Deepak Lal: Foreign policy - The US turning inwards? - II

If US leaders do not learn to manage their imperial burden, the world will muddle along as it has for the past century.

There are disturbing signs that with the Democratic victory in the recent Congressional elections the US's foreign policy might be turning to isolationism. At least two of the Democratic contenders for their party's presidential nomination for 2008, Barrack Obama and John Edwards, have openly espoused what is in effect withdrawing from foreign military engagements. How serious is this threat?

In my book In Praise of Empires, and in my past columns I have argued for the importance of an imperial system as being a necessary component of maintaining the global order, essential in underpinning the benign economic forces of globalising capitalism. The British, through their direct and indirect empire maintained by the global sway of the Royal Navy, provided this underpinning for the 19th century era of globalisation. The US empire, which has been surreptitiously created since the Second World War, led to the US taking over this role from a Britain weakened by two World Wars and no longer able to undertake this role. Having seen off the "evil empire", the US has been the world's undisputed hegemon, and after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 it appeared that the US would at last take up this imperial burden in fighting what it called "the war of terror". As the centre of global disorder currently lies in the Islamist threat posed by both state and non-state actors in Pakistan, Afghanistan and West Asia, the Bush administration's determination to grapple with this threat through a muscular foreign policy seemed wholly laudable""not least in establishing a US-friendly regime at the heart of West Asia in Iraq.

Apart from its undoubted economic strength, the revolution in military affairs (discussed in earlier columns) also promised an unmatched military dominance in which IT-based technology would allow smart weapons to be deployed. This, apart from minimising the loss of lives (particularly American) in warfare, would allow the co-ordinated use of air, sea and land based forces by dispelling the fog of war, which has haunted military commanders in the past. The military operations in both the Afghan and Iraq wars have more than fulfilled these military expectations. But it is the failure to consolidate these military gains and convincingly win the subsequent peace which has turned large parts of the US public against an imperial US foreign policy.

This failure to maintain order after military victories is closely tied, as I had predicted in my book, to two factors. The first is the unwillingness not just of the public but of US leaders to acknowledge that they are running an empire""albeit an indirect one. The second is because of the erroneous beliefs that what I call the US' "habits of the heart" reflect universal values.

Thus, take what is turning out to be an avoidable US foreign policy disaster in Iraq, because of the blunders made by the civilian authorities after the soldiers had won a speedy and virtually costless victory against what was purported to be the best army in the Arab world. Despite the plans to suborn large parts of the Iraqi army (which were successful""see M R Gordon and Gen. B E Trainor: Cobra II) to provide order, the proconsul Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi army, which took its weapons with it. The de-Baathification edict, which Bremer then promulgated, meant that the whole civil administration and health and educational systems of Iraq were disbanded at a stroke. There were no US or other substitutes provided for these indigenous institutions, which were essential in maintaining local order and public services. The list of Baghdad sites, which an official of Jay Garner's team in Kuwait had provided the army to protect (after consulting a Lonely Planet Guide and which included the national museum), never reached the forces which entered Baghdad! (See G Packer's The Assassins' Gate.) Where previous invaders like the Mongols had speedily and bloodily established order after their conquest, the US allowed disorder to replace the undoubtedly bloody order under Saddam.

There were two unsubstantiated US beliefs. First, once people are freed from tyranny a spontaneous democratic order will emerge. Muslim states are like the US, where democracy is the natural order unless suppressed by tyrants. The second was a false analogy with the aftermath of the Second World War, where de-Nazification was followed speedily by the establishment of liberal democracies. The failure to establish order and opening up the Pandora's box of ethnic conflicts in an artificially created unitary state have led to the virtual civil war in Iraq now.

In Afghanistan, the failure to mop up the Taliban and letting Osama bin Laden escape from Bora Bora have been compounded by the US obsession with fighting the unwinnable war on drugs. Where growing poppies for opium is the major means of livelihood, preventing peasants from doing so only leads them and the illegal profits generated into the arms of the resurgent Taliban.

All these failings reflect in my view a central cultural and educational failing of the US. In a country ruled by Demos, for it to be a worldly-wise imperial power there has to be a deeper understanding of the cultures and histories of the different peoples of the world. This is sadly lacking in the US. It is not helped by the jejune outpourings of the academic discipline""international relations""which is purportedly training the US foreign policy establishment. I dealt with some examples in my book: like the dictum that the US must promote democracies as it has been statistically shown that democracies don't fight with each other""tell that to Hamas and the democratically elected president of Iran in their confrontation with Israel!

So what of the future of US foreign policy? I doubt that despite all these ominous signs the US will turn inwards. Even if it wishes to disengage, it is too powerful and so intertwined with other countries that they will not leave it alone. The US will have to continue its engagement with the world. But given its fickle Demos, the rest of the world cannot count on it providing a consistent anchor for maintaining a global order. As I said at the end of my book, if the US public does not recognise the imperial burden that has been thrust upon it, and its leaders do not learn how to manage it intelligently, the world will continue to muddle along as it has for the past century, until one or the other of the ancient imperial states""China and India""is ready and willing to maintain a global Pax.