perfidy

I posted a poll on my friend's website - it was still there as of this morning - asking, "what is the most ruthless empire in world history?" I included as one choice, "American Global Hegemony." Right now, the response (from an admittedly small pool of respondents) is down to 28%. But for the first several days, half of the votes were going to America. I found this shocking but not surprising. Does America have an empire? Or even imperialistic aims? 
 

Empire, n. 1.

a. political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority. b. The territory included in such a unit.

2. An extensive enterprise under a unified authority: a publishing empire. 

3. Imperial or imperialistic sovereignty, domination, or control 

(From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

While we have fought wars, we have not annexed conquered nations. (Okay, we did in the Spanish-American War, but they are all independent, or have voted to remain part of the U.S.) We occupied Europe, but as France and Germany proved recently, we do not control them or dictate to them. Naturally, we have a great deal of influence. But the last six months in the UN shows that it is not infinite. We can create an empire, but we haven't and we won't. America's position in the world is nothing like the British, French, Roman, Persian, Chinese or other historical empire. As for decline, I know nothing lasts forever. But I don't see the U.S. going down in flames anytime soon. Not in the next fifty years, probably not for a while yet. 

Something like imperial overstretch is a serious concern, but remember that our relative military power is going through the roof as military expenditures as a percentage of GNP are declining. We are becoming more powerful with less effort - we are not sacrificing economics to maintain our power, as many empires in the past have done. While we worry about other potential rivals - Japan and East Asia are in the shitter, economically, Europe has been in the doldrums for decades, Russia is a third world nation, and China could be on the verge of complete collapse in ten years. Who is going to give us the payback? And why would they? If Iraq, liberated from Saddam, becomes more prosperous and free, they are not going to be gunning for us. Remember how the people of Afghanistan celebrated after we destroyed the Taliban. There will be some resentment for our power and success, but I don't see your scenario coming to pass. 

I have painted an optimistic picture, to be sure. But the problem is not from plans not surviving contact with the enemy. Militarily, we include that in the plan. We have the flexibility to adjust to the situation as it evolves. We're good at that. And even a moderate success is still, well, a success. As far as military conflict goes, I don't think you'll see major resistance from anything other than the Special Republican Guard, perhaps 13,000 troops. As for the people, Saddam rules a totalitarian state - all segments of the population have been set against each other to allow Saddam's small tribe from Tikrut to maintain power. There won't be a Baathist resistance movement. 

Finally, in a representative democracy, or Republic, we elect officials to make decisions. We don't have plebiscites on every issue like Athens in 500bc. If we are unhappy, we bitch and we moan, and then elect someone else next time. So no, we don't have direct control over the government minute to minute, but the existence of an unhappy electorate will definitely affect the actions of our public servants. And we have the ultimate power to remove those who displease us - though we may have to wait a couple years. I was deeply unhappy with our leadership for most of the nineties, but I never said I lived in a "republic." (BTW, I'm really getting frustrated with "scare quotes." This mode of expression has gotten a lot more common over the past few years. Sure it fits in with our ironic mode of existence, but imaging the speaker twitching the two first fingers of both hands beside his head as he speaks is getting to me.)