Understanding International Relations, Third Edition

Understanding International Relations

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Koran in the original, and this in itself probably creates a degree of sympathy
for the Arab cause even in non-Arab areas such as Indonesia. However,
what is striking is the lack of popular support for the war on terror even in
Christian areas such as Southern and Central America, or in sub-Saharan
Africa, where, in the north of the region in places such as southern Sudan,
Christian communities are actually under attack from Islamic regimes, and
where at present a near-genocide directed against the non-Muslim commu-
nity is under way. Partly this reflects a failure to grasp the actual ideology of
Al Qaeda; too many people notice the alleged anti-imperialism while ignor-
ing the religious bigotry and incipient fascism of the movement. In fairness
to Al Qaeda, this misunderstanding is not of their creation; not only do
their statements verbally damn all unbelievers and call for the assassination
of well-respected Southern figures such as UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan, it is also the case that their terrorist attacks in West Africa, Bali and
Istanbul have usually led to many casualties amongst the locals, Muslims
and non-Muslims alike.
The reasons for the lack of enthusiasm for US positions are, actually, not
hard to find – they are to be found in many places in the second half of this
book, in the chapters on political economy, globalization and identity poli-
tics in particular. The simple truth is that the US is the leading capitalist
country; it is inevitably associated with the inequalities that are still gener-
ated by capitalism, even if it is by no means clear that any other system could
close these inequalities faster. The social impact of globalization – MTV, the
rise of the infotainment industry, the emergence of global brands and the less-
ening of the differences between people that are so highly valued – is again
associated with the US as the main source of these trends, even though
American society itself is every bit as vulnerable to these forces as the rest of
the world, a fact the truth of which will be testified to by US steelworkers
and the owners of road-side diners put out of business by a burger franchise.
As noted in Chapter 10, nearly a decade ago the American political philoso-
pher Benjamin Barber published a book entitled Jihad vs. McWorld which,
interestingly, was not particularly about Islam (Barber 1996). The Jihad in
Barber’s title was meant as a generic term to indicate all the resistance move-
ments to globalization that drew on the traditional resources of society to
oppose the rise of a McWorld. The sense that all these movements have
something in common blurs the differences between those that are, broadly,
progressive and those that are simply reactionary. The willingness of the
political left (in the South and in the advanced industrial North, including
the US itself) to see Al Qaeda as some kind of legitimate resistance movement
is depressing – albeit perhaps rather more understandable in a slum in Lagos
or São Paolo than around a smart dinner table in Islington or on Manhattan.
In any event, there is little popular support in the South for the US, and
Southern governments are wary about being too closely associated with
US Hegemony and World Order
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America. As this discussion has intimated, in some respects this is unfortunate.
Many of the issues which most concern the US ought to concern others
equally, whether in the North or the South. The spread of weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) is a real issue, even if they have proved impossible to
find in Iraq. It may be that the situation as between India and Pakistan is
more stable because both sides are now nuclear powers, but even if true in
this case, the argument of neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz that this will
usually be true is difficult to sustain (Sagan and Waltz 1995). Few in their
respective regions would welcome extensive stocks of nuclear weapons in
Iran or North Korea – and this is before the issue of WMDs in the hand of
terrorists groups comes into consideration. There is evidence from captured
papers in Afghanistan that Al Qaeda were actively seeking WMD, and
should they obtain them there is no reason to believe that they would be
loath to use them. There is no reason why the fear that this prospect gener-
ates should be limited to Americans or Europeans – everyone who is not
actually part of Bin Laden’s world, and many who are, have reason to be
afraid.
Empire?
America possesses preponderant power, power which is increasingly regarded
as illegitimate in many parts of the world, but which is difficult to challenge.
Does this mean we are seeing the emergence of an American Empire?
Clearly this would not be an Empire on the model of the British and French
Empires of recent memories, with formal colonies, but this is not the only
possible model available; one way of setting up the problem would be to say
that whereas hegemonic leadership ultimately rests on consent, imperialism
does not, and since the element of consent is increasingly being withdrawn
by many of the led, American hegemony is in the process of being turned
into an American Empire.
There is quite a large literature emerging on this topic – see the further
reading suggestions below – and clearly the idea of an American Empire is
no longer quite as implausible as it once was. As after the Second World
War, American troops are spread throughout the world, but this time the
key strategic bases are not in democracies that welcome their ally and pro-
tector, but in the very undemocratic Central Asian republics and other
quasi-satellites. The Iraq war and subsequent occupation in particular raise
all sorts of imperial analogies – after all, after 1918, Iraq was actually part
of the British Empire, ruled from London, albeit as a League of Nations
mandate; indeed, modern Iraq was actually created by the British, much to
the chagrin of the Kurds who lost the possibility of a national state as
a result. Are not American Proconsuls such as Paul Bremer performing the
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Understanding International Relations

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same kind of role that was once performed by British figures such as Lord
Curzon? In 1899 Kipling specifically invited the US to ‘take up the white
man’s burden’ and perhaps this is now happening – certainly the Americans
are experiencing the ‘savage wars of peace’ mentioned in that poem, and
reaping the usual reward ‘the blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye
guard’; at least that must be how it looks in Washington, DC.
However, the opening lines of that brilliant, if politically-incorrect, poem
tell another story. ‘Take up the White Man’s burden – Send forth the best ye
breed – Go bind your sons to exile/ To serve your captives’ need.’ In the
nineteenth century the brightest and the best did indeed graduate from
Oxford and Cambridge into the Indian Civil Service – but the class of 2004
at Harvard, Yale and other elite American institutions show not the slight-
est desire to follow this example. To generalize the point, neither ordinary
Americans, nor the American political class in general, possess the mindset
necessary for empire. Iraq demonstrates this all too readily. There were two
viable strategies for the post-war occupation of Iraq – decapitate the old
regime and immediately coopt the next layer of leaders as the new Iraqi
political elite, or go down the imperial road of governing Iraq as a colony
while training up an entirely new elite. The US attempted the second route,
but with a time scale of months rather than the necessary years – Proconsul
Bremer left office at the end of June 2004. Niall Ferguson in his recent, out-
standing, study Colossus (2004) refers to America as a victim of ‘attention
deficit disorder’ – the inability to concentrate on any task for long enough
to carry it out – and that has certainly been evident in Iraq; given the cur-
rent structure of US opinion, no American administration could actually
expect to garner support for the long-run enterprises that empire actually
involves.
Perhaps instead of an American Empire, we are seeing a new kind of
political formation – empire as a global network without the kind of politi-
cal centre seen in the nineteenth century; such is the thesis of the best-seller
Empire by two unlikely authors, the Italian anarchist and convicted terror-
ist Antonio Negri, and the American literary critic Michael Hardt. This
difficult book brings together Marxian political economy and French post-
structuralist forms of discourse in order to argue that what we are seeing
is the emergence of a wholly new political order, more reminiscent of Rome
than of the British Raj. Just as the Roman Empire soon stopped being par-
ticularly Roman in personnel or structure, so the current Empire is not