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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
Never let be said that I don’t pack ‘em in. Welcome back, Spinster!
It’s less you, and more Peter. I just felt that the arguments on the podcast against Trump’s actions weren’t enough to convince me. “Yeah, but…” I kept saying. So…
You’re cruel. But fair.
Turkey is partially in Western Europe.
Well, back when the French let them winter their fleet in Toulon in 1540 but other than that I dunno.
For now.
Just look at a map. Don’t argue like Le Pétomane.
The Bosporus is the dividing line between the two continents and goes right through Istanbul. That was why it was such a big deal when Constantinople fell. The Turks were gaining a foothold in Europe.
Cool. Let’s roll.
Kind of a stretch to call that Western Europe.
Okay, southern.
Some generals are upset. I doubt the average 11B SSG in an infantry battalion is.
Because everyone in the chain of command sat on their hands presuming that higher higher (aka One Over the World) was correct when they said, “This is what the President wants but it’s not gonna happen.” Then suddenly the whole chain is energized when the Commander In Chief asks a simple question in a meeting, “When are we moving the troops out?” In the lingua Franca of the military this is known as an “oh sh##” moment.
Abraham Lincoln, the first great Republican president, had a hard time getting his generals to move troops into battle. Donald Trump, the most recent great Republican president, is having a hard time getting his Generals to move troops *out* of battle.
Back in the day, I had a lot of Iranian colleagues. One semester I roomed with an Iranian Kurd. He was older, a grad student, we didn’t have much in common, but we stayed in touch, and I helped get him him a part-time job when his money from home dried up after the revolution. His views on “Persians” were nuanced, to say the least. He had been a banker at home, and learned to work within the system, but as he viewed it, the Kurds were robbed of the homeland promised them by the Brits, their language and culture was being destroyed little by little by the Persians. But, it was not only the Iranian government, it was also being done by the Turks, Iraqis, and Syrians. Based on what he said back then, doubt whether a Kurdistan could be created in any of those four countries without creating a huge mess in the other three.
That is a feature (and a bug) of the post WW I nation building. If the fuse igniting the Great War was ethnic groups wanting to create their own nation states, split them up, mix them up good, and divide the strong minorities across several countries, so they can’t cause trouble. Maybe they’ll all become good globalists.
It seems possible, even likely, that safeguarding a border for one group of Kurds will ultimately spillover into other areas. And unless one thinks we owe all the Kurds a greater Kurdistan, should we be involved in defining and enforcing its boarders? Even if one likes the idea of amputating parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey to do it, what happens then? And what could go wrong if we tried?
I don’t remember if anyone has made this point already and I’m too lazy to look, but I just saw a news crawl talking about “the Kurds, who helped us in our fight against ISIS”. That has been the narrative the last few days. But is that really accurate? Wouldn’t it be more fair to say that we helped them in their fight against ISIS? Yes, we have a national interest in discouraging terrorist entities because we don’t want to have attacks here, and yes, there were a small number of Americans killed by ISIS, but we didn’t have armies of ISIS showing up to conquer our cities. The Kurds and Yazidi did.
We were helping them fight ISIS, based on our mutual self interest. Helping them fight Turkey is not in our interest, unless there are major changes in the geo-political balance.
The fight against ISIS was pretty much the entire world’s fight if you want to be technical. They really didn’t have any friends – for good reason. The “caliphate” as about as despicable a “state” is it’s possible to be.
Well, he is. But that’s because he is an 11B, and a SSG.
Exactly this. I was at work and I mentioned that I was studying up on the Syria situation so I could ahve an informed opinon. Someone said “Well in your studying, did you come across anything that would lead you to believe that we [expletived} the Kurds over?” My response was “Thus far, I’d say the Kurds have been hard done by for quite some time, but I won’t put it as you’ve described it.” He got mad at me. “We had an agreement with them!” I asked what the agreement was (I’m still not sure, and would love to be educated). He said “They helped us fight ISIS!” I asked what terms of that agreement were, and did they involve potentially firing real bullets at a member of NATO. There was no answer to that question. Because he didn’t know the terms of the agreement were, either.
Does anyone? Is there a government policy we can reference that says “If the Kurds help fight ISIS in Syria, the US will defend them against X, Y, and Z”? I don’t know if such a thing exists or not.
I for one would love to know the content of the call with Erdogen. Maybe a whistleblower has that transcript?
I suspect Erodogen said “I’m sick of these Kurds that I hate so much and if you don’t get out of the way you are going to get hurt.” And Trump probably wanted to punch him, but he really said “I’m not putting more troops in Syria to get in the way of Turkey, and the handful I have aren’t enough, so we move them.”
What I’d like from Trump is a better explanation.
The best argument for fighting ISIS in Syria is that you are fighting them there, instead of here. And that’s a fine position to take, and folks ought to take it if they are gonna. So far the only person I’ve heard who is criticizing the Syria decision who has taken that position is Rob, on one of the podcasts. He basically said (and I paraphrase) “9/11 happened because those countries were relatively stable. Now they aren’t, and as far as national security goes, that’s good for us.” Of course it is bad for the regular people in the Middle East, but if someone has a solution that hasn’t been tried…
He’s not much for stage managing is he? His rallies excepted.
Read up on Turkey’s War of Independence. Ataturk is remembered as being a secular leader. He became one but wasn’t at the time when he was chasing out the British and Greeks in a very bloody war. He used Islam as an appeal to the Kurds to help them drive out the western infidels. And it worked.
Erdogan has in the past done the same thing with Kurds, appealing to their Islamism in electoral politics.
Actually, if you want to be technical, most of the world was not involved. Unless China and India were involved in some way of which I am unaware, and for that matter, I don’t think there was any involvement from anyone between Tierra del Fuego and the Rio Grande. Most of Europe, while willing to denounce them, weren’t ready to do anything more than that.
And they had plenty of friends. Groups throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa declared themselves allies or affiliates. No nation states, but you’re in a part of the world where a terrorist army numbering in the thousands can operate with impunity and the nation state is unable to do anything about it.
I do agree with the third sentence though.
That’s the rub, isn’t it?
We speak of the Kurds as if there is a single national leader that we negotiated a treaty with. There is a president of the Kurdistan Presidency Council, Nechirvan Barzani, who leads the autonomous region inside of Iraq. Is he recognized as the leader of troops in Syria?And if he’s not, when we arm these people how does that work? Exactly who did we negotiate this deal with?
Can any of the pundits criticizing the President answer those questions? If we knew who spoke for the Kurds they would have been all over the Sunday news shows this morning. (Spoiler: They weren’t.)
Can anyone answer a couple of basic facts about the situation because I’m sure confused?
First, I’ve heard and read the number of American troops removed is anywhere between 50 and 2,000. Does anyone have a reliable source for the numbers involved?
Second, where are the troops being removed to? I’ve heard from some (including the President) they are coming home but apparently the Acting Secretary of Defense said they are going to Western Iraq to fight ISIS. Anyone know what the story is?
As I understand it (based on a conversation Larry O’Connor had on the “Examining Politics” podcast with Victoria Coates, a member of the NSC) the total number moved was 50. And that 50 are part of a total of 2,000 in country.
The prevailing theory, and it is just a theory, that these 50 were an effective barrier between the Kurds and the entire Turkish military because the Turks would never, ever deliberately kill a US serviceman. Something tells me, and maybe informed the President’s decision as well, that this is not something one would particularly care to explain to the parents of the dead if the theory had no basis in fact.
Of course, all the hyperbolic pundits on both sides are never tasked with that responsibility, are they?
You never quite know in reality. Sometimes they can’t find a way to sell it to their public, so they send troops on the QT. Remember when some reporters happened to notice Polish troops, who supposedly were not in Iraq? And then the Polish President had to come out and say, “Yeah, we sent a few troops…” A friend of mine was supposedly injured in a training accident in his home country. That’s because he was not officially in the MiddleEast and his country did not officially send any troops. His family and friends know better.
That’s why I said most. Poland has been a bright spot since 9/11, one of the few countries that has sent actual combat troops. Too many of them were part of the coalition, but didn’t send anyone, or had rules of engagement that prevented them actively participating in much.
He’s great for stage management. It’s articulating the nuances of public policy, and why the decisions he makes are the best, in his judgement, given the difficult situation, that he isn’t great at.
Remember when he said “We need to get rid of the lines around the states” in reference to health insurance? I knew exactly what he was saying, as did probably everyone on Ricochet: increase competition, allow people to go across state lines to buy insurance that better meets their needs. But he sounded…well…goofy when he said that. Because the issue is a bit nuanced and might not be as clear to the common man.
You have to remember that some of them have armies that could fit in Greta’s sailing yacht. Do you know the only NATO member besides us with an impressive military? Turkey. (If Erdogan hasn’t gutted it of ability in his anti-coup measures.)