America in the Shadow of Empires

D. Coates

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137482365
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137482600
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The focus of the book is the cost of empire, particularly the cost in the American case – the internal burden of American global leadership. The book builds an argument about the propensity of external responsibilities to undermine the internal strength, raising the question of the link between weakening and the global spread of American power.

Notes

Introduction

1. If you doubt that, take a look at pages 382–83 of The Global Competitiveness Report 2013–14, published by the World Economic Forum and available at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2013-14.pdf.

2. The details are in Chapter 1.

3. Benjamin Franklin’s tongue-in-cheek advice to the British, Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, ought still to be obligatory reading in the corridors of power. Not surprisingly, his advice to those wanting to lose their empire focused on mistreating the “remotest provinces” since—in his view—“a great Empire, like great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges.” First published in The Public Advertiser on September 11, 1773—that 9/11 date again—the advice is readily available at http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/makingrev/crisis/text9/franklingreatempire.pdf.

4. Initially, Sean Doyle, Benjamin Gionet, Alexandra Gray, Bradley Harper, Tom Hotchkiss, Justin Hutton, Christian Mattia, William McClure, Edgar Mercado, Nirali Parikh, Hardin Patrick, Luke Perry, Justen Robinett, Peter Shames, Donald Song, Curtis Vann, and Victoria White. Later, Kyle Adams, Emily Anderson, Doug Baker, Bryce Delgrande, Meghan Fallon, Caroline Fisher, Jeremy Hefter, Mickey Herman, John Ho, Lin Ingabire, Travis McCall, Alex Mole, Colton Morrish, Catherine Mudd, Joey Polychronis, Alexis Shklar, Kendall Stempel, Caroline Stoupnitzky, and Harrison Waddill.

Chapter 1

1. For a fuller account, see David Coates, Making the Progressive Case: Towards a Stronger U.S. Economy. New York: Continuum, 2011, pp. 114–19.

2. This is the title of his 1963 book published in New York by Basic.

3. S. M. Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996, p. 26.

4. Thomas Madden, Empires of Trust. New York: Dutton, 2008.

5. Olaf Gersemann, Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Realities. Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2004.

6. Newt Gingrich, A Nation like No Other: Why American Exceptionalism Matters. Washington DC: Regnery, 2011, pp. 13 and 230.

7. Editors, “After the Attack . . . The War on Terrorism,” Monthly Review, November 2001, p. 1.

8. Quoted in Jack A. Smith, “Look Out, Obama Seems to Be Planning for a Lot More War,” posted on AlterNet, May 8, 2010: available at http://www.alternet.org/story/146787.

9. This is from Robert Reich, America’s Biggest Jobs Program—the U.S. Military, posted August 12, 2012: available at http://robertreich.org/post/938938180.

10. Peter Van Buren, “Imperial Reconstruction and Its Discontents,” posted on TomDispatch, August 16, 2012: available at http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175583.

11. On this, see Chalmers Johnson, “10 Needed Steps for Obama to Start Dismantling America’s Gigantic, Destructive Military Empire,” posted on AlterNet, August 25, 2010: available at http://www.alternet.org/story/147964.

For the counterargument that base construction is limited and without significance, see Vaclav Smil, Why America Is Not a New Rome. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010, p. 49.

12. Van Buren, Imperial Reconstruction.

13. Dan Froomkin, “U.S. to Hand over Iraq Bases, Equipment Worth Billions,” posted on The Huffington Post, September 26, 2011: available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/iraq-withdrawal-us-bases-equipment_n_975463.html.

14. Ibid.

15. Nick Turse, “The Secret War in 120 Countries,” The Nation, August 4, 2011: available at http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175426/nick_turse_a_secret_war_in_120_countries.

16. Juan Cole, “The Age of American Shadow Power,” The Nation, April 30, 2012: available at http://www.thenation.com/article/167353/age-american-shadow-power.

17. Seamas Milne, “America’s Murderous Drone Campaign Is Fuelling Terror,” The Guardian, May 30, 2012: available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/29/americas-drone-campaign-terror. For the data on civilian and noncombatant deaths, see the reports by Amnesty International and the UN, reported in Craig Whitlock, “Drone Strikes Killing More Civilians than U.S. Admits, Human Rights Group Says,” The Washington Post, October 22, 2013: available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-strikes-killing-more-civilians-than-us-admits-human-rights-groups-say/2013/10/21/a99cbe78-3a81-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html.

18. See Scott Shane, “Debate Aside, Number of Drone Strikes Drops Sharply,” The New York Times, May 21, 2013: available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/us/debate-aside-drone-strikes-drop-sharply.html?pagewanted=all.

19. Rachel Maddow, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. New York: Br...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• I. The Problem
• II. The Parallels
• III. The Reckoning
• Notes