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On the Remnants and Arrogance of Empire
An essay commissioned by Peter Robinson on this week’s Ricochet Podcast.
After the devastation of two World Wars in less than a half century, the British Empire began to dismantle itself in the late 1940s. As commentator Mark Steyn has observed it then precipitated an event unheard of in human history – one dominant military power ceding power to another peaceably – not as the result of losing a war, but through sheer exhaustion. The British decided to tend to their knitting at home and left the new dominant power, the United States, to play the role of the world’s policeman.
The map of the Middle East signed by Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot. (British National Archives)
After almost 75 years we’re still at it. But we’re doing it in the world designed by our predecessors. The borders and political divisions we see are largely due to two events: The Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 which divided much of the Middle East into spheres of influence between the British and the French and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that created the modern Turkish state. Both of these agreements, the former made at the height of the First World War and the latter after it, were made without regard to the people that were actually living there.
Mark Sykes and Francois Georges-Picot were, as Tarek Osman calls them, “quintessential empire men.” They believed that they could run the Middle East in the best interests of England and France and all would be well. But if anything, all they did was manage to insert their countrymen into the long standing grievances of the region. If there were hatreds boiling over between Turks and Kurds, between Muslims and Jews, between Sunni and Shia, then they also created hatred among Arabs and the West. When the “West” became the target, America became the target, too. Not because we were directly involved with these forays into map making, but because we inherited the British Empire. Not her lands or her armed forces, but her attitude, that somehow if we decided how things were going to be, if we decided the nature of the relationships between countries, or worse, we decided who deserved a country in the first place, then all would be well. That is the arrogance of empire, something we have told ourselves time and time again throughout our history that that is exactly what we did not want to be.
This is an attitude that’s widely held among the American people and one that is held in such contempt by politicians and pundits alike. But it is actually something that resides very deep within us, as a part of our national DNA. We are the remnants of empire. We fought against it, we spilled our blood against it and gained our independence from it. And then we wanted to be left the hell alone.
For the longest time we were reluctant to involve ourselves in other people’s arguments. Although individuals turned themselves into mercenaries, we were determined as a nation to heed our first Commander-in-Chief’s admonishment to avoid entangling alliances. “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?” asked George Washington. “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?” Thus we were late to both World Wars and yet, when we got there, did our best to finish the job. Because we knew what the end game was, we knew what was at stake, and we willingly paid the price.
One hundred and forty-seven years after Washington came Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Here was another man of Empire. In September of 1943 he was preparing America to take on the attitudes and ambitions of it. At a speech at Harvard he admonished isolationist America, “The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.
“If this has been proved in the past,” he continued, “as it has been, it will become indisputable in the future. The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility. Although we live in a period so tumultuous that little can be predicted, we may be quite sure that this process will be intensified with every forward step the United States make in wealth and in power.”
This sense of world responsibility did intensify. At least among the powered elite. The rest of the country wanted to get on with their lives. But this attitude that we were responsible for the rest of the world would eventually lead the WWII generation into Korea, and then their sons into the quagmire of Vietnam, and that was the beginning of a great divide that tore the country up and still stirs deep resentments. (A lot of the snide remarks, such as “President Bone Spurs,” have come from a lot of others who took advantage of the era’s deferment rules. Mitt Romney, Joe Biden, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Bill Clinton all did what they could to avoid going to Southeast Asia.) But all the while we tried to convince ourselves that we were acting in our national interest. We had to stop the Communists, both in China and the Soviet Union. We were living by the Domino Theory, that every country that fell to Communism would lead us closer to our own collapse.
But a funny thing happened. The Soviet Union would disappear and the Chinese would get in bed with American business. Saigon fell but the only thing the Vietnamese would take over is the apparel aisle of K-Mart and Target. Almost everything our betters told us would happen simply didn’t.
When the Towers fell in September of 2001 we all knew what had to happen. The gut instincts was the same as it always had been. You bring war to us and you will regret it. And just like 1917 and 1941, the feeling was to go over there, kick some ass and then come home. Only that didn’t happen. We took a detour into Iraq. And then in to some 20 other nations on the continent of Africa. And then into Syria. And increasingly it became more and more apparent to a lot of Americans, that unlike past wars, those that were making the ultimate sacrifice were not the sons and daughters of those that were committing the troops to fight. And the small minority that did go were going as officers, mostly as JAG lawyers and not as grunts. (Shout out to Tom Cotton, who despite his Harvard JD, did his duty with an M-4, not a law book.)
One of the biggest complaints against President Trump is that he has never signed on to the consensus of American foreign policy, the consensus that all of the “experts” and “professionals” have made their reputations on. All of them claim their decisions are based on sound theories and that everything they do is well considered and part of a larger strategy and plan. But the average Americans knows about plans, too. Those are the things that never survive first contact with the enemy and the thing that makes God laugh when you share them out loud. The idea that they can plan the outcomes of other people’s desires is the arrogance of empire.
Colin Powell once noted in 2003 that we Americans “have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace.”
That’s precisely what we’ve always believed in. But here we are, 16 years after those words were spoken, told that to return home and seek our own lives in peace is out of the question.
Some have noted that members of our military are upset with the withdrawal. They are warriors and that is to be expected. But as they say in the Marine Corps, we are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction. Our warriors are willing to die for their country and that is admirable. But for those on the homefront it is also to be expected that we ask exactly why they’ve been asked to make that sacrifice.
With China increasingly dictating the terms of what we can do and what we can say, it’s harder to justify an unending presence in the Middle East. Yes, we need to defend Israel as the only true liberal democracy in the region. But we also have to let these people sort a lot of their own problems out. Because imposing our will and our solutions is, ultimately, not going to work any better than it did for the British or the French 100 years ago. We’re Americans. We don’t believe in empire.
Published in General
We probably agree that if you find yourself in agreement with Joe Biden, you should think long and hard about your position.
EJ, I’m not sure whether or not you have thought this through. I certainly have not, and I don’t think that I have the knowledge to properly understand the situation.
What exactly are the rules that you propose for recognition of new nations? Doing so is likely to create significant disorder and war. I imagine that there are hundreds of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups inside currently existing nations, perhaps more, and often the populations are intermixed both within and between existing nations.
Does every separatist movement automatically “deserve” its own state? This does not seem to be a workable rule. It is certainly not the rule that we followed with the Confederacy, or Shays’ Rebellion.
Do the separatists get their own way by referendum, as was proposed in the Scottish independence referendum? This does not seem to be a workable rule, especially if it is by majority vote. An independence referendum could be defeated, even more than once, but once the separatists win a single time, the decision becomes irrevocable. This looks like a one-way ratchet to me.
It is not even clear to me that the Kurds are a united group in any meaningful way.
The situation is complicated.
We are a great country. But even great and powerful countries have their limitations. Let’s use Afghanistan as an example. We’ve been there 18 years and are no closer to achieving some kind of Western country than we were when we started. I am assuming we were trying to create a country with western values, but really, I have no idea what we are trying to accomplish there. Do you? And now Syria. This is not a matter of fellow brothers having each other’s back. We are no more “brothers” with the Kurds, than we are with the Russians. We fought with them as partners once as well, remember? The Kurds have their own history and their own future, whatever that might be…it is not for us to determine. So @catorand and others who think we should remain entangled in Syria, all I ask is an explanation of what we are trying to accomplish, and please acknowledge what specific risks you are willing to take for those accomplishments. Sometimes being great means combining strength with humility.
It’s fine that you decided to limit your objective, obviously. But the essay begins by saying it’s the essay Peter Robinson commissioned on the flagship podcast (a commission I heard him make). It’s a good essay. I’m just not sure it’s that essay.
Agreed. But it has to be a world problem, not just an American problem. And if you’re going to treat it as an American problem, it cannot be seen as a burden for an extreme minority of its citizens.
Just 1.29M of us are under arms. (Compare that to the 2.2M in long-term incarceration.) The problem arises in the demographics. 83% of those doing the fighting come from households making less than $80k per year. Now consider the demographics of those making the decisions.
You cannot maintain a stable democracy if you designate a percentage of your population as “breeders and grievers” and hold the rest of their views in contempt.
Then there’s the rising threat in the Pacific. While we’re busy trying to clean up the mess in the Middle East, our Pacific forces are in deep doodoo. What else are we neglecting while spreading ourselves thin policing the world?
Not necessarily misbegotten, but like all organizations designed for a particular purpose it has had a tendency to stray and expand from its original purpose. The only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was 9/11 – which had absolutely nothing to do with the Soviets or the defense of Western Europe.
It’s an essay that attempts to explain the President’s larger thinking on the projection of American power and why, despite all the caterwauling, that it is not historically out of the mainstream of American politics.
The problem with any approach to defending the President’s thinking is that too many people want to frame it differently. If your approach to the subject is “We have a foreign policy problem” your satisfaction with my answer is going to be different than if you approach the subject as “We have a Trump problem.”
Too many are taking the latter course, determined to ignore the larger and more complex situation and trying to turn it into simple answer that justifies removing Trump from office.
All excellent questions to ask and answer.
At this moment I think the world is engaged in what I’m calling in my head “the great gamble of 2019.” Who is Xi Jingping? He’s relatively popular in China, and our State Department seems to like him, and he seems so reasonable when he is in the company of the other leaders of the western world. But he and his government have engaged in some frightening anti-Christian, anti-Muslim activities in the past couple of years that frankly scare me. These are learning moments for the Chinese Communists–they are learning how to control their own citizens and get rid of the ones they don’t like. And like all dictatorships, they have money to burn.
This opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that appeared on Thursday this week is striking for its contrasts. It takes a very soft line against Xi Jingping and the Chinese Communists–soft given the stories of the Chinese Communists’ persecution and slave labor and concentration camps that the Wall Street Journal has been reporting on for the past year. And apparently the Christian churches in Hong Kong are cautioning the protesters to back down. Against that pacifist backdrop is the picture of a young man holding a sign that reads, “God free Hong Kong from Nazi China.”
These judgments are so hard to make. I wonder if forty years from now, we will be looking back at this period and regretting our cheerful business dealings with the Chinese Communists.
I’m not necessarily taking either approach. I just think we have a different decision to make after we’ve involved ourselves than we do beforehand. I’m quite open to the possibility that we should never have put a single man at risk on the ground in Syria. But having done quite a bit to reorder what was going on there, I think abruptly pulling out is just a different decision subject to different considerations than going in was.
And in that light, I think this was handled very, very poorly, even if I’m somewhat sympathetic to the philosophical backdrop to the decision.
in 1944 the leading countries of the world, through the Bretton Woods agreement, to make the USA the leader in international monetary exchange. Being the world’s reserve currency provided income to Americans, but came at the price of being the world’s policeman. It is a good system in that we spend American blood and treasure to the benefit of world. But, being the policeman does not extend to regional conflicts–just the global ones. It is a cross we bear and Trump is doing it properly with regional resolving of regional problems.
I’m not proposing any hard and fast rules. Like Taft I believe in the policy of the free hand.
Here’s part of the conundrum of treaty and nationhood: We had a treaty with the Republic of China (aka, Taiwan), ratified by the Senate, that Jimmy Carter nullified in 1979. But we still sold them F-16s and still sell them arms today even though we are no longer pledged to their defense.
But we’re convulsed over our “allies” the Kurds, who are as legally stateless as the Taiwanese and are in conflict with with a nation we’re bound by treaty to fight for. It’s nuts.
Then compare all of that with what happened in 1949 with Israel. The Truman Administration recognized the Jewish State in January, the United Nations in mid-May. But Israel as a nation considers her Independence Day to May 14 of the previous year. There only rule here is that there are no rules.
Gee – if only we had some sort of international body which was charged with taking care of these sorts of things.
We could call it the “United Nations” if only that name wasn’t already taken by a bunch of thugs with different ideas entirely (see, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Members )
The United Nations? You mean the Turtle Bay Marching, Bitching, and Moaning Society?
EJ, good points, but I don’t see an explanation for your agreement with Biden regarding the Kurds.
I take a much more humble attitude. I don’t have a strong opinion about the proper policy regarding the Kurds, because I do not see any alternative that is clearly proper. For this reason, I have not been critical of the President’s decisions.
I don’t accept the idea that, once we make a decision to intervene, we must always remain. I’ve heard it expressed as something like: “you break it, you own it.” Cato expressed something similar in #12 above.
My answer is that we didn’t break it. It was already broken. We intervened to stop a particular problem, which was ISIS. ISIS is defeated. It does not follow, therefore, that we have to stay forever to solve problems that predated our recent intervention — and predated any of our interventions since the first Gulf War — and predated the Sykes-Picot agreement — and, in many ways, predated the establishment of our country. In fact, Sargon the Great conquered much the same area about 4,500 years ago, and they’ve been fighting ever since (and probably before).
General James Mattis resigned as President Trump’s Sec of Defense December 20, 2018. From CBS News: “News of Mattis’ impending departure comes the day after Mr. Trump’s sudden announcement about Syria, a decision he made without consulting security officials in his administration.”
Ten months later, it must be Groundhog Day. President Trump abruptly pulls out of northwest Syria. How does one pull 100 troops out of an area any less abruptly?
I think Peter asked you about the Trump problem, not your well written but kinda highfalutin evasion. I once wrote a piece for Ricochet saying why I thought Robert Taft was the most underrated statesmen of the 20th century. I agree we have far too many foreign commitments, and should be making efforts to take the training wheels off in places like South Korea, where we are intensely disliked by those under 40, or Okinawa, where we are hated.
But Peter asked you to justify Trump’s treatment of the Kurds, who decided to forego an alliance with Assad to put their faith in us and sacrificed 11,000 lives for our joint benefit. In return Trump treated them like subcontractors at a Trump property – sorry, suckers, you trusted me.
The correct response to Mr. Erdogan’s ultimatum should have been if you deliberately kill one American soldier you will be eating dinner with Saddam Hussein.
Good point.
Also, the criticism that the decision was “abrupt” is silly. If one is contemplating changing a policy — or perhaps not changing it — it is generally best to keep quiet before a decision is made. The alternative is vacillation, of the sort that we saw with President Obama, who simultaneously left troops in Iraq while talking about how they would be withdrawn according to a timetable.
The news cycle does not help this situation, and frankly, neither does Ricochet. A new policy is announced, and there is pressure for everybody to immediately state an opinion, without thinking things through and without much understanding of the situation. Having stated an opinion, especially in public, it becomes difficult to change one’s mind.
Perhaps with a country of their own carved out of Iraq a great many their diaspora would have moved á la the Jews and made for a peaceful and successful addition to the world. That doesn’t not mean they would have to move, but like Jews who feel threatened or prosecuted in other lands it would provide a safe haven.
And let various NATO members decide which side to fall in on? And of the nukes inside Turkey?
As for the Kurds they are an ethnicity, not a state. So exactly who are we to be loyal to? Iraqi Kurds? Syrian Kurds? Turkish Kurds?
We’re allies with Israel, so if Jews in Russia get rounded up do we fight against Russia? Where do these informal relationships start and end?
If an American soldier is to die for a border dispute shouldn’t be our border?
As regards Turkey NATO has been a dead letter and polite fiction since they refused to let us create a second front in the Gulf War. Our nukes should have been withdrawn years ago, and I don’t think human wave attacks by Turkish mobs could stop us from removing them now.
Erdogan is on record saying democracy is like a trolley car, you ride it to where you want to go then get off. I think we have civilized the other members of NATO beyond that point of view, so I think they would choose to go with us if forced to choose.
I believe under Obama the Russians called us and told us we had one hour to get out of a base or get bombed, and we scrammed. I thought that was shameful then, and I think Trump’s capitulation is shameful now.
I am as favorably disposed to the isolationist argument as anyone, but once you climb up into the lifeguard’s chair you have to do the whole shift until you’re relieved. We led the Kurds to depend on us, then we sold them out. I don’t see how that can be explained away.
The country, Turkey, will be around a lot longer than Erdogan. Yes, he is an Islamist and a scoundrel not to be trusted. But just exactly who are these Kurds that we have partnered with for a few years? You seem to be ready to jeopardize an old relationship with a stable and powerful country to protect them, as if they can’t protect themselves. Is that the deal we had with them from the start? Who made that deal? Did the Senate vote on it like they did on the treaty we have with Turkey? It is my understanding that the YPG Kurds in Syria have been more aligned with Iran and Assad than the Sunnis. The whole area is so filled with different groups whose identity goes back years, but whose allegiance is but a minute deep. And yet, some people express outrage that we don’t get further involved. If we are in for a dime, we are in for a dollar. There’s no shallow end in which to wade when we have troops on the ground.
I don’t exactly see folks lining up to take the next shift.
The problem with “climbing into the chair” is that this whole thing seems to be on autopilot. The government of Syria (for whatever good that is) didn’t invite us in. The Congress didn’t authorize us to expand operations into another country or decide we were going to support a particular side in this civil war. We just went.
A bill for up to 90 days of action died in the Congress in 2013 and again in 2018. We’re still operating under the authorization aimed at Saddam Hussein to conduct operations around the entire globe.
There’s the Mattis way of disengaging and the Trump way. You don’t pull out so quickly you have to bomb your own supply depots to make sure equipment doesn’t fall into the hands of those chasing you out. You explain to your ally why circumstances have changed and give them an opportunity to move their families to safer territory, not abandon them to militias and death squads to be mown down with their hands tied behind their back.
I think Trump is fed up with the sclerosis and active resistance inside the government.
Mattis did himself and the military no favors when he decided to slow walk the order to rescind Obama era social engineering rules at the Pentagon. Yes, he would have taken heat for it on Capitol Hill. But it would have set up some political capital for later on when the DOD wanted to put the president on their timetable instead of his.
Beautifully written and spot on. I digress only with Mark Steyn’s observation about sheer exhaustion on the part of the British as it also had much to do with the state of British finances after two major wars. It’s danged expensive to provide the world’s policemen as we are discovering.
Turkey is in NATO and Turkey is *not* in Western Europe. Is that straying from original purpose?
They shared a border with the Soviets so it made sense at one time.
Part of the reason I have a fondness for the Kurds is that they are not interested in Islamic Supremacist garbage, they are not really hostile to Israel, and they welcome US forces. I want them to succeed, because they are an ally against future groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc, and they are not just allies of convenience like the Saudis.
I’m perfectly fine with Turkey beating down the PKK. I just do not trust Erdogan to do that without releasing ISIS prisoners (if said prisoners just died, I would shed no tears) or going for Armenian Genocide 2.0: Raqqa Boogaloo. The Turks have a large military, with significant air assets, armor, artillery, etc.
I’m starting to think that a lot of the problem here is that Trump did not get out in front of the issue like how he did with the supposed whistleblower, releasing the transcript so fast it deflated the story. Get the message out that we are watching Erdogan like a hawk, and we haven’t forgotten the Kurds. Get the letter out in the open right away, and you will deflate a lot of the criticism.
Part of the reason I have a fondness for the Kurds is that they are not interested in Islamic Supremacist garbage, they are not really hostile to Israel, and they welcome US forces. I want them to succeed, because they are an ally against future groups like Al Qaeda, ISIS, etc, and they are not just allies of convenience like the Saudis.
I’m perfectly fine with Turkey beating down the PKK. I just do not trust Erdogan to do that without releasing ISIS prisoners (if said prisoners just died, I would shed no tears) or going for Armenian Genocide 2.0: Raqqa Boogaloo.
I’m starting to think that a lot of the problem here is that Trump did not get out in front of the issue like how he did with the supposed whistleblower, releasing the transcript so fast it deflated the story. Get the message out that we are watching Erdogan like a hawk, and we haven’t forgotten the Kurds.
Why not. Equipment is a sunk cost.
I spent $5, just so I could comment on this post.
Postulation # The First One: We ought not be in the Middle East, mucking about as we have done. EJ, your post clearly argues in favor of this. And I for one, despite having supported the Bush’s foray’s in to Iraq and Afghanistan, agree.
Postulation # The Second One: Trump moving 100 or so troops out of villages in northern Syria do not reflect a reckless foreign policy on the part of Trump. EJ, your post does not argue in favor of this, it simply supports that action in principle. Supporting the action in principle is certainly fine, but one has to be sure one exits properly. Did Trump do so? I don’t know.
I will argue in favor of P#TSO, however.
First, Trump has said for many, many months that he was planning on leaving Syria. Consider the following paragaph:
This paragraph comes from an article on the Crisis Group website. It is dated December 2018. When I read the paragraph I had to check the date again. It could have been written yesterday. The piece continues:
Why did this never happen? And whose responsibility is it to make it happen? Is it ours? If so, why? Assad destabilized his country, allowing ISIS to take a foothold. It is on him, not us. And certainly not us alone.
Second, while Turkey may not be a great friend, they are a member of NATO. They were growing increasingly angry over our support of a group of Kurds they viewed as terrorists. Whether right or wrong, sticking around northern Syria might have meant firing real bullets at a NATO member. They Kurds have been hard done by, and by worse people than the Americans. But it is not clear to me that we owed them much after 8 years of nonsense that doesn’t seem to be getting better. Prove me wrong.
My final point isn’t great but I’ll make it: we criticized Obama for publicizing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, emboldening our enemies. We criticized him for drawing a red line, then backing down when the bully crossed it. Trump simply said “We are getting out of Syria”, and one day, he started to take steps to do it.
I’m not sure Trump is 100% correct here, but I’m sure he’s…three words left…