Abstract
A few years into the latest US war in Iraq, Jürgen Habermas concluded that ‘the normative authority of the United States of America lies in ruins’.3 This war had taken the United States to the region in which so many other empires had contended; however, it was not that it was this particular region per se but the fact that the war in Iraq and especially the insurgencies faced there represented and became the symbol of imperial overstretch that simultaneously demonstrated how Washington could not easily contest the ‘unpredictable outcomes’ and the ‘unwelcome results’ that came from an attempt to control the waves through unilaterally defined objectives.
Most revolutionaries believe, covertly or overtly, that in order to create the ideal world eggs must be broken, otherwise one cannot obtain the omelette. Eggs are certainly broken — never more violently or ubiquitously than in our times — but the omelette is far to seek, it recedes into an infinite distance. That is one of the corollaries of unbridled monism, as I call it — some call it fanaticism, but monism is at the root of every extremism.
Isaiah Berlin1
The end of empire is always present.
Charles S. Maier2
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Notes
Isaiah Berlin cited by Nicholas Kristof, ‘Explorer’, The New York Review of Books, Vol. 57, No. 3 (February 25, 2010), 27.
Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 286.
Michael H. Hunt, The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 315–16.
Roger C. Altman, ‘The Great Crash, 2008’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 1 (January/February 2009), 2–14.
Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘The Eagle Has Crash Landed’, Foreign Policy (July/ August 2002), 60–2. See also, Ahmed Rashid’s, Descent into Chaos (New York: Viking, 2008); Niall Ferguson, ‘The Axis of Upheaval’, Foreign Policy (March/April 2009), 56–8.
David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3; see also:
Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); Berlin’s conception was a considerable influence on my US Foreign Policy in World History (London: Routledge, 2000), though our readings of the United States might be quite different.
Patrick Tyler, ‘US Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop’, The New York Times, March 8, 1992; David Ryan, US Foreign Policy in World History, (London: Routledge, 2000), 190.
US National Security Strategy, and accompanying papers, April 1982, document 8290283 (NSDD 32) System II, NSC Records, The Reagan Presidential Library [hereafter RPL]; David Ryan, ‘“Vietnam”, Victory Culture and Iraq: Struggling with Lessons, Constraints and Credibility from Saigon to Falluja’, in John Dumbrell and David Ryan, eds., Vietnam in Iraq: Tactics, Lessons, Legacies and Ghosts (London: Routledge, 2007), 117.
Toby Dodge, Iraq’s Future: The Aftermath of Regime Change, Adelphi Paper 372 (London: Routledge, 2005), 9–23.
Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (London: Fontana, 1991), 46; Ryan, World History, 141.
David Hackett Fischer, Liberty and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 4–5.
Eric Foner’s study sets freedom within its historical contexts rather than studying it in the abstract. In that sense it investigates the competing forces of freedom in the United States and examines the colloquial use of the terms in that culture. It is important to note that the terms are also constantly redefined to suit the contemporary needs of the culture at any given time. See, Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), xiii–xv;
M. Patrick Cullinane, ‘Tighting for “Freedom”: The Language of “Liberty” and the US Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1898–1909’, PhD thesis, University College Cork, Ireland 2010.
Ian Clark, Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
Robert A. Divine, Second Chance: The Triumph of Internationalism in America during World War II (New York: Atheneum, 1967).
See in particular, Jussi Hanhimäki, The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004);
Mario Del Pero, The Eccentric Realist: Henry Kissinger and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991), xx;
Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London: Verso, 1998), 91.
Michael Schaller, Right Turn: American Life in the Reagan-Bush Era, 1980–1992 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007);
Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History 1974–2008 (New York: HarperCollins, 2008).
Walden Bello, Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), 3.
Fareed Zakaria, ‘The Future of American Power: How America Can Survive the Rise of the Rest’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 3 (May/June 2008), 21–2. See also Fareed Zakaria, ‘The Rise of the Rest’, Newsweek, May 12, 2008, 20–8.
Indeed Rice argued a similar line trying to regain ground that she had conceded and presided over the concession just a few years earlier. Condoleezza Rice, ‘Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4 (July/August 2008), 2–26.
Michael Cox, ‘Is the United States in Decline — Again?’ International Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 4 (2007), 643–53. See also, Robert D. Kaplan, ‘America’s Elegant Decline’, The Atlantic (November 2007); Gina Hahn, ‘As the Romans Did’, The Atlantic (June 22, 2007).
Michael Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1972), 22.
Mario Del Pero, The Eccentric Realist: Henry Kissinger and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), 59, 66.
Schivelbusch observes, ‘It is all the more surprising, then, how briefly the losing nation’s depression tends to last before turning into a unique type of euphoria.’ Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 10.
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Culture of Contentment (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992), 126;
Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1994), 33–42; Ryan, World History, 169.
Cox, ‘Is the United States in Decline — Again?’, 648; George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998);
Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 1 (1991), 23–33.
Louise J. Halle to Robert Bowie, Policy Planning Staff, Department of State, June 23, 1954, Records of the Policy Planning Staff, RG 59, Lot 65 D101, box 79, NARA; David Ryan, Frustrated Empire: US Foreign Policy, 9/11 to Iraq (London: Pluto, 2007), 17.
Amy Kaplan, ‘“Left Alone with America”: The Absence of Empire in the Study of American Culture’, in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease, eds., Culture of United States Imperialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 11–14.
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States and Central America (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993).
James Dunkerley, The Pacification of Central America: Political Change in the Isthmus, 1987–1993 (London: Verso, 1994).
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Chatto and Windus, 1993), xiii;
V.G. Kiernan, Imperialism and Its Contradictions (New York: Routledge, 1995).
Cox, ‘Is the United States in Decline — Again?’ 650; The literature on US empire has grown exponentially of late, see Andrew Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002);
Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2004);
Lloyd Gardner and Marilyn Young, eds., The New American Empire (New York: The New Press, 2005);
Eric Hobsbawm, On Empire: America, War and Global Supremacy (New York: Pantheon, 2008);
G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American Power and World Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 2006);
Christopher Layne and Bradley A. Thayer, American Empire: A Debate (London: Routledge, 2007);
Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006);
Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (London: Verso, 2003);
Herfried Münkler, Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States (Cambridge: Polity, 2007);
Bernard Porter, Empire and Superempire: Britain, America and the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006);
David Ryan and Victor Pungong, eds., The United States and Decolonization: Power and Freedom, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000);
Michael H. Hunt, America Ascendant: How the United States Gain and Wielded Global Dominance (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007);
Geir Lundestad, ‘Empire’ by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 (London: Oxford University Press, 1997);
Richard N. Haass, The Opportunity: America’s Moment to Alter History’s Course (New York: Public Affairs, 2005);
Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire (New Haven: Yale, 2004);
David Ryan, Frustrated Empire: US Foreign Policy 9/11 to Iraq (London: Pluto, 2007);
Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order (London: Constable, 2003).
On the ‘powers to convince’, the ‘play of homology’ and especially the ‘production of belief’ see Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production (Cambridge: Polity, 1993). A recent analysis of US Public Diplomacy, almost a rearguard action against the recent anti-American sentiments, see
Scott Lucas and Ali Fisher, The Trials of Engagement: The Future of US Public Diplomacy (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers, forthcoming 2010).
Cox, ‘Is the United States in Decline — Again?’, 651; NIC, ‘Tor their part, China, India and Russia are not following the western liberal model for self-development but instead are using a different model, “state capitalism.”’ NIC, Global Trends 2025, vii. See also essays in G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Order and Imperial Ambition: Essays on American Power and World Politics (Cambridge: Polity, 2006);
Jeffrey Anderson, G. John Ikenberry, Thomas Risse, eds., The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008);
Christopher S. Browning and Marko Lehti, eds., The Struggle for the West: A Divided and Contested Legacy (London: Routledge, 2010).
Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
Paul Kennedy, ‘Soft Power is On the Up. But It Can Always Be Outmuscled’, The Guardian (London), November 18, 2008; see also Niall Ferguson, ‘Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 2 (March/April 2010), 18–32.
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Ryan, D. (2011). Libertas or Fri? On US Liberty, Decline, Freedom and Pluralism. In: Sewell, B., Lucas, S. (eds) Challenging US Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230349209_10
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