Incoherent Empire: A Critique ofthe American Empire in terms of
The Sources of Social Power
Michael Mann

Professor of Sociology, University of California at Los Angeles.
mmann@soc.ucla.edu
Author of Incoherent Empire. London & New York: Verso/ Norton, 2003.
German edition, Das ohnmachtige Supermacht (Frankfurt, 2003) won the Friedrich
Ebert Stiftung Prize for the best book on politics published in 2003.
Japanese Edition published by NTT Press, Tokyo, Dec 6, 2004

November 2004
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American foreign policy has been recently dominated by the venture into Iraq. This has not gone
well. Most criticism has focused on “mistakes” – there were not enough US troops, or they wereof the wrong type, the Iraqi army was disbanded after it surrendered, looting was not anticipated,
the US believed Iraqi exile claims etc. But I will argue here that the mistakes were only thesurface of a more profound American failure. The Iraq venture was doomed by an attempt tocreate what some neo-conservatives styled a “New American Empire”. This exaggerated
American powers, made facile historical comparisons with previous Empires, mis-identified theenemy, and mis-identified the century we live in.
I wrote almost all of my book Incoherent Empire before the war in Iraq began. For two decades I
have been a historical sociologist, predicting the past. But in this book I engaged in real
prediction. I said that this foreign policy was doomed to disastrous failure. My book wasastonishingly accurate in almost its predictions.
From my previous research in The Sources of Social Power, I derived two relevant conclusions.
First, was the very general statement that to exercise general power requires combining somedegree of ideological, economic, military and political power. Most regimes wield unequalcombinations of them, and some regimes may be quite light on one or two. But the US tried torely overwhelmingly on military power alone – and indeed on only one part of military power,
offensive fire-power. This is insufficient to create empire. Second, in the realm of political andideological power, the world moved in the late 20th century from an Age of Empires to an Age of
Nation-States.
Ye the neo-conservatives of the Bush administration disagreed. They broke with the traditional
American aversion to the word “empire”, and proclaimed the coming of a New American
Empire. “The fact is”, said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Krauthammer, “no country
has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically and militarily in the history of theworld since the late Roman Empire”.Vice-President Cheney and his wife sent out a Christmas
card in 2003 containing this quote from Benjamin Franklin: “And if a sparrow cannot fall to theground without His notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without His aid?” The Bush
Administration, plus many Republican Congressmen and Senators, declared that the US had thepower to remake Afghanistan and Iraq, restructure the Middle East, and eliminate terrorism andweapons of mass destruction across the world.
Their goals were quite limited. They did not want a permanent rule over foreign lands. The US
has been generally content with an indirect and informal Empire, able to pressure and threaten,
but only in the last resort to invade, supporting ,local allies who could then rule the country. Thistime, however, the US would invade without significant local allies, effect regime change, andthen two to five years later would leave with a more friendly client state in place. This was atemporary territorial imperialism, and it would be confined to a few places. Only two regions
were in its sights, the central core of the Muslim world, in the Middle East plus western Asia,
2and north-east Asia. The focus was on what the neo-cons. called the “Axis of Evil”, the “rogue
states” of North Korea, Iraq and Iran, though with Syria sometimes also informally added. If
threats against these “rogues” failed, the US would subject them to temporary territorial
imperialism. Later, more rogues could be added to our firing-sights.1
The new imperialists pointed to the historical examples of 1945 when the US occupied Japan andGermany. They did not observe how unusually favorable were the conditions then. The locals
were desperate for peace, after at least six years of war. Their cities were in ashes, and survival
was their main desire. Almost no one wished to restart the war. No American soldiers were killed
by hostile fire after surrender. Japan and Germany also had recent experience of parliamentary
institutions. Afghanistan and Iraq were different in every way from these cases, but the neo-cons.
seemed not to notice.
I now enumerate the power resources of the United States, asking whether they were sufficientfor this new form of “temporary territorial imperialism”.

Economic Power
Though the US dominates the world economy much less than in the first decades after 1945, it
remains the main engine of global growth, the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency andWall Street trades two-thirds of the value of the world’s stocks and shares. The US is the biggest
debtor nation because foreigners invest in the US economy. If China and Japan removed theirsurpluses from the US and invested them elsewhere, American financial dominance would beended. But the Asian economies are too inter-dependent with the US for them to risk doing that.
The US still has the wealth to finance foreign interventions. Economic power is not lacking. Yet
the Bush administration is seeking this temporary empire while actually cutting taxes, andAmerican voters would not support the higher taxes the policy would really need. The Aghan
and Iraqi interventions are grossly under-financed. But this is a problem of ideological, noteconomic power. Americans could pay for an empire, but they do not want to.
Military Power
Military resources dominated the minds of the neo-conservatives, for American military power
has no rival. Japan and Europe do not pursue military power, the Soviet Union collapsed, andRussia and China want peace and entry into world markets. Almost all the world’s military
budgets are declining, except the American. Its military budget for 2004 is a staggering 45% of
the world’s total military spending, exceeding the spending of the next 28 states combined. The

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The program is still being vigorously advocated by ex-administration officials David
Frum and Richard Perle, in their book An End to Evil. How To Win the War on Terror. New
York: Random House, 2003. They have added Saudi Arabia as a “rogue target”.
3gap is growing wider. The US is the world’s only military giant.
Its enormous nuclear arsenal is not relevant here. Nuclear weapons cannot be used to acquire
empire, unless we want a radio-active one. But the US has global reach and massive fire-power.
The US has military facilities in 132 countries, about half of them genuine bases. Few of thesebases project power into the host country. These are not traditional imperial garrisons,controlling the local client ruler. In fact, movement in and out of them usually requires thepermission of the host government. Rather, the bases project American fire-power elsewhere,
globally.
The US has a monopoly of weapons that emerged during the 1990s in the so-called “revolution
in military affairs”, the RMA. This term, coined in the Pentagon by Andrew Marshall, refers to"a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of newtechnologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational andorganizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations". 2
It combines long-range precision radar-guided missiles and bombs, with “information warfare”
deploying satellites in space, airborne cameras, handheld global positioning systems, and robot
sensors. RMA-equipped forces can inflict enormous damage on the enemy, with very low US
casualties. Even the US infantryman’s M-16/ M4 rifle can now deliver 90 rounds a minute,disintegrating human beings 2,000 feet away – even without the attachable grenade-launcher.
The Afghan war of 2001-2002 and the Iraq invasion of 2003 showed the offensive utility of thesystem. In both cases enemy forces were devastated before their own weapons could comewithin range of Americans. The new imperialists refer to the RMA and the new weaponry as
their greatest resource – apart from ritual incantations about democracy.
No comparable military dominance had ever previously existed. The US has a massive
intimidatory presence to any state which might dare to stand up to it. Military defiance would bea very high-risk strategy for all but a handful of states. Even China and Russia (which haveconsiderable deterrence of their own) would not choose to fight against the US. The lack ofrivals is unique in the history of the world, as the neo-cons. say. The US dwarfs Britain’s 19th
century military leadership. True, its Royal Navy was deliberately kept bigger than the next twolargest navies combined, and in reality it sometimes exceeded the next four. This meant that
Britain was also defensively invulnerable (since it comprised islands and there were no
airplanes). It also possessed unrivaled striking power across the seas and along the coast-lines of
the world. But British army strength only ranked fifth in the world, behind Germany, France,
Russia and Austria-Hungary. So Britain could not coerce its own continent, and faced rivals

2

Marshall, “Some Thoughts on Military Revolutions”, Memorandum for the Record,
OSD Office of Net Assessment, July 27, 1993. He hoped that the precision of “smart” bombs
would also bring low civilian casualties, claiming that “only the bad guys get hurt”. Actually
about 10,000 civilians have died in Afghanistan, about 15,000 in Iraq. This is a lot of corpses,though low by most historical conquest comparisons.
4spread right across the Northern hemisphere. All previous Empires, including imperial Rome andChina, had powerful neighbours whose military powers restrained their actions.
Yet though offensive fire-power can achieve battlefield victory, it cannot deliver imperial
pacification. In battle, forces are concentrated, so fire-power is what matters. But in pacification,
force dispersion occurs, and this requires more soldiers and policing with lesser weapons. The
British Empire in the 19th century generally calculated that at least 250% more troops wereneeded for pacification than for initial conquest.
The US has 1.45 million men and women under arms, down from 2.2 million in the 1980s. Thisis less than China’s 2.5 million, just greater than the million-plus of India, North Korea andRussia. The US only has 5% of the world’s soldiers, but even that figure of 1.45 million ismisleading. Over half are in the navy and airforce. The army total is about 540,000 and only halfof them are “active”. Only about 174,000 troops can be logistically deployed abroad at any one
time. This is fewer combat troops than either the British or Roman Empires possessed at theirheight. US fighting forces are now fully-engaged across the world, with 135,000 troops in Iraq,
8,000 in Afghanistan, 36,000 (soon to be reduced to 24,000) in South Korea, and the rest
scattered around the many global bases. For Iraq the US has been forced to call up most of its
part-time reservist soldiers and to arbitrarily extend their tours of duty. Remember that only half
the total in Iraq are actual fighting troops – about 68,000. If we divide them into three shifts, then
only around 23,000 can be out on active duty at any one time. There are 39,000 cops in New
York City alone. The US cannot police Iraq adequately.
Indeed, a second “revolution in military affairs” has turned the tide of military technology
against imperialism. Guerilla fighters are now much better-equipped, especially in urban warfare.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle, the shoulder-held anti-tank missile, Semtech, cellphone-activatedbombs etc. are freely available globally, ideal weapons to take out small numbers of Great Power
troops and helicopters, as we see in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The deadliest weapon is
the suicide bomber, nurtured in recent guerilla national liberation struggles, first in Sri Lanka,
then in the Middle East. The US may be a military giant, but it is vulnerable to little rats scuttling
around its feet.
Empire, however temporary, requires mopping-up operations, the quelling of rebellions and riots,
and a gradual transition from military to policing roles. Yet this is becoming a more challenging
a task, and the US lacks the soldiers to do it alone. It needs allies. I turn to political power.

Political PowerThe US has been tempted by unilateralism, a policy of no allies (apart from Tony Blair). By“multilateralism” most people mean the UN or other great Powers. Though the international
order is premised formally on the sovereign equality of states, some are more equal than others.
The UN Security Council still embodies the inequalities of the late 1940s, allowing five5

permanent members (the US, the USSR/ Russia, China, Britain and France) veto powers. But inreality two Superpowers, and then only one, dominated the Council. During the 1990s the US
dominated UN resolutions, sanctions and military interventions. It used its veto more than all theother Security Council Powers combined. If the US opposed force, there was no force; and until
2003 whenever the US wanted force, it secured it.3
American power explains why Iraq was never offered incentives, as well as threats, to disarm. 4
The US sometimes had to pursue laborious arm-twisting and bribing, but it almost always
worked. From the Soviet collapse until late 2002 no powers got together to thwart the American
will. The thought did not often occur to them, since American power was fairly hegemonic –routinized and mostly legitimate. It could rely on support from Britain and (usually) France on
the Security Council, plus the rest of Western Europe and the other Anglo-Saxon countries, andJapan and other East Asian allies, plus most of Latin America. The US and not the UN had
offered security to most of the world. The other states of the North had been under American
protection since 1945, unable to defend themselves without American help. America dominatedsecurity organizations like NATO and SEATO. Whatever their jealousies and resentments, statesin the “free world” believed they had common interests with the US. After the collapse of theSoviet Union, NATO was expanded eastward and former communist countries scrabbled forAmerican favours.
If this is called “multilateralism”, why should the US want unilateralism? US intervention
without the political mandate of the United Nations incurs costs in military, economic andideological power. The UN mandate brings unconditional permissions to use foreign bases,
allied troops, the cash to fund the venture, and above all legitimacy. Europe, not the US, paid
most of the costs of rebuilding Yugoslavia; Germany, Japan and the Arab oil states paid for mostof the 1991 Gulf War. UN legitimacy particularly allows states to support actions which areunpopular with their own people. They hide behind UN authority and say “We are reluctant, but
it is the will of the world”. Intervention goes better for the US when formally multilateral.
But in 2003 multilateralism collapsed. The US was unable to assemble a UN Security Council
vote to back an invasion of Iraq. So it went ahead almost unilaterally. The UN, Europe, Russia,
China and Japan now remained irrelevant to the invasion and even to the first stages of thesubsequent unravelling of the pacification process, up to the end of 2003. These supposed“rivals” were powerless to stop the invasion and were forced to sit on the side-lines, ignored. In
the short period that the US thought the war was going well, menacing threats were made against
Syria and Iran, though a sudden silence had descended on US policy toward the North Korea.

3This is what Michael Ignatieff called “empire lite”, in his Empire Lite: Nation Buildingin Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan.
4Phyllis Bennis, Calling the Shots. How Washington Dominates Today’s UN. New York:Interlink Publishing, 1996.
6

But the neo-cons. still believed that the US could remake the world. The policy did not fail onabandonment of so-called multi-lateralism..
The really damaging part of unilateralism concerned Iraqis. The US had no significant Iraqi
allies, apart from the Kurds in the north of the country. This was the vital factor preventing
pacification of Iraq. Previous empires had rarely provided many of their own troops forpacification. They relied on local political allies. The European Empires (and the Romans andChinese before them) initially ruled indirectly, through local native allies. Their conquests wereaided by local princes and potentates feeling oppressed by the local ruler, desiring to share in theimperial spoils. The imperial troops focused their superior fire-power on the capital and major
cities, while larger native forces fanned out over the territories to repress any resistance.
After pacification the imperialists might continue ruling indirectly, through client native princes.
But if the colony was valuable, they gradually increased control over the local allies, and soon
integrated them as soldiers and administrators into their own colonial regimes. In the British Raj
in India British troops provided only between 50,000 and 78,000 out of a force total of between
250,000 and 290,000, about a fifth. 90% of the police force was Indian. In African colonies
natives usually comprised well over 90% of the soldiers and police forces. Over 130,000 Indian
troops fought for Britain in Europe in World War I and over 150,000 African troops fought for
Britain in Asia in World War II. It seems extraordinary today – what concern were these wars of
theirs?
Imperial civilian administration also usually worked through strengthening the authority of loyal
princes, chiefs and tribal and village councils, and ruling through them.1,000 British members of
the Indian Civil Service were able to administer 250 million natives; 1,200 British civil servants
administered a dozen African territories with a combined population of 43 million. Native allies
were always better pacifiers, policemen, judges and civil servants because they had local
knowledge and control networks on the ground. This is how Empires ruled in the Age of
Empires. By the early 20th century their ranks included American imperialists in the Phillippines.
As these empires collapsed, the Cold War began. But the US kept up a comparable policy in its
ensuing fifty-year “informal Empire”, dominating countries without the need of formal
territorial controls. Because the Cold War was believed to be between rival economic andpolitical ideologies, the US found “native allies” among the upper classes who favored
capitalism over socialism. Given a little aid, these people usually proved more powerful thantheir leftist opponents. Only in a few cases, like Cuba and Vietnam, was the US confronted byleftist regimes successfully mobilizing most of the nation against it. Elsewhere, local clientsruled their own states, given a bit of US assistance now and then. But the Age of the Cold War isalso over.
In Afghanistan, an almost-valueless country, the neo-cons. did maintain imperial tradition,
relying heavily on local allies. Only about 300 Americans were on the ground as the Northern
Alliance forces neared the Afghan capital Kabul. About 150 were US Special Forces “spotters”
7

giving co-ordinates to US bombers, and 150 were CIA agents with suitcases brimming withdollars to buy the support of Afghan warlords. After the conquest, US forces were strengthened
to about 8,000 Americans plus several thousand other foreign allies. But the country outside ofKabul is mainly run by local warlords. This is a typical case of indirect rule over a low-value
colony.
But in Iraq US ambition was much greater: to achieve “regime change” over the entire country.
The American Plan A was that Iraqi generals would desert, overthrow Saddam and form a newfriendly regime either before the invasion actually started or as it proceeded. Plan B (if we candignify it with that term) was that US troops would be regarded as liberators and the various
Iraqi factions would ssemble together and form a new, viable government in a peacefulenvironment. I more sceptical over whether the neo-cons. thought this would actually be a
democratic regime, but maybe it would eventually become one. These expectations wereabsurdly naive, a product of the Pentagon and the neo-cons. triumphing over the State
Department -- which knew better.The US attitude to democracy resembled its earlier attitude tocapitalism in the former Soviet Union – destroy the old regime and then democracy or markets
will flourish naturally. Sociologists (and the Chinese government) know that democracy andmarkets actually require a strong institutional base nurtured over many years. They cannot be
suddenly created by fiat or force.
So the real “unilateral” blunder of the US was not to ignore the UN but to invade a country
without local allies on the ground. The exception was in the north, where Kurdish allies alreadyran a de facto government and so could broaden it amid a reasonable level of security. The exiled
Iraqis on whom the US relied for the rest of Iraq had no effective organizations on the ground.
This was especially true of the Sunni exiles, almost all of whom had spent 20 or 30 years in exile
in the West. They are friends of the US but they are isolated in their own country. Some of the
Shi’a had been exiled in neigbouring Iran and they had better local ties. Shi’a clerics could
mobilize large numbers of locals. But the Shi’a leaders are not so friendly to the US. The
principal Shi’a leader, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, still refuses to speak to any American official!
Iraq would have to be an historic “first” – a country pacified with no local allies. It could not be
done. The Provisional Authority, the Iraqi National Council and now the supposedly“independent” Iraqi government have had little legitimacy among Iraqis. They have all had
inadequate infrastructures for transitioning though pacification to policing to a stable government.
This was not a “mistake” of inadequate preparation, for there were no local allies available.
Powerful Iraqis did not look to Americans to deliver them from Saddam Hussein.
The US declared “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2003, at which point there had been 139 US
military casualties. In mid-November, 2004, the US dead was reaching 1200, with anywhere
between 8,000 and 15,000 wounded too severely to be able to return to Iraq. They continue at therate of about two a day even without major skirmishes as at Fallujah. Far more Iraqis are dead orwounded, of course. A recent Johns Hopkins University medical survey of a cluster sample of
Iraqi households projected that over the whole of Iraq over 100,000 Iraqis must have been killed8

by American action since the invasion. 5 The UN and international aid agencies have fled thecountry. Only Britain has committed significant resources into Iraq, though there are numerous
token units provided by other allies. At the beginning of 2004 US forces began a tactical retreat,
withdrawing from dangerous areas into fewer, larger bases. This left the under-trained, underarmed Iraqi police force to take the brunt of the insurgent attacks. Their losses rocketed. The
timetables for reconstruction, oil pumping and elections have been delayed by the lack of order.
The US hopes desperately that somehow the various factions within the Kurdish, Sunni and Shia
communities can brought into some minimal level of compromise, and that stability can beachieved in a few years. The quagmire in Sunni areas is military, but the quagmire in Shi’adominated areas is more political. Unlike the Sunnis, Shi’a leaders are ambivalent. They vocally
oppose the US occupation, yet they need it to establish their dominance over Iraq. The radical
cleric Moqtada Al Sadr challenged the more mainstream leaders, denouncing their hypocrisy andlaunching an attack on US forces (after they had tried to close down his newspapers). But his
challenge has been beaten back, at least for the moment. His untrained rag-tag army of young
Shi’a men was severely mauled by US forces, and Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the preeminent Shi’acleric, undercut his legitimacy. For the Shi’a have much to gain from US-organized elections.
They are the majority group in Iraq. Though Sistani still refuses resolutely to directly meet with
any American, he favors the elections planned for late January, 2005. He believes a majority
will vote for Shi’a candidates who favor religious laws for the country and a unitary constitution
allowing Shi’a domination. His assessment is probably correct.
I make a further prediction: if the election is held, Allawi and his allies in the US-appointed
administration will be routed by Sistani’s men – with the possibility that the second largest Shi’a
bloc will be formed by even more anti-American leaders headed by Al Sadr and Achmed
Chalabi (formerly a US ally, now its enemy). It is hard to see the Shi’a leaders governing Iraq in
a way congenial to US interests as defined by the Bush administration. And yet Bush desperately
needs them, since he cannot produce any viable Sunni leaders who are not pro-insurgent. It
remains unclear whether substantial Sunni groups will participate in the election. If the Muslim
Scholars Association did, it would probably win a majority among the Sunnis. But it is not
merely opposed to the US presence. Many of its leaders are (non-fighting) parts of theinsurgency. This is also a political and ideological quagmire for the US. It can hold highly
imperfect elections, which will bring a Shi’a Islamist majority government. It might be able tocompromise with the Kurds. If not they would declare autonomy, if not independence. Neither
will be able to cooperate with the Sunnis if the US remains, for the main Sunni organizations will
be still fighting them. If the US withdraws, there might be a civil war – but then there already is a
civil war there caused by the American presence. I see no way out other than withdrawal atsome stage, essentially defeated, as in Vietnam, but this time defeated not by a powerful army
but a rag-tag bunch of patriots. Of course, no-one can accurately predict what will happen, given

5

Les Roberts et. Al., “Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample
survey”, The Lancet, on-line version at www.thelancet.com October 29, 2004.
9

lack of knowledge of rebel numbers and character. The apparent dearth of US intelligence is notreassuring; while the situation is much worse than the neo-cons. had expected.
Japan seems to have been entering the American coalition just as its failure became very clear.
Other countries are leaving – Bulgaria and Poland have recently announced withdrawal soon. Of
course, the main reason for the arrival of Japanese soldiers is the government’s desire to become
a “normal” state with “normal” military commitments. Yet the Japanese people should reflect onwhether the best way to become normal is to join a losing venture launched by an incoherent
empire led by a president who (according to family members) believes this is a Christian crusade.
Invasions of Iran or Syria would encounter similar problems. “Reformists” in Iraq and antiAlawite factions in Syria are unlikely to seek Pentagon aid in their domestic squabbles, since thiswould weaken their domestic support. North Korea differs, since there is a major local ally,
South Korea, though since its capital lies within artillery range of Northern forces, it would be areluctant ally in any attack. Though the Chinese government might privately regard North Korea
as a very difficult ally, it would surely also try to deter the US from acting aggressively. Again,
the locals would not support the US.
Some would-be nation-states are disorderly, some fail altogether. But the US cannot do much tochange them. Even its own client states are unreliable, pursuing their own goals, often to thedetriment of American policy goals – as has been the case for Israel, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
They are sovereign states, pursuing their own policies. In interventions inside nation-states, theUS is a political pygmy. After showering clients with aid, it cannot control them, and it lacks theoption of increasing controls on them with military measures, as previous Empires did. Afterinflicting military devastation on rogues, it cannot bring political order – as both Afghanistan and
Iraq reveal. The Age of Empire has gone. The US lacks the political power for empire.
Ideological Power
Underlying this is a sea-change in global ideologies.The Europeans (like almost all imperialists
before them) were helped by one important absence – nationalism. Conquered populations rarely
shared a sense of a common collective identity. The Europeans called them “Indians” and“Africans”, but they themselves did not, since their communities of attachment were much more
local – regional, or tribal or sectarian. If they collaborated with the imperialists, they were notcalled traitors to the nation. Rather they were seen as advancing the interests of their local
communities by sharing in the spoils of Empire. So, from Cortes securing the alliance of local
city-states against the Aztecs, to the British and French mobilizing rival networks of Indian
princes, to the Belgians ruling through Tutsi chieftains in Rwanda, there was no great ideologicalobstacle to Empire.
The neo-cons. say that American power is much greater than that of Britain or France in the 19th
century. They are right if we compare individual countries. The US is more powerful than
Britain was, much more powerful than France was. But Britain and France were not solitary
imperialists. They were partners in a much broader imperialism launched first by Europe, then by
10the West, on the rest of the world. The US joined in at the end of the 19th century in Cuba, thePhilippines, China and elsewhere. This Western imperialism was much more formidable than the
US is today, militarily, politically, economically, and especially ideologically. From the point ofview of the rest of the world, Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, the United States etc. all looked
culturally the same. When viewed collectively, there was simply no escaping their power.
Ideologically, the West represented modernity and power. Native elites all over the world wanted
Western education, science, technology and forms of state, even while they fought for liberation.
The West also controlled the weapons of mass communication. In Africa the British, the French,
the Belgians, the Portugese, the Germans, the Italians all communicated easily with each other;while “Africans” could not easily communicate with each other, since they spoke many
languages and few were literate. A Western communications monopoly prevented collective
resistance at other than a local level. Even news of Western atrocities did not easily leak out.
But by the 20th century Western political ideals had spread to the colonies. Educating the natives
for civil or military administration meant exposing them to literacy and to liberal, socialist andfascist notions of popular sovereignty. When Indian nationalists effectively adapted such theories
to local conditions, British rule in India was finished. That was the end of the Age of Empires.
Nationalism is now the world’s dominant ideology. Some theories of globalization assert that thenation-state dominated in the past, while transnational forces dominate today. True, before 1945
nation-states dominated Europe, but it was their Empires which dominated the world. Empires
were replaced by nation-states between 1945 and the mid-1990s. Recent globalization has
globalized the nation-state. All 191 of the world’s states now claim sovereignty over theirterritories “in the name of the people” – that is, they claim to be nation-states. They sit together
in a body called “the United Nations”. True, Europe has moved slightly beyond the nation-state,while some states do not have effective sovereignty over their territories. But they all aspire tosovereignty. No widespread ideology legitimizes anyone else ruling over them. Since only “thepeople” should rule, anti-imperialism is rampant across the world.
Complications arise where more than one collective identity compete as sources of nationalism
and anti-imperialism. In the Middle East there are four: nationalism attached to a state (forexample, Egyptian or Iraqi nationalism), pan-Arab nationalism, Islamism (popularly called
fundamentalism), and Muslim sectarianism (mainly Sunni and Shia). The last two are not strictly
nationalism, though they also provide powerful anti-imperialisms. So Iraq is only a fragile,
divided nation-state. There is distrust between Shi’a and Sunni, between secularists,
conservatives and Islamists, and between and within tribes and cities. But Iraqis distrust the alienoccupiers even more. Iraq is for the Iraqis, they say, and so do Arabs and Muslims in general, forthis is the dogma of nationalism everywhere.
To suppress resistance, the US must intensify militarism, as did previous Empires. Europeans –and Japanese in China – slaughtered civilians and burned villages and crops. Thankfully, realempires have departed from the world. Though the US has committed some atrocities in Iraq, it
11cannot go rampaging through the “Sunni Triangle” as the British Empire did when faced withcomparable opposition. Villages were razed, crops burned, and men, women and children
deliberately killed to “set an example” to others. Americans caused the deaths of an estimated250,000 Filipinos in their last true imperial venture in the early 20th century, without causingmuch of an outcry. Global ideologies have changed since then to embrace ideals of racialequality and universal human rights. America claims to bring stability, freedom and democracy
to Iraq, not repression. It must live up to this claim, not least in the eyes of the American public.
Its imperial predecessors promised only “civilization”, order imposed on people who weretermed “savages”, “barbarians”, “heathens” or “lower races”. America must do better today, butwith fewer resources. We do have military power, and so we are continually tempted into using it.
American forces are locked into a deadly cycle. An insurgent attack kills a few soldiers or Iraqi
collaborators. We counter-attack, using our main power source, which is devastating fire-power.
We have twice poured fire-power into Fallujah in April and November 2004, killing several
hundred civilians, including women, children and the elderly. The second time we successfully“took” the city. But most of the insurgents simply moved elsewhere and stepped up attacks inother cities.Even to assemble 10,000 troops, plus logistical support, for an assault on Fallujah in
November, 2004, the US had to denude other areas. Samarra, had been supposedly “liberated” by
US troops in early October. At the end of the month it exploded again into violence. So did
Mosul.
The town of Ramadi is only 30 miles to the east of Fallujuah. Most cities are too dangerous for
US bases to be located in them. But Ramadi has two. Unfortunately, protecting them and thebomb-infested four-and-a-half-mile stretch of road between them drains most of the local
marines’ resources. They say they cannot even seal off the main links to Fallujah, the highway or
the desert smuggling routes, let alone perform any reconstruction. Staff Sergeant James Keefer, acivil affairs officers attached to the marines, told a reporter: “We used to go to civilian areas inone or two Humvees to look at hospitals and other places. Now it’s too dangerous, and we needfour Humvees for a convoy, and we don’t have the resources. “ Nor can they protect the local
Iraqi administrators, who are being decimated by the insurgents. Even the man who cleaned theportable toilets at one of the bases was killed by them. The result, said one of the region’s major
tribal leaders, is that “The city is chaotic. There’s no presence of the Allawi government”. 6
We also take militarism into our prisons. CIA interrogation manuals endorse the kinds of abuses
revealed in the terrible photographs which came from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The US
declared that the Geneva Conventions could not apply in the war against terrorism, since theenemy was “evil”. Bush himself called the Guantanamo prisoners “killers”. Cheney called them“bad people”, Ashcroft said they were “uniquely dangerous”, Rumsfeld called them “the hardestof the hard”, “the worst of the worst”, “the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the6

Edward Wong, “Provincial capital near Falluja is rapidly slipping into chaos”, NewYork Times, October 28, 2004.
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face of the earth.” Iraqis are labelled “evil-doers”, “dead-enders”, “terrorists”. The enemy isdehumanized. Is it surprising that some American personnel torture prisoners? They have been
told from the top what kind of war this is.
But such militarism is counter-productive, since everything we do is broadcast across the Middle
East by the new “weapons of mass communication”. Al-Jazeerah and Al-Arabiya now reachover 35 million Arabs. From Fallujah in November were transmitted images of dead Iraqis, adevastated city, marines strutting around a beautiful but shattered mosque with their boots andweapons on. The locals are appalled by what they see, and the battle for hearts and minds is lost.
The insurgents receive more help, Shi’a and Sunni even begin sometimes to combine, andresistance escalates. The mass media also communicate values like nationalism, anti-imperialism,
racial equality and human rights across the South of the world. Literacy and the media are global.
Once things started going wrong in Iraq, the Bush administration could not even control its own
media there.
America has represented values of material plenty, individual freedom, and democracy. It also
has the world’s most powerful media, being the first to develop efficient mass-production ofculture. Hollywood and US television networks retain a global lead. But since over half
Hollywood’s profits now come from abroad, it has countered the stilting effects of sub-titles anddubbing by reducing the number of words per minute. Narrative drive, action, sex and violence
do not communicate many values. US TV sales abroad declined as consumers turned to locallyproduced shows, usually for about 7 of the top TV 10 programs. “The worldwide televisionmarket is growing”, said the president of Walt Disney Television, “but America's place in it isdeclining”. Global opinion polls reveal steadily rising criticism of US government policies, withespecial dislike of US policy toward Israel and Iraq. A poll in 2003 concluded that “the bottom
has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world.” 7 The US is losing theideological struggle in the Muslim world. Suicide bombers killing Americans are more often
seen as freedom-fighters than as evil-doers.
The Bush administration expected that Americans would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. Yet US
policies had alienated most Iraqis, both as nationalists and as Muslims. The Bush war against
terrorism continues to discriminate against Muslims. The President blatantly sides with Sharon
against the Palestinians. 10,000 Muslims were killed in Afghanistan for no significant
improvement in the country. The new imperialists told a stream of lies about Iraq’s supposed
weapons of mass destruction and terrorists. Then Iraqis experienced it themselves. In 2003 theUS killed over 15,000 Iraqis in six months, a rate of killing Saddam had not matched since 1991.
Frightened US troops brandished lethal weapons, shouting “Stop!” in English at check-points –symbolizing their near-complete ideological failure to communicate to Iraqis.

7

The Pew Global Attitudes Project What the world thinks in 2002, & Views of a
Changing World, 2003. Washington, DC: The Pew Center for the People and the Press
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Iraq is not Vietnam. It is an even bigger defeat. Defeat in Vietnam was by large well-trained
armies; in Iraq it is by gangs.
In the Age of Nationalism, aiding the US after it has invaded your country makes you a traitor.
The nations of the world are now held responsible for their own destinies. Outside intervention
must be justified by extreme conditions, as the UN Charter states; and intervention must be
quick and beneficent. This is a higher standard than the Roman or British Empires could havemet. The first years of their conquests were usually mired in the blood of civilian casualties, but
this mattered little to the rest of the world. Today the world’s dominant ideologies, carriedthrough mass media, contradict any imperialism. That is the fundamental ideological problem
confronting the new imperialists. Even many in the supposed imperialist camp lack heart andsoul for the task of repression. American military power converts the American Dream of peace,democracy and plenty into a Phantom, disappearing as foreigners draw closer to it.
Blowback
Iraq is not the only war America is losing. New terrorists created by US policy moved into Iraq,
converted by the US into a failed state. Despite massive international cooperation which struck
down many existing terrorists, new, younger terrorists struck in Casablanca, Riyadh andespecially in Iraq. The US State Department was forced to change its 2003 “Patterns ofTerrorism” Report to admit that the number of terrorist attacks had grown greatly since 9-11.
But there is a fatal flaw in the American war against terrorism. The US fails to distinguishbetween national and international terrorists. Administration statements routinely name “AlQaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah” as the terrorist enemy. But of these three only Al-Qaeda is
attacking Americans. International terrorists like Al Qaeda aim at international targets. They are
principally attacking American imperialism, though many others become victims of theiratrocities. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the past policies which created Al Qaeda, it is
attacking us and we must fight back. Luckily, Al Qaeda is quite exposed . Its adherents are
emigres, operating in alien environments, and their bombings usually kill more locals than
Americans or Westerners. They have killed the citizens of over 80 countries, and so thegovernments of over 80 countries are co-operating in tracking them down. Provided we focusedon this enemy alone, we could win this “war”.
But the US also opposes national terrorists. These, like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Moro Liberation
Front in the Philippines, and Chechen and Kashmiri groups, only attack those they say is theirlocal oppressor. They claim to be “national liberation fighters”. The more powerful ones win
considerable support from their own people, forcing their local oppressor to use state terrorism tofight them. Many national terrorists are quite deeply rooted in the age of nation-states. It is
unwise of the US to attack them as well – for then they will also attack America. Instead, the US
should bring its power to bear in pressuring both sides in these national disputes to settle theirdispute. For example, the US should put equal pressure on Sharon and Arafat, the legitimate
leaders of their sides. Additionally, the US might give more generous aid to Muslim countries to14

help repair the harm recently done to US interests amongst them. More generally, a greatercommitment against world poverty and disease would help.
But at present US policies seem calculated to alienate the Muslim world and produce moreinternational terrorists. It is hard to think in recent times of a foreign policy that was so counterproductive. Note that the US has been thwarted not by great power rivals, by Europe, Russia or
China – but by Muslims from weak, unhappy countries, riven by internal conflicts. The wretchedof the earth have stopped the American Empire. Some power has shifted to the South of theworld – ideologically, politically and even in certain respects militarily.
If abandoned, these disastrous imperial policies need not leave a very harmful legacy, for power
realities would remain. The US would remain the economic leader and holder of the reserve
currency. It would be the political leader in supposedly “multi-lateral” organizations. It mightregain global ideological leadership by re-asserting American virtues. It remains the only Power
capable of projecting military force around the world. Of course, in the long-run relative
American decline will continue. Its economic power has already declined relative to Europe andJapan, and is now beginning to decline relative to China and India. It should be a long andgraceful decline. However, the new Bush administration seems reluctant to abandon its newimperialism. It has purged the CIA of dissidents, Colin Powell has given up, the President
promises firmed and firmer action. If he is as good as his word, the new American empire will
decline much more rapidly. This has been the first failed empire of the 21st century. There may
not be a second one.

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