By Michael F. Duggan
“Successful imperialism wins wealth. Yet, historically, successful empires such as Persia, Rome, Byzantium, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, have not remained rich. Indeed, it seems to be the fate of empires to become too poor to sustain the very cost of empires. The longer an empire holds together, the poorer and more economically backward it tends to become.” -Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations
With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, my thoughts have turned again to the perils of empire. Last night I was reading Robert Fisk’s 2006 essay “What the Romans would have thought of Iraq,” and I was reminded of discussions I had with friends almost two decades ago about analogies of the present-day world to the classical.
One such discussion centered around a generalized comparison casting the United States as Rome and modern Europe as Greece. The U.S., like Rome, can be vulgar and heavy-handed; Europe, like Greece, is more refined. We are younger as a civilization and tend to be impulsive and non-reflective. They are older and more circumspect and philosophical. We are practical, like the Roman aqueduct builders. The Europeans are more theoretical and aesthetic. We are imperial; they are a problematic confederation. Like the Romans, we love our weapons and blood sports.
There are also comparisons to be made between notable Roman leaders and U.S. presidents. Washington was our Cincinnatus—the statesman of the Early Republic who voluntarily relinquished power to return to his farm. One could make plausible comparisons of the Roosevelts to Augustus and Julius Caesar—patricians who embraced the masses as well as massive state-funded capital projects (TR was also an imperialist). One could also argue that more recently there have been presidents who resemble Sulla and Nero. The emperor that I find most compelling and most relevant to our own time is Hadrian.
Hadrian was the second-century leader who realized that the Empire was overextended and sought to preserve Roman strength via consolidation. He was a military man who was liked by his men and as emperor traveled to the farthest reaches of the Empire to visit and talk with them. At that time, Rome was the world for those in the West, and he declared where it ended (e.g. Hadrian’s Wall). He suppressed insurgencies not of his choosing in the Middle East with impressive brutality. In spite of this, he has long resonated with me as a sensible leader trying to address the empire’s most pressing problem: its own massive scale. A number of years ago I posited a parallel grand strategy for the United States based on consolidation that I call “Neo-Hadrianism.” (https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/on-containment-and-islamism-moderate-realism-for-a-fractious-age-by-michael-f-duggan). I also keep a silver Hadrian coin for good luck.
Like the later Roman Empire, the days of U.S. military and economic predominance are numbered and the question is whether its decline will be controlled and managed or if resistance to changing economic and geopolitical realities will lead to an uncontrolled collapse. Will the American empire end with a sensible post-globalist grand strategy of consolidation, or will it end with a bang or a fizzle? Rationalization and denial are the twin pillars of human psychology, and ignoring realities now coming into focus could lead to a catastrophic collapse or else a dismal protracted decline and an end to the American Century just short of an even hundred.
Rather than continue to embrace the problematic role of the world’s military and naval hegemon, the United States should adopt a policy architecture allowing it to operate more effectively as a robust regional world power with capable land, air, and sea forces to match. This would allow the nation to protect its vital interests and to meet its treaty obligations while still acting as a world leader in international coalitions to preserve peace and order and to restore the status quo in instances where the territorial sovereignty of a nation has been violated by another. Such a role would also be an effective means for fostering the international cooperation necessary to address the unfolding world environmental crises.
Unchecked power brings with it the potential for corruption, hubris, and an unselfcritical sense of entitlement as witnessed by policies enjoining intervention in the internal affairs of other nations. Americans decry allegations of foreign interference with their elections yet see no contradiction in their nation overthrowing or helping to overthrow inconvenient regimes in far flung parts of the world and open-ended occupations. The role of the world’s policeman in furtherance of an activist neoliberal worldview by interventionist means has worked against the United States. The euphemism of “regime change” for one-sided war and the Orwellian designation of “humanitarian intervention” for aerial bombing campaigns have sullied rather than strengthen the reputation of the United States as a force for good in the world, a reputation seen by other nations in recent decades as honored in the breach.
United States military hegemony as the security and enforcement elements of economic globalization constitutes a form of imperialism that is at odds with American first principles. As a practical matter it is also an unsustainable drain on our economy. Economic globalization has resulted in massive disparities both at home and abroad. Both a neoliberal world economy and American military preeminence as its protector are as undesirable as they are unsustainable. As a latter day incarnation of the Great Game, it is a distraction from more important matters like the unfolding environmental crises.
An entire generation of Americans has grown up to see no anomaly, no abnormally in their nation bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, killing thousands of people in the process. Several generations of Americans have witnessed their nation use undeclared wars as a basis for foreign policy. The unintended consequence of this is an inversion of Clausewitz’s “war is an extension of policy” to a state of affairs where policy becomes a justification for military budgets and an endless gravy train for the defense industries. Budgets may thus become drivers of policy. Undeclared military campaigns, assassination-like drone strikes, and a never-ending state of semi-war can be used, not only to justify new weapons systems, but to provide convenient venues to test them in real world conditions. As the demise of the Soviet Union well illustrates, economies typified by little growth and which rely on a manufacturing sector based on the production and export of military goods—as opposed to the durable goods of a healthy consumer economy—are both artificial and symptomatic of decline.
There are notable differences between ancient Rome and the modern United States. There was a brutal honesty to Roman expansion, where our imperialism is generally justified by claims of bringing democracy, economic development, rights, and rule of law initiatives. When the legions showed up in a region they said “we are here; surrender or die.” In such instances, the victims were spared the added indignity of having their deaths justified in terms of high-sounding words. I am in no way advocating Roman brutality. Rather I am saying that the dead and maimed of war don’t care a damn about the lofty motives and justifications of occupiers.
It should be noted that Hadrian’s project of consolidation eventually failed, that empire has a momentum and allure—a will of its own—that is irresistible to those operating under it as it runs course (and bad policy must run its course like an illness). Empires eventually become unsustainable and burn themselves out. Nations that embrace a role that is proportional to their size and resources tend to do better in a mode of steady state than nations that rise to a grand imperial scale and then collapse into a second or third-rate status of post-imperial proportions.
Will Joe Biden turn out to be a latter-day Hadrian, and, if so, will he be more successful than the Roman emperor whose earnest effort and namesake can still be seen traversing the hills and vales of northern England? Pulling out of Afghanistan is a good start, as is the extension of the START Treaty. But an aggressive stance toward China and Russia suggests that not only is the foreign policy Blob back, but that it has the president’s ear.
All historical analogies eventually break down; history “rhymes” more than it repeats itself, as Twain reminds us. But there is enough historical resemblance of our problematic times to others to give us pause.