America
has long been imperialist
and will be more so
By
Jonathan
Power
May 7, 2003
LONDON - Woodrow Wilson, the idealistic president of
the United States during the First World War, said that
the U.S. world role came "by no plan of our conceiving,
but by the hand of God that led us into this way". Until
Vietnam this view was held right across the American
political spectrum. America was the God-given example to
other nations and was the leading nation on a progressive
scale of historical development.
The Vietnam-induced pause in this historical march now
seems to be a long time ago. The forward momentum of the
exceptional American spirit continues with a union under
President George Bush of two powerful schools of
American foreign policy: the Wilsonian liberals anxious
to extend democracy and the neoconservatives,
unilateralist inclined, who believe in power projection
and who also think that an aggressive American leadership
around the world will work for the good of all
societies.
Yet the Americans have always claimed that, unlike
their European allies, they were not an imperial or
colonial power. Indeed the aid given Britain during World
War 2 had to be paid for by London with interest, an
American ploy to make sure that a post world war Britain
could no longer afford to run an empire. When Britain
with France and Israel went to war with Egypt over the
Egyptian decision to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956
president Dwight Eisenhower cut off American financial
support for the beleaguered British economy on the
grounds that Britain shouldn't any more be indulging in
imperial adventures.
The truth is more prosaic: what we see today, with the
ascendancy of the neo-conservatives in Washington and the
seeming undimmed energy of this administration to make
the world to its liking by the projection of its
overwhelming military might, is nothing more than the
continuity of a long line of imperial yearnings that
reach back to the earliest days of the United States. The
country has always been driven by expansionist
urges as Farsed Zukaria wrote in a landmark article in
"World Policy Journal". "Ever since the 13 colonies,
nestled east of the Allegheny mountains, relentlessly
marched west to acquire and control the continent,
expansionism and imperialism have been part of the
American ideal".
And these ambitions were not exhausted with the
conquest of California. In the 1850s, in the aftermath of
the Mexican war, American leaders talked a lot about the
need for further expansion. President Franklin Pierce in
1853 said he would "not be controlled by any timid
forebodings of evil from expansionism". American
diplomats tried to negotiate the purchase of parts of
Mexico, Cuba and Hawaii. Even Canada was a target. John
Quincy Adams thought that in the end the U.S. would annex
all of North America.
For a while the civil war tempered these ambitions.
But once over revenge was in the air. Since Britain had
aided the south the widespread feeling was that the
reunited U.S. should take its Canadian possession to the
north. Only the might of the British fleet kept the
American debate, led by Abraham Lincoln's imperial minded
secretary of state William Henry Seward, within sensible
bounds.
At the end of the nineteenth century president William
McKinley used the explosion (undoubtedly accidental) of
the battleship Maine as the excuse to conquer Cuba. And
then, tasting success, he went on to grab Spanish Puerto
Rico and the Philippines, adding Hawaii to the list even
though it had nothing to do with Spain. His assistant
secretary of the navy, the next president, Theodore
Roosevelt, told friends that he thought war brought out
the best in the nation and although he would have
preferred a war with Germany "I am not particular and I'd
even take Spain if nothing better is offered". He was an
unapologetic expansionist and imperialist. He organized
the succession of Panama from Colombia in 1903 declaring
publicly "I took Panama" and work on building the canal
commenced. Later he quarreled with Canada over the
Alaskan/Canadian border.
The threads of this history have been rewoven by
George Bush to deal with new contingencies. But the
colours are the same and the purpose of the garment
remains unchanged: to make the world a safe place for
America with the conviction that this can only be
achieved by making the world very much like America. It
may be practiced with more aggression under Bush that it
was under Bill Clinton, but in fact it is only in degree.
The expansion of NATO to Russia's borders was a
Clintonesque idea. So too was to build up American power
in the Caspian Basin and along Russia's southern border.
This impulse would not change with a new president. It
will change only when America stumbles, as it might with
Iraq. But even then after the disaster of Vietnam it only
took until the presidency of Ronald Reagan to right the
ship. Now that America is militarily unchallenged the
imperial urge can only gather speed. The only small cause
for doubt is whether God is really on America's side. For
the answer to that we might have to wait a century or
even two.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
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