Centerfield

I think it's a point well taken about empire. IMO many people argue foolishly on this count, as though there were no difference between ongoing influence on the one hand and the unquestioned rule of an emperor on the other. In comparison to other empires, the US fares poorly when it comes to exercising an iron hand within its spheres of influence.

But on the issue of benevolence I think more skepticism is warranted, since this is a more subjective classification. Benevolence is indeed in the eye of the beholder, for each of us views that which constitutes "the good" somewhat differently. As we like to say these days, mileage varies. When matters of conflict come to the point where armed folks contend in the streets, that's about as obvious an indication as you'll ever get that several models about what is good are in serious conflict.

The road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions, and I'd venture to guess that precious few crusades were ever initiated without an appeal to benevolence on the part of the crusaders. All crusades seem to be characterized by some vision of the greater or the greatest good.

If I were to asked what my greatest good were, I'd probably come up with something about the good of realistic tolerance for mileage variance, and not just as a matter of pragmatism, but as a matter of deep appreciation of the upper bounds of human nature. I belive that it's the human ability to appreciate the virtue of "live and let live" that minimizes the spilling of blood.

I agree with Brian and Jon on this point--we are not an empire, although we had a brief and limited experiment in trying to be like the European empires--ie, the Phillippines. I think, in general, we have always intended to be benevolent but things don't always work out. As Brian notes, benevolence is often in the eye of the beholder. I'm not sure that Guatemalans or Iranians considered our action in overthrowing those governments to be so benevolent.

The problem, of course, is that it is always easy to convince yourself that ends justify the means--especially if the ends benefit you. So it was easy to say that we were protecting freedom during the Cold War when we were doing things like trying to knock off Castro and overthrow governments we didn't liek, even though a lot of this was just based on geopolitics (but mixed with idealism and sanctimony, always a dangerous mix).

Overall, I would say that our post-World War II foreign policy was generally beneficial to Europe and the developed world (ie, Japan), but less so to the Third World. But it is interesting to note about the Europeans, who today are so critical of the US--they have absolutely nothing to be proud of in their imperialist phase, especially the continental powers. You can at least argue that the British Empire brought some benefits to its colonies, but the French and, oddly enough given their reputation today, especially the Dutch and Belgians did nothing but exploit the native peoples under their rule.

You're such a Bush apologist, Jon!

;-)

Sorry, I couldn't resist that one, after the discussions in your last post...

While too many "equate hegemony with superiority as a people," too many others equate hegemony with evil. Fewer, admittedly, but still way too many.

I do not mean those who are merely(!) opposed to American policy in some, or even most, areas. Rather I'm thinking of those who appear to believe that merely to be the most powerful power automatically means that the nation is evil. How they visualize a world with no such power (or group of powers) is not entirely clear -- for example, power per capita or power per nation-state?

Sorry. No doubt I am feeling testy, having lately found myself in a conversation with someone of that world-view. It was really, really irritating.

I don't think that merely being powerful equates to being evil. But I do think that being powerful creates temptations to run roughshod over people withoun necessarily realizing it. IN that sense, any country that is hegemonic--such as the US today--creates a certain degree of apprehension in others. The current administration's policies has--rightly or wrongly--accentuated this concern, but it is inevitable that such concern will exist. This is not much different from the way the US (and others) felt when England was the hegemon in the 19th century. By any realistic standard, England was a relatively benevolent hegemon, but less powerful countries, including the United States, viewed a lot of their actions in the context of a presumption that England could and would take actions in its own benefit that would likely disadvantage others.

I agree that power, in itself, is not evil; in fact, it is a necessity for purposeful action. But uncontrolled power can be dangerous even in the hands of the most enlightened.

Agreed about the temptations. And the need to watch out for them.

But I was thinking more of the mindset which believes, passionately, that
- ANY use of US military power, anywhere in the world, is by definition morally wrong. And that includes participation in multilateral forces, including those sanctioned by that US lap dog, the UN.
- failure to intervene militarily to stop genocide (in Dafur, for example) is an evil cooperation in that genocide.

You can see the obvious conflict in those two positions. I can see the obvious conflict. But they, as my unhappy experience demonstrates, see no conflict. Because what is evil is not actually the action (or inaction) but the fact that the US is doing it. And did I mention that these are native-born US citizens, not foreign nationals (who might reasonably be expected to have a more jaundiced view)?

If you are damned by definition, then "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is merely a trivial restatement.

I think the idea of American hegomonic influence may actually be overstated. It has more to do than just the military. It also has to with being able to use diplomatic force. A declining hegemon may be a more approriate description.

The policies put forth by the US, both good and bad, actually do more to undermine the hegemonic position in the long run. I think the US may be considered subjectivly more benevolent now than it was 20 years ago. Its ability to act in a less benevolent manner has actually been reduced by changing global economics.

The US has actually lost a lot of its ability to control the agenda through economic issues. However, that is the nature of pushing development and free trade. This leaves having to fall back on more militaristic methods of trying to enforce hegemonic ideas. This is also becoming more difficult becuase of the opportunity cost in both prestiege and physical costs of its use.

The evolution of the US from a pure hegemonic power in the Cold War to its current benevolent semi-hegomonic position seems to me to be just a temporary postion in a more multi-polar world where there will be no hegemon. The question remains, how long will it take to complete the transition?

wj,

Agree with you totally on the illogic of some left-wing positions on US power. Before the 2004 election, I was on one of the liberal blogs defending the use of humanitarian action (not necessarily unilateral US action)in some cases. The response from one genius was "White Man's Burden" implying, I suppose, that I was advocating a racist position that white westerners had to save backward Africans. That's how silly (and ill-thought out) some of these reflexive lefties are.

Jim,

I don't entirely agree that the spread of globalization has made the US less hegemonic. In fact, during at least the early days of the Cold War, the US was more willing to tolerate some diversity in economic arrangements than it is now. For example, we essentially went along with the European project which by no means involved the pure free market. Today, by contrast, at least until recently, the US was able to insist on a specific "Washington Consensus" in economics. But I agree that we are obviously becoming less able to do that with the spread of left-wing governments in Latin America.

I also agree that the world is becoming more multipolar. The question is, should we attempt to arrest this movement by, for example, trying to contain China or simply accept it. The US military strategy has apparently been to preempt the development of a peer military competitor. My belief is that this is a pointless exercise. As countries like China become stronger economically, they are naturally going to develop their own centers of power. It is futile and probably dangerous to try to stop this. Multipolarity means that the US is going to have to accept some situations that it would prefer not to face; for example, the obvious difficulty with enforcing sanctions in the face of objections from Russians or Chinese. This is going to limit our freedom of action and will certainly give more power to the lesser powers with resources that will be able essentially to ignore our efforts to shape their domestic policies, ie, the Chinese don't care what the Sudanese do to their people. IN the long run, though, I think the US will benefit from not being the only major power with a stake in the system.

OK I read the whole piece. It stated out nicely but did it have to end with the "usual suspects" of neo-cons and fundmentalists.

Is it possible NOT to view past events from the perspective of today?

You're right that we have used our power pretty badly at times.

But there is the complicating factor of changes in ethics. I'd argue that US voters have mostly tried to vote what seemed to them to be ethical choices. But in the light of today, many of those choices sure seem horrible. Jefferson's ethical approach to ethnic cleansing was to figure out how to do it with the fewest dead Injuns.

And sometimes (hi, Nixon!) they got lied to.

There were plenty of opponents to Teddy Roosevelt's resource imperialistic approach to the Panama Canal, including anti-imperialist ones, but it can't be denied that imperialism was still a generally accepted line of thought at the time, even though it was never as accepted in the US as elsewhere.

I'd argue that a similar ethical problem - racism - cobbled our democratization effortso up to Carter. It's hard to understand why we supported so many authoritarians in the Cold War unless you believe we didn't think people without sallow white skin could'n't understand that hard democracy stuff. Never mind that the Greeks invented it and Colombia has one of the oldest democracies - racism wasn't motivated by looking at evidence.

> You're such a Bush apologist, Jon!

Of course! Bwahaha!!

;-)