Is America an Empire?

Great power politics involves enhancing a given distribution of power in ones favour by seeking to change the system and challenging the status quo. A super-power however transcends contests distribution of systemic power rather it actually shapes the system itself so as to maintain its dominant position in the order of a system of nation-states. Hegemonic states use military force and economic incentives to achieve their goals and can be seen as ‘an alternative and second-best substitute for a benign universal empire or an efficient, federal system of world governance’. There have been empires in history, beginning from Roman Empire in the West to Chinese Han Empire in the east during the ancient times, and various medieval European empires and episodes of Islamic empires in the Middle-east during the same period. These empires ruled over vast areas of lands, unifying different ethnic and cultural groups under a single system of governance for considerable periods of time, often lasting over centuries. The borders of Ottoman Empire extended from Mediterranean countries of Morocco and Tunisia to Balkans in the peripheries of Europe under the Ottoman Sultan who directed these vast lands from Constantinople. America doesn’t occupy vast geo-graphical lands to govern directly yet it has unrivalled influence and power in contemporary political and outcomes. It follows that America may not qualify with all the traditional trappings of an Empire, however it behaves and acts on similar lines as the behaviour espoused by traditional empire.

With the end of the Cold War the United States emerged as the single most powerful nation in the world, dominating in all fields of human endeavour. During the 1990s, the preponderance of American culture, outstanding military superiority, the quality of scientific research and technological innovation helped confirm role of the United States as an unassailable global hegemony transforming itself from a super-power status to what former French Foreign Ministry characterised America as a ‘hyper-power’. Rising to world prominence in Spanish-American war in 1898 at the end of a long a nineteenth century dominated by European Great power politics, the subsequent 20^th century saw American influence in world politics increased to unimaginable proportions. American participation in the two great catastrophic wars of the twentieth century became inevitable and in the process America had nothing to lose but alot to gain, both economically and politically as Patrik O Brein observed that ‘in relative terms, America gained massively from both wars’[1]. These two wars effectively either dismantled or severely weakened traditional imperial European powers thus paving the way for the emergence of the United States as a new power to be reckoned with, in a relatively short period of time as Zibigniew Berzniski echoes that ‘America’s current global supremacy is distinctive in the rapidity of emergence’.[2] By the the end of World War one US ‘growing might already accounted for 33% of global GNP which displaced Great Britain as world’s leading industrial power.[3]’ Much of the contemporary global security architecture, political order and the international system bear the imprint of American values and interests. Weather it is the Kellog-Briand pact of 1928, the establishment of the United Nations head-quartered in New York, or the proliferation of American multinational companies (Fortune 500) on the global scale, or the policy agenda economic liberalisation for international investment embodied in by Washington Consensus, America undoubtedly played a unique position in all of these things.

During the cold war the United States and Soviet Union engaged in a serious rivalry for world power, and in the process entering into a dangerous arms race in order to ensure their own survival. Nuclear weapons, anti-ballistic missiles, nuclear-armed submarines, and all the associated revolution in the military affairs was coupled with geo-political struggles of establishing security institutions and forging systems of alliances, were the product of this gigantic ideological and political struggle of the 20^th century. The disintegration of the Soviet Union was and sudden disappearance of a perceived major threat to world peace was to be followed by an era of global stability, peace, and a real farewell to arms, as George Bush concluding the first Gulf War stated ‘that out of the horrors of war might come new momentum for peace[4]’. In addition key intellectuals, including Francis Fukuyama within the United States and the Western world heralded the triumph of democracy and hoped for a world where war would be wiped out for ever because democracies do not fight each other thus the world was to enjoy the ‘democratic dividend’ of peace and justice. But during the last a decade of and half the world has seen major US military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan and the looming threat of more wars to come in the Middle-east, and elsewhere. During this period of time US also sought military interventions in Kosovo, Haiti, and Somalia largely on humanitarian grounds either to deter massive violations of human-rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide. But these, apparently justifiable military steps were off-set by invasion of Iraq a move that was vetoed by the United Nations thus rendering it illegal from the point of view of international law. However the United States went ahead and the Iraq war was justified as a ‘pre-emptive’ intervention to ensure US national security and it was aimed at ‘regime change’ of rogue states. Despite global opposition US unilateral actions are acquiesced by major powers including the European Union.

Another important feature of US behaviour in terms of its military behaviour is its aggressiveness. Instead of America retreating its military engagement from the world, in an apparently peaceful time, it has intensified its military spending and re-armament, largely on the grounds and pretexts of asymmetrical threats such as terrorism perpetrated by al-Qaeda. Since 1997 US military spending exceeds the total of the world’s nine next-biggest powers, and has got military bases in sixty countries around the world. The Iraq war costs America, according to one estimate 200 million dollars a day. In addition America is involved in preventing countries acquiring nuclear weapons, including its policy of active engagement with Iran and North Korea, while it develops tests and rigorously perfects its own weapons and technological systems. This extensive US military involvement in different parts of the world in political questions of peace and security, setting global agenda in global economic processes of production and consumption and establishing a global culture arguably dominated by Hollywood films, American fast-food, clothing and even music has resulted in what Madeline Albright termed the US as an ‘indispensible nation[5].’ Apart from the assertion of the hard power of military superiority the importance of cultural factors in enhancing American prestige globally, Harvard Professor Joseph Nye has coined the term ‘soft-power’ through the use of which ‘a country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries-admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness-want to follow it.’[6] While there is an apparent projection of American military power globally, there is however no compelling reason to believe that America represents a superior culture or even its values are sought after globally. On the contrary there is stiff resistance around the world to challenges posed by an ascendant American culture. Whether it is the leadership in East Asia embodied by Lee Kuan Yew and Mahatir Muhammad who talk of ‘Asian Values’, ‘Confucius values’ or even members of the al-Qaeda and associated Islamic radical groups who have sought to question the very values and culture for which America stands for. Osama Bin Laden has asserted that America represents a morally decadent society, and whose international behaviour is profoundly selfish and unjust. Now, if we use soft-power as a metaphor for multilateralism and the quality of diplomacy that produces leverage and influence for America it is hard to believe in the face of American brutal unilateralism particularly in the wake of 9/11 attacks on Pentagon and New York. In addition America has disregarded or at least has not shown deserved appreciation for major global initiative on creation of international institutions to combat such challenges as the environment, war crimes and development assistance in the developing world.

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Benazir Bhutto: Values for a political leadership IN Hunza

Daughter of Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minster, Benazir was an unmistakeably quintessential Pakistani democrat who twice became its prime minster, first in 1988 at the young age of 35 when she also became the first head of state of a modern Muslim country. Assassinated on December 27^th Benazir‘s enemies ranged from al-Qaeda to various outfits of Islamist groups to Zia loyalists. ‘We may never know as to who killed Benazir’, says Akbar Ahmed, a Washington based internationally acclaimed Pakistani academic; ‘it is a Kennedy style assassination [Interview to a British TV, on December 28^th 2007]’. Educated in Harvard and Oxford where she became the president of its union, Benazir won hearts and minds of people both within her own country and globally.

She had returned to Pakistan, on October 19^th after about an eight year self-imposed exile to be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of people reminiscing images of a yet another of her homecoming in the late eighties, when about two million people had greeted her in Karachi. This time was however different: her enthusiastic and zealous welcome was also occasioned by a couple of ruthless suicide bombers who killed well over hundred people but Benazir was miraculously saved. This incident, coupled with several government warning of potential attacks on her election rallies, had made the point abundantly clear that her life was in acute danger, yet she defiantly took the risks to save Pakistan from plunging into new episodes of darkness. Pakistan is a country which was founded by a commitment to embody Islamic principles of social justice, equity, brotherhood and of course as a bastion of freedom for all of its inhabitants. Its founding leaders had wanted Pakistan to become a tolerant, progressive, plural and a liberal Muslim state to be governed by the will of its people. Unfortunately this founding vision was never realised and instead the country spiralled into so much chaos that after about sixty years of its existence the ‘founding vision’ looked quite misty. Benazir was one of those few leaders in Pakistan about whom one could confidently bet and repose one’s confidence in recovering Pakistan’s foundational vision.

In a country driven by centrifugal forces of tribalism, Islamic militancy and sectarianism she was a symbol of unity, moderation and inclusive politics and she stood up for what she believed as she said in an interview to NBC TV ‘I have a choice to keep silent and to allow the extremists to do what they are doing or I have a choice to stand up and say that this is wrong. And I am going to try and save my country.[Interview on October 21^st, 2007]’

History will remember and judge this brave and a very intelligent woman, not for her abortive attempts in power, but for her courage, commitment, and, tragically, a sense of destiny.

United we stand: Divided we fall

In the land of Gilgit-Baltistan at least six major languages (dialects) are spoken and as many cultures and ethnicities exist, three distinct sectarians groups practice their respective interpretation of Islam. But this whole region shares a beautiful landscape of terraced fields, high-mountains, and clean glacier water. Most people practice some form of agriculture and their beautiful orchards and wheat and potato fields are fed by these glacial waters. More than that the people inhibiting this region have a common memory of gaining independence from the Dogra Raj on November the 1st 1949. These diverse people who also proudly claim distinct cultural heritages, however, find unity in many important dimensions of their respective cultures such as the commonality of musical instruments and their tunes, and unique methods of dance. These people can also be uniformly identified from their headgear the Farzin and the long coat Shoqa, and of course in their food. Today, these important origins of cultural unity are auspiciously overshadowed by a plethora of common problems. These are issues of poverty, education and access to primary health care. Still, perhaps more importantly, the people of Giligit-Baltistan can be singled out for their common attitude and frame of mind. Weather it is a spell-binding pleasant smile of a young boy in Phander valley to a foreign or a local tourists alike, or whether it is an attempt to start an English primary school in Shimshall, or an endeavour to establish a small health centre in the Hoper village of Nagar, or a meeting of a youth group in Kashrote to demand constitutional rights these disparate people are united by a common desire to attack the problems they are facing over the last fifty years. To seek a solution to end poverty, to think about getting education in the hope of landing a respectable job, these are the goal-posts of Balti, Burushaski, Khowar, Shina and Wakhi speaking people of Northern Pakistan. They are united in their aspirations, their hopes, their fears, and above all in their sense of a common destiny.

Ironically, this destiny and hope of a peaceful, harmonious, tourist-friendly, serene, and a progressive Giligit-Baltistan has been frustrated by a variety of factors. These retrogressive processes include violent conflict along sectarian lines, lack of mature and clean political leadership, and a pathetic deficiency of commitment and interest by the bureaucracy and the central government. The people of Giligit-Baltistan can only hope to recapture their long-cherished hopes and aspirations through a sustainable will to unite. They should patch-up their rifts because these differences can only serve to weaken our political, social and economic ambitions. Only through unity we can gain strength because united we stand and divided we fall.