Will Imperial America Go Quietly Into the Dark Night? Doubtful

Much has been written about the American empire and its inevitable decline. The best books I read on the subject were American Theocracy, by Kevin Phillips, and Day of Reckoning, by Pat Buchanan (except the last third or so of the book, which is a bit of a racist screed). But there are countless other writers who’ve covered the subject, each adding his or her own insight.

John Feffer’s piece at Truth-out, The Three War Doctrine, takes the narrative to the next level. Feffer takes it as a given that the American century is over and that the days of America’s imperial army (and navy, etc.) are over. Feffer then muses on how it will all go down. 

The analogy to the decline of the British empire is obvious, and one often made, but I was not aware of this aspect of the decline, which Feffer draws into the analogy:

It’s often pointed out that the British Empire finally collapsed because of the debts incurred by England during World War II. Washington extended London a mountain of loans to fight the war, and when the loans came due, the United States effectively replaced England as the hegemon of the “free world.”

But the process was not so cut and dried. “In July 1950, on the eve of the Korean War,” writes Tony Judt in Postwar, “Britain had a full naval fleet in the Atlantic, another in the Mediterranean and a third in the Indian Ocean, as well as a permanent ‘China station.’ The country maintained 120 Royal Air Force squadrons worldwide and had armies or parts of armies permanently based in Hong Kong, Malaya, the Persian Gulf and North Africa, Trieste and Austria, West Germany and the United Kingdom itself.” Five years after the end of World War II, someone forgot to give the British the news that their term was over.

The United States that Barack Obama inherited in 2008 was similarly a “dead empire walking,” and China now serves as the bankroller that the United States was in the 1940s. A prudent president, Obama has attempted to maintain U.S. position in the world at a lower cost and with less blowback. His critics on the left, myself included, want less empire and more prudence. But we must also acknowledge the deluge that might come après Obama and make the last few years seem like halcyon days.

If the War Party wins in 2016, all bets are off. We will prepare to fight in the Eurasian heartland, the South China Sea, and the resource-rich lands of Africa—because if we don’t fight them there, we’ll have to fight them here. Just when it seemed like we were about to give peace a chance, the United States will suddenly revert to a three-war doctrine. 2016 will be 1979 and 2001 all over again. And, as we all know, bad luck always comes in threes.

Let’s hope the War Party, which Feffer defines as the hawks from both major parties minus the libertarians, doesn’t win in 2016.