American Century? Hang on a tick

By PAUL BUCHANAN*

From the time Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916, it has been widely accepted that imperialism and the quest for empire were motivated by transparently economic factors.

Whereas pre-capitalist imperialism responded to the political ambitions, if not whims, of monarchs and madmen, some of which had economic rationales above and beyond conquest of territory and peoples for God, motherland and glory, Lenin argued that, as a growth-based system of production, capitalism absolutely required outward expansion in pursuit of cheaper raw materials and labour.

As a result, he saw capitalist imperialism as an inherently war-mongering enterprise, and accurately predicted that world wars between imperialist powers would result. What he did not predict was that capitalism would survive these wars and, in fact, prosper.

On the contrary, in a play on the reasoning that fuels Marxist-Leninist thought, in today's world of globalised exchange and production it is capitalism that is the highest stage of imperialism.

Those countries that were subject earliest to capitalist imperialism are today among the most commodified; those that resisted capitalist expansion the most are among the most underdeveloped.

In that measure modern imperialism has been vindicated, and the term may not deserve the opprobrium to which it has most often been subjected.

But the march towards modernity has shortened the lifespan of empires as well. The 1000 years of Roman Empire and 800 years of Ottoman rule were eventually replaced by just 200 years of Pax Britannica.

The so-called Soviet empire lasted no more than 75 years, and the post-Cold War era of unchallenged United States supremacy has been not much more than a decade in the making.

With the global scope of technology and communications, the imperial ambitions of would-be emperors are both aided and hindered - but in no case lengthened - by mere force of ambition.

This should give those who proclaim the emergence of a new "American Century" on the back of the Iraq war reason for pause.

More striking than the need for caution when contemplating time horizons for future imperial rule is the back-to-the-future nature of the quest to impose a pro-American stamp on the political map of the Middle East and elsewhere.

Contrary to what vulgar pundits of various stripes proclaim is the abject resource-based motivation of the Bush Administration in pursuing the war against Iraq - read oil - this conflict was driven mainly by other, non-economic motives.

It is clear that for the West the entire Middle East is about oil - any high school student can pretty much figure that out. Without oil there would be little, if any, concern about the region in London, Paris or Washington.

Without oil, there would be no oil monarchies, ostentatious displays of wealth in societies in which religious dictates advocate the communal distribution of resources, or Opec price-fixing.

But with that finite resource and its socio-political ramifications as a regional backdrop, the decision to invade Iraq and oust the Baath Party dictatorship led by Saddam Hussein was driven not by a desire to secure oil-fields as such but by the decision, accentuated in its urgency by the attacks of September 11, 2001, to rid the world of anti-Western terrorist extremists and the rogue states that would aid and abet them.

It was driven by a desire, enunciated long before 9/11, to redraw the political map of the Middle East in a more pro-Western and democratic (read secular electoral capitalist) mould.

Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda cohorts just drove home the necessity and immediacy of doing so.

The attack and liberation of Afghanistan from Taleban rule was the first strike in this enterprise.

Iraq represents the next but by no means last of the follow-up blows against those who would defy the might of the remaining superpower and its allies.

Ironically, this strategic perspective responds less to the imperatives of capitalist globalisation - another complaint of the cruder anti-war commentators - and more to a moral crusade on the part of a born-again American President and his entourage of "clash of civilisation" proponents.

They see the imperial quest as that of making the world safe for Christian values and democratic capitalism, although the emphasis in the latter phrase is on the secular and electoral nature of capitalist rule rather than on the substantive bases of democracy proper.

The trouble for the would-be imperial elite is that the very method that is allowing them to extend their control - military might - is ultimately the source of their weakness.

For without international support and multinational consensus on what the proper international order should look like, and increasingly unilateralist and isolated in its approach to global affairs, the US will more and more be forced to rely on military prowess to maintain its imperial grip.

But even if successful over the short to medium term, this strategy will not last. Acquiescence is not consent, and force without moral authority obeys a form of Newtonian Law - it wanes over time, particularly in the face of resistance.

Should other nations decide to resist - say, by China backing North Korea in a confrontation with the US, or Russia (or France) backing Syria or Iran in a similar scenario - the US will have either to escalate into nuclear conflict or back down. Neither is a guarantee of the longevity of empire.

Thus, if it is to survive as empire, the US world system will necessarily require majority international support. Right now that is a debatable proposition.

Thus the prospects for a Pax Americana in the 21st century remain problematic, if for no other reason than that the crusade being advocated and the methods being used invite resistance from friend and foe alike.

In that case the ambitions of the American foreign policy elite may be less imperial than praetorian, which is the reason empires ultimately crumble.

* Paul Buchanan, a former US Defence Department analyst, lectures at Auckland University.

Herald Feature: Iraq war