Liquidating the Empire
A decade ago, Oldsmobile went. Last year, Pontiac. Saturn, Saab and Hummer were discontinued. A thousand GM dealerships shut down.
To those who grew up in a "GM family," where buying a Chrysler was like converting to Islam, what happened to GM was deeply saddening.
Yet the amputations had to be done—or GM would die.
And the same may be about to happen to the American Imperium.
Its birth can be traced to World War II, when America put 16 million men in uniform and sent millions across the seas to crush Nazi Germany and Japan. After V-E and V-J Day, the boys came home.
But with the Stalinization of half of Europe, the fall of China, and war in Korea came NATO and alliances with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and Australia that lasted through the Cold War.
In 1989, however, the Cold War ended dramatically with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the retirement of the Red Army from Europe, the break-up of the Soviet Union and Beijing's abandonment of world communist revolution.
Overnight, our world changed. But America did not change.
As Russia shed her alliances and China set out to capture America's markets, Uncle Sam soldiered on.
We clung to the old alliances and began to add new allies. NATO war guarantees were distributed like credit cards to member states of the old Warsaw Pact and former republics of the Soviet Union.
We invaded Panama and Haiti, smashed Iraq, liberated Kuwait, intervened in Somalia and Bosnia, bombed Serbia, and invaded Iraq again—and Afghanistan. Now we prepare for a new war—on Iran.
Author Lawrence Vance has inventoried America's warfare state.
We spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined.
Our Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. We have 100,000 troops in Iraq, 100,000 in Afghanistan or headed there, 28,000 in Korea, over 35,000 in Japan and 50,000 in Germany. By the Department of Defense's "Base Structure Report," there are 716 U.S. bases in 38 countries.
Chalmers Johnson, who has written books on this subject, claims DOD is minimizing the empire. He discovered some 1,000 U.S. facilities, many of them secret and sensitive. And according to DOD's "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," U.S. troops are now stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories.
Estimated combined budgets for the Pentagon, two wars, foreign aid to allies, 16 intelligence agencies, scores of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our new castle-embassies: $1 trillion a year.
While this worldwide archipelago of bases may have been necessary when we confronted a Sino-Soviet bloc spanning Eurasia from the Elbe to East China Sea, armed with thousands of nuclear weapons and driven by imperial ambition and ideological hatred of us, that is history now.
It is preposterous to argue that all these bases are essential to our security. Indeed, our military presence, our endless wars and our support of despotic regimes have made America, once the most admired of nations, almost everywhere resented and even hated.
Liquidation of this empire should have begun with the end of the Cold War. Now it is being forced upon us by the deficit-debt crisis. Like GM, we can't kick this can up the road any more, because we have come to the end of the road.
Republicans will fight new taxes. Democrats will fight to save social programs. Which leaves the American empire as the logical lead cow for the butcher's knife.
Indeed, how do conservatives justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states—to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states? Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China—to defend Asia from China? Is it not a symptom of senility to borrow from all over the world in order to defend that world?
In their Mount Vernon declaration of principles, conservatives called the Constitution their guiding star. But did not the author of that constitution, James Madison, warn us that wars are the death of republics?
Under Bush II, conservatives, spurning the wisdom of their fathers, let themselves be seduced, neo-conned into enlisting in a Wilsonian crusade that had as its declared utopian goal "ending tyranny in our world."
How could conservatives whose defining virtue is prudence and who pride themselves on following the lamp of experience have been taken into camp by the hustlers and hucksters of empire?
Yet, now that Barack Obama has embraced neo-socialism, Republicans are about to be given a second chance. And just as Rahm Emanuel said liberal Democrats should not let a financial crisis go to waste, but exploit it to ram through their agenda, the right should use the opportunity of the fiscal crisis to take an axe to the warfare state.
Ron Paul's victory at CPAC may be a sign the prodigal sons of the right are casting off the heresy of neoconservatism and coming home to first principles.
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The American Empire was alive and growing long before WWII. Leaving aside the domestic conquests of the 1860s, I seem to recall an oft forgotten little imperial grab that went by the name of The Spanish American War.
Pat Buchanan's wisdom is once again on display. His prose is spare and true. However, it is amusing to see how obtuse the neo-conservatives and the military-conservatives are. America gallops towards fiscal ruin and they want more war and bigger military expenditures.
What Mr. Stanton said.
The domestic Empire is the more dangerous one; it takes more of the commoners' money (for "entitlements") and imposes more of a burden on the productive society. That is where our efforts should focus first.
I think you can make a better case for the beginning of the Empire at the time the Hawaiian Islands were set up and conquered. But, Professor Wilson would likely disagree, and make a good case for 1865.
The egg of the serpent was laid, by design or by accident, in the Constitution itself, in the "general welfare clause," in the "commerce clause," and in the "elastic clause."
The egg was nurtured by Hamilton, Marshall, Story, Webster, Clay and others and finally hatched into the cockatrice of Lincoln and the Republican party.
The abstract corporation with a monopoly on coercion, the ability to define the limits of its own power and driven by a strong will destroyed the union of constitutionally federated republics and replaced them with itself - the consolidated and centralized Hobbesian state.
This abstraction, in its nationalist guise, was animated by Lincoln in America, Bismark in Germany and Garibaldi and others in Italy.
Today, it is shedding its nationalist guise and is revealing itself as the global Leviathan.
From McKinley through or to FDR it expanded, still in its nationalist idiom, to points abroad - Hawaii, the Philippines, into South America and to the rim of Asia.
The war-time socialism of Wilson would, ironically, in the person of Herbert Hoover, seep over into the post-war civilian economy, for which FDR grabbed no little credit.
In the wake of WWII, with the U.N., NATO, the WTO, and the World Bank, it has become global, or so it strives.
"Is it not absurd to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China – to defend Asia from China?"
As an American residing in Asia, I'd like to thank you for pointing out the obvious absurdity of the arrangement.
Let us also remember that for the privilege of allowing us to defend them from their enemies, Japan and South Korea have for decades allowed us to open our markets to their products while closing theirs to ours, thus helping us rid ourselves of the nuissance of having a manufacturing base.
Excellent article. Conservatives are all hyped up these days with "National Security" which they believe entails more war in The Middle East. They believe this because they are instructed to believe this and because folks who know better have been excluded from the debate. The two questions that will soon be answered are
1) How do Republican party leaders justify borrowing hundreds of billions yearly from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states—to defend Europe, Japan and the Arab Gulf states; or to borrow hundreds of billion annually from China—to defend Asia from China?
2) Why cut our own citizen's domestic entitlements before cutting these entitlements to globalism ?
Answer: There is more money left to be stolen from the globalist adventure than can any longer be stolen from the Social Security adventure. In political times such as our own, I always bet on the unrepentant thief.
robert, I think many of what I call military-conservatives are having a hard time getting over their Cold War fix. When the Cold War essentially died in 1991, many military-conservatives needed a substitute for what they missed. The neo-conservatives have provided the new fix to the military-conservatives.
@ 9
True, but after 1991 they spent 10 years in the wilderness with no real enemy during which time had started becoming non-interventionists again. But the cold war ruling class was still in place in 2001 when the spark of 911 was lit.
#9 and #10,
Yes, and the cultural appeal is such that anyone who desires Americans to defend themselves instead of defending others on behalf of others, is either 1) An isolationist that doesn't understand our reponsibility to spread Americanism to the world or 2) a coward who wants to bring America to her knees. This is all the commentary that can be allowed in 60 second sound bites and since it is the only food served on the menue, we have learned to accept it as desirable ---like eating french fries soaked in salt and catsup with our fingers. Who needs table cloths, silverware and conversation, when the "market" calls for chit chat and grub!! Bill Clinton was more clever than wise when he noticed that today's politics is all about "the economy, stupid."
Wishful thinking (that the conservatives will come back to a non-interventionist foreign policy and a liberty-oriented position on money, taxes etc.).
This is the other side of the democrat/republican coin. It's a bad penny.
Enabling them (joining with them) is to court certain, not probable, betrayal. The republicans as a mob are really no better than the other mobs. There is only a difference in rhetoric to appeal to teh other wing of the war party.
Damn them all to hell (pardon the pun).
Even if globalism was peeled back today, we would still be crippled by the internal effects of empire---bloated government and promiscuous importation of Third World population. However, I agree that the military should be cut first, then welfare, then the federal payroll. Then there would be no need to attack Social Security, to which people have actually paid in, after all. Suppose we cut 10% of every federal salary over, say, $50,000?
"Suppose we cut 10% of every federal salary over, say, $50,000?"
Dr. Wilson,
I like the idea and "the country is ready for it" but Congress has never waivered on this issue and has a 100% voting record against it. To paraphrase Will Rogers, "Our worthy members of Congress have never met a pay raise they couldn't support."
In many ways we are gifted more than any other nation on Earth. Only the Weimar Republic was so blind before it fell apart while the citizenry was dumbfounded and/or awestruck by Adolf. Thank God we have no Adolf (at least I don't see any resemblance), but in a very similar fashion we are falling apart. GM is a good example. There are many others: we have pioneered a constantly failing system of education and self-indoctrination which serves for getting most Americans dumb and dumber (dumb today - dumber tomorrow). Over 50% of Americans lives with the illusion that we have won every war we were ever involved in. We are a sad country with nearly 300 million Pinochios where our own lies are proliferating faster than we can put a stop on them. No, I would not object to amputating Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Hummer in order to save GM, but what schools do we amputate to save American sanity, and get to a point of critical thinking where an individual can make an educated decision without political spin, without the Völkischer Beobachter, but the more I look - the more scared I get - we do resemble a strong pattern of many societies in their last stages of decay. Have we all swore to uphold the Constitution or was it only me and a group of my friends who came from overseas (legally and obtained American citizenship)? Where is that famous American spirit, or the Frontier spirit or the "live free of die" spirit? We are getting eaten alive and we don't care. In that case we deserve the impending doom - we earned it.
#15 "Thank God we have no Adolf (at least I don’t see any resemblance), but in a very similar fashion we are falling apart."
I hope you are right. What I see is a Congress that refuses to reflect the will of the people on illegal immigration and government healthcare. I see a president who sucked at the teat of William Ayers and Saul Alinsky. There he was taught to never let a crisis go to waste.
To cut Social Security and Medicare would be a crime while we fund a worldwide empire that is wasting at least 500 billion a year. Here a few more cuts as we bring all the troops home to their families. End all foreign aid especially to failed states like Israel and Egypt. Get rid of all redundant depts. The Dept. of Transportation is the easiest to abolish. Just get rid of the Federal excise tax on fuel and let the states collect it, if they wish. All the states have their own depts. of transportation. They can figure their states needs better, without all the federal overhead. The Depts. of Homland Security and TSA have always been redundant. Let the localities and airlines provide the security. Arm the pilots and give airlines absolute control over who they allow on their planes.
The Depts. of Commerce and Labor are just special intrest depts. with no real worthwile purpose. The Dept. of Education was just Carter's payoff to the teachers unions, let's end it not mend it. The same about the Dept. of Energy another Carter brainstorm. Government must be downsized all over. We have to make the benefits of public empoyees more near the levels of the private sector. It has to be done. We are broke and the employees have had a free ride for too long.
Cutting Social Security and Medicare would produce more results faster. As the bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks, that's where the money is.
Besides, national defense is at least partially justifiable; it is expressly authorized by the Constitution. Entitlements are not and never have been.
#18. "National defense," as it is now conducted is not authorised by the Constitution any more than entitlements. The worst thing about Social Security is not that it is an entitlement but that it is a dishonest regressive tax on the middle and working classes. People, after all, are forced to pay into it. Then their payments are stolen by the politicians in exchange for a dubious promissory note. And then when they receive Social Security "benefits" those benefits are taxed again as income.
#19: Please note, I said "partially justified". Maintaining an Army, Navy and Air Force is authorized by the Constitution. They can be (and are) misused, just as any tools can be. As someone who made it a point to publicly protest the first Conquest War in Iraq, I will be among the first to stipulate that said tools are currently being used inappropriately.
As to your point about Social Security, I say this: the only moral solution to the problem is complete and total Eradication. Taxes, spending, the bureaucracy, the entire kit plus kaboodle. Burn it, bury it, and sow the burial field with salt.
Mr Schaeber, I agree Carthago delenta est!
@19: "a dishonest regressive tax on the middle and working classes"
Actually, although we are understandably bitter because we ourselves have to live on taxable salaries, from a traditional conservative standpoint, taxing the proletariat class and the bourgeoisie makes a lot of sense, given their staple role in creating and maintaining the Utopia of Usurers and the societal damage done by the lifestyle of the latter in particular. Higher income taxes and lower property and business taxes encourage the perpetuation of families and of do-it-yourself projects where people cultivate their own property and resources--and make personal use of them. The equating of "business" with "corporations" is just another liberal sham. Here in France, under the pretext of protectionism, a small guy setting up a business is in for serious hell. The winners are of course the established grand bourgeoisie industrielle types who could not care less about France or the French people.
Another thing we should do is eliminate tax deductions for charitable donations to redirect investment into productive projects and eliminate tax-exempt status for any non-governmental organisation holding significant wealth not able to prove that it is part of a legitimate religious congregation or an educational institution with actual students.
Should be grande bourgeoisie industrielle