As I mentioned awhile back, I devoted a good chunk of my
vacation out west reading Piers Brendon's
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire,
1781-1997.
As you might imagine, I spent a lot of time thinking about possible
parallels and lessons for America's current global position, just
as English imperialists spent a lot of time pondering the Roman
experience (ably documented by Edward Gibbon).
In a tapestry this rich and varied, it is easy to read into it just
about any "lesson" one wants to draw. With that caveat in mind,
here are the top ten lessons on empire that I drew from Brendon's
book. Even if you don't agree with them, you should still read the
book.
1. There is no such thing as a "benevolent"
Empire.
In his classic history of ancient Rome, Gibbon had noted that
"There is nothing more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in
obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to
their inclination and interest." Britons thought of the empire as a
positive force for themselves and their subjects, even
though they had to slaughter thousands of their imperial subjects
in order to maintain their control. Americans should be under no
illusions either: if you maintain garrisons all over the world and
repeatedly interfere in the internal politics of other countries,
you are inevitably going to end up breaking a lot of heads.
2. All Empires depend on self-justifying ideology and
rhetoric that is often at odds with reality.
British imperialists repeatedly portrayed their role as the
"white man's burden" and maintained that imperial control brought
considerable benefits to their subjects. (This is an old story:
France proclaimed its mission civilizatrice, and the
Soviet empire claimed it was spreading the benefits of communism.
Today, Americans say we are spreading freedom and liberty).
Brendon's account describes the various benefits of imperial rule,
but also emphasizes the profound social disruptions that imperial
rule caused in India, Africa, and elsewhere. Moreover, because
British control often depended on strategies of
"divide-and-conquer," its rule often left its colonies deeply
divided and ill-prepared for independence. But that's not what
English citizens were told at the time.
3. Successful empires require ample "hard
power."
Although the British did worry a lot about their reputation and
prestige (what one might now term their "soft power") what really
killed the Empire was its eroding economic position. Once Britain
ceased to be the world’s major economic and industrial power, its
days as an imperial power were numbered. It simply couldn't
maintain the ships, the men, the aircraft, and the economic
leverage needed to rule millions of foreigners, especially in a
world where other rapacious great powers preyed. The moral for
Americans? It is far more important to maintain a robust and
productive economy here at home than it is to squander billions of
dollars trying to determine the political fate of some remote
country thousands of miles away. External conditions may impinge on
U.S. power, but it is internal conditions that generate it.
4. As Empires decline, they become more opulent, and they
obsess about their own glory.
Brendon's description of the British Empire Exposition at
Wembley in 1924-1925 is both slightly comical and bittersweet; with
cracks increasingly evident in the imperial façade, Britain put on
a lavish show designed to bind the colonies together and highlight
its continuing glory. Moral: when you hear U.S. politicians
glorifying America's historical world role, get worried.
5. Great Empires are heterogeneous.
The British empire was not a uniform enterprise; the various
bits and piece were acquired at different times and in different
ways, and the relationship between London and the different
components was far from uniform. One could say the same thing for
America's less formal global "empire": its relationship with NATO
is different than the alliance with Japan, or the client states in
the Middle East, or the bases at Diego Garcia or Guantanamo. An
empire is not one thing.
6. When building an empire, it's hard to know where to
stop.
The expansion of the British empire after 1781 shows how
difficult it is to engage in a rational assessment of strategic
costs and benefits. Once committed to India, for example, it
was easy for Britain to get drawn into additional commitments in
Egypt, Yemen, Kenya, South Africa, Afghanistan, Burma, and
Singapore. This was partly because ambitious empire builders like
Cecil Rhodes were constantly promoting new imperial schemes, but
also because each additional step could be justified by the need to
protect the last. History has been described as "just one damn
thing after another," and so is the process of imperial
expansion.
7. It takes a lot of incompetent people to run an
empire.
A recurring theme in Brendon’s account is the remarkable level
of ignorance and incompetence with which the British empire was
administered. Although there were obviously some very
able individuals involved, Britain’s colonial endeavors seem to
have attracted an equal or greater number of arrogant, corrupt, and
racist buffoons. The bungling that accompanied the U.S. occupation
of Iraq looks rather typical by comparison.
8. Great Powers defend perceived interests with any means
at their disposal.
Great powers like to portray themselves as "civilized" societies
with superior moral and ethical standards, but realists know
better. Like other empires, Britain used its technological
superiority without restraint, whether in the form of naval power,
the Maxim gun, airplanes, high explosive, or poison gas., and the
British showed scant regard for the effects of this superior
technology on their "uncivilized" targets. Today, the United States
uses Predators and Reapers and smart bombs. Plus ca change
...
9. Nationalism and other forms of local identity remain a
potent obstacle to long-term imperial control.
Britain's supposedly "liberal" empire contained a deep
contradiction: a society that emphasized individual liberties could
not hold in bondage whole societies and deny the inhabitants
independence. Once nationalism took root in the colonies
(intermingled with other tribal and/or religious identities),
resistance to imperial rule increased apace. As the United States
is now discovering in Iraq and Central Asia, most peoples don’t
like taking orders from well-armed foreigners, even when the
foreigners keep telling them that their aims are benevolent.
10. "Imperial Prestige" is both an
asset and a trap.
Britain's leaders fretted constantly about any erosion in their
image of superiority, fearing that one or two setbacks might lead
their subjects to rise up or encourage other great powers to poach
on Britain’s holdings. As a result, Britons found
themselves fighting to defend marginal possessions in order to
preserve their position in the places they believed mattered.
Ironically, the refusal to liquidate far-flung commitments early so
as to focus resources on more vital interests may have hastened
Britain's imperial decline.
There are undoubtedly other morals one can draw from Brendon's
account, and other historical treatments would undoubtedly suggest
a somewhat different set of lessons. I wouldn't want to overplay
the parallels between Britain and the United States, if only
because the U.S. empire is mostly ad hoc and informal rather than a
network of formal colonies. But there is one final moral one could
also draw from Brendan's fine work: there is life after
Empire. Britain may be past the glory of its imperial heyday,
but life expectancy, health care, educational levels, GDP/capita,
etc. are all higher now than they were in Victoria's time.
Defenders of the Empire foresaw doom-and-gloom if it ever
dissolved -- and sent many men to their deaths to prevent that from
happening -- but its eventual demise did not produce the disasters
back home that many had feared. Great Britain remains in
influential force in world affairs, if anything batting slightly
above its weight, and is more secure now than at any time in its
modern history. For those of us who think the United States should
stay out of the empire business, that's a reassuring thought.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/13