attention deficit.
But most importantly, Ferguson argues that there is a looming
entitlements crisis involving Social Security and Medicare that
will dwarf even these problems.
All of these raise important questions about America’s
ability to adequately follow through on the above mandate.
While acknowledging that this book did not center on laying
out the details of a new foreign-policy framework, a fleshing
out of Ferguson’s case for liberal empire will shed some
light on what kind of change the U.S. is capable of effecting
abroad, as well as the limits of its power.
THE STRATEGIC CASE and the ALTRUISTIC ONE
Ferguson justifies intervention in failed states by citing advances
in technology that (a) give groups and states a realistic chance
of inflicting massive damage on American cities, and (b) dramatically
increase the chances that infectious diseases could easily and
rapidly make their way here. That’s his “strategic”
argument.
He also makes an altruistic case that the economic and
political conditions within many countries are abysmal and are
generally not self-correcting. This distinction is important,
I think, because the countries that fall into these two categories
are also distinct in several other important aspects.
First, geography: If we were to pull out a map and circle the
states that are both underdeveloped and do not pose a strategic
threat, most of our circles would be in Africa. Instead, if
we were to talk about states that pose a weapons proliferation
or terrorism threat, we’d be much more focused on the
Arab World, with a few obvious exceptions (North Korea, for
example). (Remember that we’re focusing here on possible
intervention points for the United States, which obviously exempts
China and Russia from the discussion.) Also important is that
there is going to be a severe difference in hostility
to the United States between these two sets of countries.
These differences would mandate two different approaches: To
fight poverty and disease in underdeveloped countries, the United
States would find much common ground with other developed countries
(especially Europe) in terms of a strategy of intervention.
In addition, with Europe’s propensity for foreign aid
and its standing army that surpasses ours in numbers but not
in lethality, a strong moral case can be made for a joint intervention
to really address the problems of the developing world.
In this context, I also think Ferguson is too dismissive of
the role that aid workers, NGOs, and Peace Corps-like organizations
can play in support of this mission. (The general argument being
that, without the proper institutions in place, much of the
aid given will be superfluous.) Perhaps economic aid will end
up being superfluous, but in terms of regional knowledge and
our manpower deficit, I think that is where you’re going
to find individuals willing to live abroad long enough to aid
in institution-building.
The “strategic threat” countries are different,
both because the political wedges between developed countries
are much more severe, and because the general populations of
those countries are much more hostile to foreign intervention.
And most importantly, the countries that pose the biggest weapons-proliferation
threats right now are not “failed states” at all
-- they’re fairly well-armed autocracies. North Korea
might come close to famine every few years -- but that’s
because a powerful government apparatus chooses to run
that risk, not because of warlordism or general chaos. Intervening
there has little in common with intervening in Liberia.
Dealing with a “strategic threat” means you have
to fight and win a war before any institution-building begins
and connectivity gains are realized. Tremendous gains -- for
human freedom as well as human freedom -- can come from intervening
in such places countries. Yet, as we’ve also seen in Iraq,
the stakes are higher by an order of magnitude. An “assertive
liberal empire” would have to be wise in picking these
battles.
CONCLUSION
In Colossus, Niall Ferguson argues for a recasting
the American mindset in both arenas. In a world plagued by WMD,
terrorism, and the spread of disease, as well as by the unacceptable
levels of human misery wrought by failed and corrupt states,
we must start to evaluate whether the strategic and moral costs
of not intervening in the affairs of these states exceed the
costs of doing so. In short, Ferguson has made an excellent
case that America must start to exchange some of the “comforts
of conscience” for the responsibilities of power.
We will see if America is up for the task.
Feedback
is welcome – please write to reviewer
Kevin James at kejames@vt.edu
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