Empires With Expiration Dates

[Virgil61]

Empires with Expiration Dates

 

An article in Foreign Policy from Ferguson's hyperactive mind that may be of interest to some.

 

Exerpt:

 

Empires drive history. But the empires of the past 100 years were short lived, none surviving to see the dawn of the new century. Today, there are no empires, at least not officially. But that could soon change if the United States

[DecimusCaesar]

Good article, I read it a few weeks ago on another site. I also have Niall Ferguson's book on the British Empire which is also pretty good, even if the conclusion is weaker compared to the rest of the book.

 

I read an article around the beginning of the year in which Ferguson toured America telling numerous figures how America's Foreign Policy should be set out. In one intreview he managed to anger every conservative and every liberal in the room, some even stormed out. It was pretty funny stuff.

[Moonlapse]

It gives me the impression that the current situation in the U.S. is a double blind, which I agree with.

[Ludovicus]

Virgil, thank you for the article. It deserves reading in its entirety. Here's an interesting quote:

 

...it is still perfectly possible for a republic to behave like an empire in practice, while remaining in denial about its loss of republican virtue. "

 

The quote from US Vice President Cheney's Christmas card is very telling about the guise of the US republic:

As quoted in the article by Ferguson:

 

“And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

 

And this from President Bush, from the same article:

“We’re an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality.… We’re history’s actors.”

Edited September 28, 2006 by Ludovicus

[P.Clodius]

I'm sorry but I can't help feeling that US power and influence in the world in waning. 20-25 years will see the human dynamo states of south east Asia take over. To seek empire would be folly from a US perspective.

[Virgil61]

I'm sorry but I can't help feeling that US power and influence in the world in waning. 20-25 years will see the human dynamo states of south east Asia take over. To seek empire would be folly from a US perspective.

 

 

Could be, but our decline has been foretold several times in the last thirty years. If you use long-term economic strength for one measure of power and influence than studies such as the one put out recently by Deutche Bank show the US economy predicted to have healthy growth for the next 20 years. The 'human' dynamo states of Asia (I think you meant China and India) have some very serious issues facing them in the next 20-25 years.

[DecimusCaesar]

Does America want to go down the path of Empire? Personally I don't believe so but it does want to protect it's intrests and wealth from other nations, so in the future it will have to walk down this path as a necessity unless the US will willingly make do with less (and that is unlikely).

 

Once you become a major World power you can't go back to being a self-sufficient nation unless the country collapses and that won't happen either.

[Primus Pilus]

Frankly, I'm a bit tired of hearing about this psuedo American empire myth... which seems to be generally perpetuated by non Americans, while always throwing in caveats about how our supposed empire will be falling in the near future. We may admittedly be a superpower but this hardly constitutes empire. While the Soviet Union may no longer exist and hold that supposed superpower status, does Russia and it's confederated states no longer have influence, importance or merit on any scale? Is Britain no longer an international player simply because it's "empire" fell? Did the collapse of its empire in the not so distant past spell imminent doom for all its population?

 

This whole rise and fall, prominence to obscurity thing is rather absurd really.

[Primus Pilus]

Additionally, China is not a concern because despite its authoritarian government, it is not run by lunatics. Even if China evolves into the most powerful nation on earth, what do people think will happen? Sure there are contradictory agendas at work and some western ideals may be sacrificed in the greater context of world influence, but this does not spell the end of civilization. If China beomes the prominent world power, I'd be willing to bet that the gradual change in the western world will not alter our individual lives that significantly. In fact, their own rise will probably change them out of necessity more than the rest of us. Hell, maybe they'll be sending jobs back to all of us jobless bastards in the west.

 

A greater concern is the collapse of westernism due to passivity in the face of fundamentalist Islam. Sure, GW lacks focus on the issue at hand, and sure as hell didn't help anything with his half baked ideas on ousting Saddam (the middle east's only buffer against Iran), but this bane was on the rise whether it was accelerated by current strategies or not.

[DecimusCaesar]

I have read an article since this paper was publishied asking if historians have any place dictating a country's policy. Since Niall Ferguson first said that America should become an Empire and started telling numerous politicians and generals in the US what they should do in Iraq and the actions the US must make in it's foreign policy in the next few decades. People have been asking what right do historians have to start putting down objectives for a country to achieve.

 

Do historians have a place for dictating policy or should they just sit back and write up the events of the past?

[Virgil61]

I have read an article since this paper was publishied asking if historians have any place dictating a country's policy. Since Niall Ferguson first said that America should become an Empire and started telling numerous politicians and generals in the US what they should do in Iraq and the actions the US must make in it's foreign policy in the next few decades. People have been asking what right do historians have to start putting down objectives for a country to achieve.

 

Do historians have a place for dictating policy or should they just sit back and write up the events of the past?

 

It worked for Newt Gingrich [who has a Phd in history from Tulane]. I suppose historians have as much right to do dictate policy as lawyers, economists and ministers do now in DC. Guys like Victor Hanson or Paul Kennedy have been somewhat influential in putting in their own opinions out there.

 

In the end, from my experience in the Federal gov't in DC, I think it boils down to individual skill sets in areas that transcend formal educational training--how you interact with others, interpersonal politics, knowing when to 'fall on your sword' and when not to over an issue, getting a consensus, getting others to go along with your plan and so on.

[Moonlapse]

Do historians share a foreign policy consensus that others do not? I don't know but I would tend to think that specific specialization is irrelevant.

 

But... I'm curious to see how all us Romanophiles tend to think. For anyone that cares to answer - what do you think the proper role of government is regarding foreign policy?

[Kosmo]

His definitions of empire and starting and ending dates are weird!

To say that the third roman empire, the german one, lasted from 800 to 1806? What imperial authority the Habsburg still had outside his domain? And the ottomans were not an empire before 1453 while the fledging Byzantium was?

[DecimusCaesar]

Your right on the Ottoman stuff Kosmo, the Ottoman was traditionally founded by Osman in the year 1299.