The Political Economy of Global Security: War, Future Crises and Changes in Global Governance by Heikki Patomäki

Author:Heikki Patomäki [Patomäki, Heikki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Public Policy, Military, Political Science, History, Social Security, Security (National & International), Economic Policy, General
ISBN: 9781134116249
Google: Mmx0O9GywtQC
Goodreads: 17478182
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2007-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Nodal point 2: the rise of new imperialism

In the late nineteenth century, the incremental turn to competing imperialisms by the great powers set into motion a self-reinforcing process that soon generated (further) securitisation of inter-state relations in Europe. Something similar may be happening in the early twenty-first century. Thirty years after the end of the Bretton Woods system, a new public discourse of neo-imperialism has risen. Apparently the new neo-imperialism was triggered by 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon; however, many of the basic strategic concepts of the new doctrine were already forged in the 1990s. The new imperialists are ambiguous about the need for territorial expansion. Although the US aims at global military dominance, and although countries have been occupied by military means (Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq), President Bush would still declare in the graduation address at the US Military academy at West Point in June 2002 that ‘America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish. We wish for others only what we wish for ourselves – safety from violence, the rewards of liberty, and the hope for a better life.’ (Bush 2002a)12

The word ‘empire’ may not be used in the official documents of the Bush administration, but several foreign policy observers and commentators in the US – and in Washington in particular – have publicly concluded that the strategy of an empire should be unabashedly embraced (for documentation, see Eland 2002; LaFeber 2006). One of the most outspoken advocates of new imperialism is Max Boot of the Council of Foreign Relations and former Wall Street Journal editor. In response to the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Booth argued for a return to the practices of the British Empire: ‘Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets’ (Boot 2001:28–29).

With regard to Afghanistan, Boot’s advice was quickly followed by American foreign policymakers (Afghanistan has been occupied since 2002, although still in rather Kautskyan ‘ultra-imperialist’ terms). Other journalists, including Robert Kaplan (2002), have advocated the idea that the US should ‘have the stomach for imperial involvement’. Although the Bush administration may have avoided using the word ‘empire’, the US National Security Strategy (White House 2002) seems to embrace the basic notions of the new imperialism. These notions include a universalist and also narcissist commitment to lead other nations towards ‘the single sustainable model for national success’, i.e. American model free markets and liberal democracy;13 a commitment to prevent the emergence of any military competitor to American global dominance, resembling the idea behind the two-power standard in naval armament that Britain adopted in 1889; and readiness to use force independently of international law, if needed, which amounts to a claim to legitimate right of extra-territorial, or in other words, imperial violence. Although the US National Security Strategy (ibid.) recognises the sovereignty of other ‘great powers’ within their own territory – and the need to have good relations with them – their right for extra-territorial violence is denied.

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