Colossus
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58. Lieven, Empire, p. xiv.
59. See for an attempt at a formal economic theory of empire, Grossman and Mendoza, “Annexation or Conquest?”
60. Davis and Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire.
61. Lundestad, American “Empire.”
62. Zakaria, Future of Freedom, esp. p. 162.
63. Krugman, Great Unravelling, passim.
64. See Kupchan, End, p. 153.
65. For some recent examples, see Joseph Nye, “The New Rome Meets the New Barbarians: How America Should Wield Its Power,” Economist, March 23, 2002; Jonathan Freedland, “Rome, AD … Rome DC,” Guardian, September 18, 2002; Robert Harris, “Return of the Romans,” Sunday Times, August 31, 2003.
66. American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Island, Navassa Island, Northern Mariana Is-lands, Palmyra Atoll, Puerto Rico, Vir-gin Islands and Wake Island.
67. Joseph Curl, “U.S. Eyes Cuts at Germany, S. Korea Bases,” Washington Times, February 12, 2003.
68. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002, table 495.
69. Transcript in New York Times, February 26, 2002.
70. Ian Traynor, “How American Power Girds the Globe with a Ring of Steel,” Guardian, April 21, 2003.
71. Paul Kennedy, “Power and Terror,” Financial Times, September 3, 2002.
72. Gregg Easterbrook, “American Power Moves Beyond the Mere Super,” New York Times, April 27, 2003.
73. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Pow-ers, p. 519.
74. Porter (ed.), Atlas of British Overseas Expansion, p. 120.
75. See, e.g., O’Hanlon, “Come Partly Home, America.”
76. I am grateful to Dr. Christopher Bassford of the National War College for drawing this map to my attention.
77. Priest, Mission, p. 73.
78. The term great power is yet another euphemism. At the time it was current, all the five states designated as such—Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria and the German Reich—were or possessed empires.
79. Kennedy, Great Powers.
80. Although Hanson’s Decline of the American Empire appeared as early as 1993.
81. According to Charles Kupchan, for example, “Europe [would] soon catch up with America … because it is coming together, amassing the impressive resources and intellectual capital already possessed by its constituent states”: Kupchan, End, pp. 119, 132.
82. John Mearsheimer concluded his economically deterministic Tragedy of Great Power Politics with this grim verdict: “The United States has a profound interest in seeing Chinese economic growth slow considerably in the years ahead.” Should China keep growing, in other words, the United States would cease to be the dominant power in Asia: Mearsheimer, Tragedy, p. 402. Cf. ibid., p. 383f. Oddly, Russia is double-counted in Mearsheimer’s tables, and the comparable American data are omitted.
83. See Huntington, “Lonely Superpower,” p. 88.
84. Todd, Après l’Empire.
85. Calculations based on data in Maddison, World Economy, appendix A. A study by Goldman Sachs estimates that Chinese output could exceed American by 2041.
86. Maddison, World Economy, p. 261, table B-18.
87. World Bank, World Development Indicators database. An international dollar is an imaginary unit that has the same purchasing power over the gross domestic product of any country as the U.S. dollar has in the United States. This adjustment eliminates the effects of exchange rate movements and differentials in prices for equivalent goods between countries (a Big Mac costs more in the United States than in China). Measuring income and output in current dollars gives very different results. In 1980, using current dollars, the U.S. share of world output was just 10.6 percent, nearly a third what it is today. Seven years later it was up to a quarter, its highest share since. 1960, and between 1995 and 2002 it rose from a quarter to a third. Note that income here is gross national income, which (in the World Bank’s definition) is “the sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad.” The measure of output is gross domestic product, which (again in the World Bank’s definition) “is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy, plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources.”
88. Though this is not strictly speaking the right comparison. If we add together Maddison’s estimates for the gross domestic product of Britain and all its colonies in 1913, the total (adjusting for purchasing parity) comes to over 20 percent of his estimate for world GDP. It might be more accurate to say, then, that the U.S. economy today and the combined economies of the British Empire a century ago account for roughly similar shares of world output.
89. http:grassrootsbrunnet.net/keswick-ridge/mcdonalds/history_of_expansion.htm. Technically, McDonal’s does not own these restaurants, but it sells franchises to restaurant proprietors. There is widening latitude for these to adapt McDonald’s products to suit local tastes. However, its inspectors ensure that franchisees conform to the standards of service and food quality set by McDonal’s in the United States.
90. Neil Buckley, “Eyes on the Fries,” Financial Times, August 29, 2003.
91. Coca-Cola Company 2002 Annual Report 2002, p. 44.
92. Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), “National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2004” (Green Paper), March 2003.
93. Kennedy, Rise and Fall, p. 609, n. 18.
94. Nye, Paradox, p. 8. See also his essay “The Velvet Hegemon,” Foreign Policy (May–June 2003) p. 74f., which responds to my critique “Think Again: Power,” Foreign Policy (March–April 2003).
95. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Paradox, p. 141.
96. Ibid., p. 140f.
97. On Americanization, see Bell, Americanization and Australia. Cf. Judge, “Hegemony of the Heart.”
98. Held et al., Global Transformations, pp. 344–63. Cf. Smith, Talons of the Eagle, p. 235f. Latin American cinemas are also dominated by U.S. films.
99. Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil, p. 119.
100. Figures from the Evangelism and Missions Information Service, the U.S. Council of World Missions and the North American Missions Board.
101. http:bible.acu.edu/missions/page.asp?ID=174; ID=894.
102. Coker, Conflicts, p. 11. Cf. Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?
103. David van Biema, “Should Christians Convert Muslims?,” Time, June 30, 2003.
104. See, e.g., Mandelbaum, Ideas, p. 1.
105. Ibid., p. 288.
106. Office of the President, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” September 17, 2003, http:usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/secstrat.htm.
107. See Bacevich, American Empire, p. 2f. But even Bacevich understates the extent of the resemblance: Andrew Bacevich, “Does Empire Pay?,” Historically Speaking, 4, 4 (April 2003), p. 33.
108. See my Empire, passim. Cf. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Paradox, pp. 10, 144; Kurtz, “Democratic Imperialism.”
109. Quoted in Morris, Pax Britannica, p. 517.
110. Julien, America’s Empire, p. 13f.
111. “President Bush’s Address to the Nation,” New York Times, September 7, 2003.
112. See Jack P. Greene, “Empire and Identity,” p. 223. See also Pagden, “Struggle for Legitimacy,” p. 52.
113. Office of the President, “National Security Strategy,” part 5: “Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction”
114. See Acemoglu et al., “African Success Story.”
115. Stephen Haber, Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, “If Economists Are So Smart, Why Is Africa So Poor?” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2003.
116. This is something the people of Sierra Leone acknowledged when they openly welcomed British intervention in September 2000. In the space of a few days eight hundred paratroopers achieved what had hitherto eluded more than ten thousand United Nations peacekeepers: they ended the country’s horribly bloody internecine conflict.
117. I first advanced this case in my book The Cash Nexus. For echoes of the same argument, see Cooper, “Postmodern State” and Mallaby, “Reluctant Imperialist.”
118. See my Empire. Cf. Kurtz, “Democratic Imperialism.”
119. Symonds, Oxford and Empire, p. 188.
120. Louis, “Introduction,” pp. 5f.
121. “Success of a free Iraq will be watched and noted throughout the region. Mil-lions will see that freedom, equality and material progress are possible at the heart of the Middle East. Leaders in the region will face the clearest evidence that free institutions and open societies are the only path to long-term national success and dignity…. And a trans-formed Middle East would benefit the entire world by undermining the ide-ologies that export violence to other lands…. The advance of democratic institutions in Iraq is setting an example that others [in the region] would be wise to follow”: New York Times, September 23, 2003.
122. Ferguson, “Hegemony or Empire,” p. 154.
CHAPTER 1: THE LIMITS OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
1. Ibid.
2. See Smith, Civic Ideals, esp. pp. 87–89,116.
3. Ibid., pp. 130–34. Cf. Keyssar, Right to Vote.
4. Van Alstyne, American Empire, p. 3; Hanson American Emire . 55.
5. Hanson American Empire, p. 56
6. Williams, Empire as a Way of Life, p. 35.
7. Madison, “The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,” Federalist No. 10.
8. Hamilton, “General Introduction,” Federalist No. 1.
9. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 233.
10. Van Alstyne, American Empire, p. 1.
11. Ibid., p. 9.
12. Maddison, World Economy, pp. 35, 250.
13. Milner et al. (eds.), History of the American West, p. 161.
14. Richardson et al., Texas, p. 57.
15. Milner et al. (eds.), History of the American West, p. 162.
16. Billington, Westward Expansion, pp. 5–10.
17. Figures from the University of Michi-gan Correlates of War database.
18. Sylla, “U.S. Financial System,” p. 259ff. The United States had to pay an additional $3.8 million to cover previous claims filed by American merchants against France for ship seizures. See in general Kastor, Louisiana Purchase. On the complex constitutional implications of Jeffer-son’s action, see Adams, Formative Years, pp. 367–69.
19. Kastor, Louisiana Purchase, p. 7f.
20. Richardson et al., Texas, p. 83f.
21. Ibid., p. 89ff.
22. Ibid., p. 98.
23. Ibid., p. 151.
24. Ibid., p.152.
25. Ibid., p. 157.
26. Milner et al. (eds.), History of the American West, p. 166. On the subsequent use of the phrase manifest destiny, see Horlacher, “Language,” p. 37.
27. Richardson et al., Texas, p. 166.
28. Grant, Memoirs, p. 41. Lincoln, Grant and others suspected that Polk was motivated by a desire to create more slave states.
29. Richardson et al., Texas, p. 167f.
30. Ibid., p. 168.
31. Hanson, American Empire, p. 51.
32. The Canadian border up until this point had been agreed in stages: in 1818 (along the top of what is now Montana and North Dakota), 1842 (along the borders of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota) and 1846 (cession of what became the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho).
33. Van Alstyne, American Empire, p. 8f.
34. Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 10–26.
35. The Supreme Court rejected the suit of the slave Dred Scott that in crossing from a slave state to a federal territory he gained his freedom.
36. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p.158.
37. May, American Imperialism, p. 205f.
38. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 159f. This argument was confirmed by the judgment in Downes v. Bidwell a year and half later.
39. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 236f. See also Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 85.
40. The idea arguably originated with the British foreign secretary George Canning, who proposed a joint Anglo-American declaration along these lines following British recognition of the independence of the South American states. Monroe preferred to make it a unilateral declaration by the United States, but in practice it could be enforced—or overthrown—only by the Royal Navy.
41. Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 85ff
42. Ibid., p. 83f.
43. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 248; Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 91f. Of critical importance were British incursions on Venezuelan sovereignty.
44. Boot, Savage Wars, p. 62.
45. Roskin, “Generational Paradigms,” p. 579.
46. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplo-macy, p. 266.
47. Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 100.
48. See my Pity of War for the argument that Germany, with its relatively insignificant overseas presence, did not come into this category.
49. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, p. 182; Black, Good Neighbor, p. 6.
50. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 12.
51. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 247. See also Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 89f.
52. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 243f.
53. Merk, Manifest Destiny, p. 232.
54. Conrad, Nostromo, p. 76f.
55. Bacevich, American Empire, p. 55; Pratt, Americas Colonial Experiment, p. 168. The American commitment to free trade was never unqualified; the Open Door did not apply to the United States itself. In practice, no duties were charged on American imports to American possessions (with the exception of Samoa after 1909), whereas duties were charged on imports to American possessions from other countries. The British rejected such “imperial preference” until the 1930s.
56. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, pp. 265, 257.
57. “If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can anyone doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the ‘survival of the fittest?’ ”: Merk, Manifest Destiny, p. 238ff. See also Horlacher, “Language,” pp. 35–37.
58. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny.” Cf. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 2ff; May, American Imperialism, pp. 192–97, 207–09.
59. Morris, Pax Britannica, p. 28.
60. See Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, passim.
61. Merk, Manifest Destiny, p. 243f.; Black, Good Neighbor, p. 16f.
62. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 244f; Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 64–66. Samoa was divided among Britain, Germany and the United States.
63. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 246. For Mahan’s role in arguing for annexation, see Merk, Manifest Destiny, pp. 235–37; Daws, Shoal of Time, p. 287.
64. Which was more advantageous to American refiners than consumers: LaFeber, New Empire, p. 35.
65. Daws, Shoal of Time, p. 285.
66. Merk, Manifest Destiny, pp. 232–35.
67. On the complex question of trade “reciprocity” between Hawaii and the United States, the effect of which was to make the United States practically the sole customer for Hawaiian sugar, see LaFeber, New Empire, pp. 115–20, 142.
68. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny,” p. 169f.
69. Daws, Shoal of Time, p. 289f.; Merk, Manifest
Destiny, p. 255.
70. Daws, Shoal of Time, p. 294f.
71. Ibid., p. 295f.
72. Ibid., p. 298f.
73. Ibid., p. 316.
74. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 160ff. The cases in question were De Lima v. Bidwell and Downes v. Bidwell.
75. Boot, Savage Wars, p. 103f.
76. Merk, Manifest Destiny, p. 254; Rauchway, Murdering McKinley, p. 7. With unintended bathos, McKinley added the characteristic peroration “And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly.”
77. Horlacher, “Language,” pp. 40–43.
78. On the complex motivations at work, see May, American Imperialism, pp. 5–16.
79. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, p. 253f.
80. See, e.g., Boot, Savage Wars, p. 99f., 107–09.
81. Ibid., pp. 100–02.
82. Ibid., p. 120.
83. Ibid., p. 125.
84. Horlacher, “Language,” p. 44. Cf. Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 114–16.
85. May, American Imperialism, pp. 199–205.
86. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, pp. 79–82.
87. Zwick, “Twain.”
88. Freeman and Nearing, Dollar Diplomacy, pp. 255–57.
89. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny,” p. 169.
90. Boot, Savage Wars, p. 122f. A Senate committee was established to begin hearings on the atrocities. Waller was acquitted of murder, after it became clear that Jake Smith had been the first to issue the order of taking no prisoners, and Smith was convicted of “con-duct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline” and forced into retirement.
91. May, American Imperialism, pp. 210–13, 221–23.
92. Vidal, Decline and Fall, p. 18.
93. May, American Imperialism, pp. 214–22.
94. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, pp. 291–310.
95. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, p. 149n.
96. Pratt, Colonial Experiment, p. 125. See Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 102.
97. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p.140.
98. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 106f.
99. Platt, Finance, Trade and British Foreign Policy, p. 326ff.