is imperial rule obsolete?: assessing the barriers to overseas adventurism

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Is Imperial Rule Obsolete?: Assessing the Barriers to OverseasAdventurismPaul K. MacDonaldaa Williams College,

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Is Imperial Rule Obsolete?:

Assessing the Barriers to Overseas Adventurism

PAUL K. MACDONALD

The idea that the United States is an empire or should adopt impe-rial strategies has been widely criticized. One of the most persuasivesets of arguments against imperial enthusiasts is that empire is anobsolete and outdated strategy. Both systemic- and domestic-levelchanges are said to prevent the United States from successfully im-plementing an imperial strategy. I maintain that the importance ofthese barrierswhether technological, economic, or ideationalare greatly overstated. In contrast, I point to a number of devel-opments, such as the rise of nontraditional security threats, therevolution in military affairs, and changing norms of humanitar-ian intervention, that will encourage greater American overseasadventurism.

In recent years, a growing number of scholars, commentators, and punditshave described the United States as an empire. David Hendrickson, forexample, sees the Bush Administrations preference for preventative war asrepresentative of a new orientation in American foreign policy that . . . if re-alized . . . [would] give an imperial dimension to American policy unmatchedin prior experience.1 Similarly, Bruce Cumings contends that by scatteringAmerican troops around the globe, the Bush Administration has pushed thearchipelago of empire to its farthest extent in history.2 Moreover, a va-riety of authors argue imperial strategies advance the national interests of

Paul K. MacDonald is an assistant professor in political science at Williams College.I would like to thank Stacie Goddard, Michael Glosny, Robert Jervis, Daniel Nexon,

Joseph Parent, Christian Reus-Smit, John Schuessler, Alan Sked, Erin Simpson, Jack Snyder,William Wohlforth, seminar participants at the London School of Economics, and the editorsand anonymous reviewers at Security Studies for their valuable comments.

1 David C. Hendrickson, Toward Universal Empire: The Dangerous Quest for Absolute Security,World Policy Journal 19, no. 3 (2002): 1; and James Chace, Imperial America and the Common Interest,World Policy Journal 19, no. 1 (2002): 1.

2 Bruce Cumings, Is America an Imperial Power? Current History 102, no. 667 (2003): 358.

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80 P. K. MacDonald

the United States. Neoconservative writers such as Robert Kagan and MaxBoot, for example, emphasize the attractiveness of empire as a strategy toeffectively combat new security threats in the international system.3 Liberalimperialists such as Michael Ignatieff and Niall Ferguson likewise advocatean American Empire for moral and humanitarian reasons.4

The idea that the United States is an empire or should adopt imperialstrategies has been widely criticized.5 One of the most persuasive sets ofarguments against imperial enthusiasts is that empire is an obsolete and out-dated strategy. Both the contemporary international system and the domesticstructure of the United States, it is claimed, inhibit the reckless use of militarypower overseas. Thus, Michael Mann contends that those who see Amer-ica as an empire have exaggerated American powers, made facile historicalcomparisons with previous Empires, misidentified the enemy, and misiden-tified the century we live in.6 Philip Zelikow is equally sceptical of the ideaof the American Empire, describing it as seductive, yet vicious.7

The reasons to doubt the viability of coercive imperial strategies in con-temporary international politics are numerous. Some claim that systemic-level developmentssuch as the diffusion of military technology, the riseof norms against conquest, and the integration of the global economywilldiscourage the United States and future great powers from adopting imperialstrategies. Others assert that domestic-level factorssuch as the ambivalenceof the American public, a history of American anti-imperialism, and the or-ganization of the American militarywill inhibit the United States from ef-fectively implementing an imperial strategy. The military operations in Iraqand Afghanistan, rather than revealing an increased incentive on the part ofthe United States to intervene abroad, demonstrate the futility of embarkingon overseas adventures.

In this paper, I contend that both the systemic and domestic barriers toimperial rule are vastly overstated. To the contrary, there are many trends

3 Robert Kagan, The Benevolent Empire, Foreign Policy, no. 111, Summer 1998, 2435; Max Boot,The Case for American Empire, Weekly Standard, 15 October 2001; and Sebastian Mallaby, The Reluc-tant Imperialist, Foreign Affairs 81, no. 2 (2002).

4 Michale Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan (London: Vin-tage 2003); Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of Americas Empire (New York: Penguin Press, 2004); andDavid Rieff, A New Age of Liberal Imperialism? World Policy Journal 16, no. 2 (1999): 10.

5 For realist critics, see Ivan Eland, The Empire Strikes Out: The New Imperialism and Its Fa-tal Flaws, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 459, 26 November 2002, 613; and Jack Snyder, ImperialTemptations, The National Interest 71 (Spring 2003): 2940. For liberal critics, see Joseph S. Nye, TheDependent Colossus, Foreign Policy, no. 129, March/April 2002, 7477; and G. John Ikenberry, Liberal-ism and Empire: Logics of Order in the American Unipolar Age, Review of International Studies 30, no.4 (2004): 60930. For radical critics, see David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2003); and Alex Callinicos, The Grand Strategy of the American Empire, International SocialismJournal 97 (Winter 2002).

6 Michael Mann, The First Failed Empire of the 21st Century, Review of International Studies 30,no. 4 (2004): 631; and Michael Mann, Incoherent Empire (New York: Verso, 2003), 1899.

7 Philip Zelikow, Transformation of National Security, The National Interest 71 (Spring 2003): 1819.


Is Imperial Rule Obsolete? 81

that augur in favor of the reemergence of imperial relations in internationalpolitics. System-level developmentssuch as the rise of nontraditional se-curity threats, the revolution in military affairs, and norms of humanitarianinterventioncan encourage powerful states to claim sovereignty over lesspowerful polities in a quasi-imperial manner. Domestic-level factors, on theother hand, rarely check imperial adventures while somesuch as ideas ofAmerican exceptionalismmay even encourage them. While the bungledwar in Iraq certainly reveals the limitations of imperial exercises in social en-gineering, the rise of new transnational threats and the failure of the nationstate model to contain them will generate significant pressures on the UnitedStates to respond in an imperial manner.

By arguing that the barriers to imperial rule are exaggerated, I am notclaiming the United States is destined to establish a tyrannical global empirein which it extinguishes its rivals via conquest. Such naked aggression is in-congruent with the ideational foundations of the contemporary internationalsystem. As James Fearon and David Laitin point out, unlike past imperial rela-tions, modern imperial missions tend to be sponsored by multinational coali-tions, legitimated by international legal norms, and undertaken temporarilyfor the benefit of those being governed.8 Yet one should not exaggerate thediscontinuities between past and present imperial strategies. Imperial pow-ers have frequently cooperated with one another in their imperial ventures;they have always sought to legitimate their actions by appealing to the normsof the international system and the interests of the colonized; and they haveroutinely declared their intentions to be temporary. While vast global empiresmay be anachronistic, unequal imperial relations in which great powers seizesovereignty from less powerful states are here to stay.

The plan of this essay is as follows. In the first section, I clarify what Imean by imperial rule and offer a brief description of the imperial elementsof contemporary American foreign policy. In the second section, I considerthe various arguments that systemic-level barriers will prevent the emergenceof imperial relations in the contemporary international system. In the thirdsection, I evaluate similar domestic-level barriers. Finally, in the conclusion,I describe the scenarios that are likely to pull the United States once againinto the familiar yet uncomfortable position of an imperial power.

Contemporary Imperial Rule

For the purposes of this essay, I define imperial rule as a relationship in whicha state assumes some degree of sovereign political control over a subordinate

8 James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States, Interna-tional Security 28, no. 4 (Spring 2004): 7.


82 P. K. MacDonald

polity.9 This definition leaves space for a wide variety of imperial relations:the state assuming sovereignty, for example, may do so unilaterally or inpartnership with other members of the international community; its claimto sovereignty may be the legitimate outcome of a consensual agreementor the result of wholesale conquest; finally, it may assert sovereignty for atemporary period or indefinitely.

By emphasizing relations of sovereignty, however, this definition of im-perial relations is narrow. It precludes broad definitions that define imperialrule simply as an imbalance of power between states.10 Indeed, powerfulstates need not use imperial rule to maintain their influence, nor were allempires established by great powers. Similarly, this definition excludes no-tions of empire as a type of network power or nonterritorial influencederived from capitalist relations of economic dependence.11 While powerfulcapitalist countries may profit from the modern international economic sys-tem, not all imperial relationships are sought for economic reasons, nor doesimperial rule necessarily provide tangible economic benefits.

Given its focus on relations of sovereign inequality, the definition em-ployed here is quite conventional, yet it has a number of advantages. First,it avoids the problem of concept-stretching that characterizes much of thecontemporary writing on empire in whichto borrow a phrase from Alexan-der Motylempire is everything and everything is empire.12 Similarly, thisdefinition makes it easier to identify imperial rule by pointing to observableclaims of sovereignty by one state over another. While more diffuse formsof influence may well be gained from general imbalances of military capa-bilities or relations of economic dependency, it is unclear how one couldmeasure these relationships or the influence derived from them in a system-atic manner.13

This narrow definition also differs from conceptions of empire as a typeof political system, akin to the state.14 By my definition, empire is nota coherent political unit, but rather a strategy for organizing international

9 For similar definitions, see Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 30,3147. David Abernathy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 14151980(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 19; and Alexander J. Motyl, Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapseand Revival of Empires (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 12426.

10 For example, Ignatieff, Empire Lite, 54. Charles Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy andIts Predecessors (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 2477.

11 For example, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,2000), 16082. David Singh Grewal, Network Power and Globalization, Ethics & International Affairs17, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 90.

12 Alexander J. Motyl, Is Everything Empire? Is Empire Everything? Comparative Politics 38, no. 2(October 2006): 22949.

13 See, however, David A. Lake, Escape from the State-of-Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in WorldPolitics, International Security 32, no.1 (Summer 2007): 5455; and Paul K. MacDonald, The Role ofHierarchy in International Politics, International Security 32, no. 4 (Spring 2008): 17180.

14 For example S. N. Eisenstad, The Political System of Empires (New York: Free Press, 1963).



relations.15 Indeed, imperial rule is just one of the many strategies a statecan utilize to translate an advantage in military and economic capabilitiesinto control over less powerful polities. Borrowing from David Lake, onecan imagine a continuum of sovereignty claims made by a state over anotherpolity, in which empire is simply an endpoint along a continuum defined bythe degree of hierarchy between two polities.16 Imperial rule is clearly moresustained, consistent, and intrusive than relations of hegemony, in whicha state relies on occasional coercion to secure its interests in particular is-sue areas.17 At the same time, imperial relations are less extensive and lessencompassing than claims of complete and indefinite sovereignty, as in po-litical annexation and assimilation.18 Imperial rule therefore is a mid-rangestrategyit provides more reliable and sensitive control over other politiesthan a strategy of hegemony while being less costly and intrusive than apolicy of assimilation.

There are a variety of modalities through which powerful states canestablish and sustain relations of imperial rule over subordinate polities ininternational politics. Historically, one of the most common techniques wasconquest, in which a dominant state would seize the sovereignty of a weakerpolity by force. Yet imperial relations need not always be imposed by coer-cion. Subordinate polities can also be convinced to surrender sovereignty inexchange for protection or the promise of economic benefit.19 A subordinatepolity may even submit to imperial control because it accepts the legitimacyof the claims of a powerful state.20

It is often claimed that these subtle forms of imperial rule have becomemore common in the contemporary international system.21 Ellen Meiksins

15 Like Miles Kahler, I reject these approaches in preference of a conception of empire as a dynamicset of relations between societies rather than as a unit exhibiting certain timeless characteristics. SeeEmpires, Neo-Empires and Political Change, in The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR inComparative Perspective, eds., Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 287.

16 David A. Lake, The Rise, Fall and Future of the Russian Empire: A Theoretical Interpretation,in End of Empire, eds., Dawisha and Parrott, 33; David A. Lake, Entangling Relations: American ForeignPolicy in this Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 2431; and Katja Weber, HierarchyAmidst Anarchy: Transactions Costs and Institutional Choice (Albany: State University Press, 2000), 17.

17 Daniel Nexon and David Wright, Whats at Stake in the American Empire Debate? AmericanPolitical Science Review 101, no. 2 (May 2007): 25358; and Adam Watson, The Evolution of InternationalSociety: A Comparative Historical Analysis (New York: Routledge, 1992), 25156.

18 Unlike unitary states, empires are bifurcated into core and peripheral units. See Charles Tilly, HowEmpires End, in After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation Building, eds., Karen Barkey and Markvon Hagen (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), 3. Alexander Cooley, Logics of Hierarchy: The Organizationof Empires, States and Military Occupations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 2325.

19 The promise of economic benefit is one of the reasons why poorer states surrender sovereigntyto international financial institutions. See Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Empire of Capital (London: Verso,2003), 14368.

20 Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, Power in International Politics, International Organiza-tion 59, no. 1 (Winter 2005); 3975. More generally, see Ian Hurd, Legitimacy and Authority in Interna-tional Politics,International Organization 53, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 379408.

21 See Jack Donnelly, Sovereign Inequalities and Hierarchy in Anarchy: American Power and Inter-national Society, European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 2 (2006): 1317.


84 P. K. MacDonald

Wood, for example, argues that Western powers, including the United States,routinely take advantage of their predominant position within internationalfinancial institutions such as the World Bank to constrain the economicsovereignty of developing countries.22 Peter Katzenstein likewise argues thatthe United States has used its diffuse economic and political influence in animperial manner to structure world politics into a series of regions.23 Whilethese more subtle imperial relations are no doubt important, it is my con-tention that military coercion remains an important tool that powerful statescan use to establish imperial rule. Indeed, if I can show that military toolsremain useful in the production of relations of sovereign inequality, thenthe traditional concept of imperial rule is far from obsolete. For this reason,the appropriation of sovereignty through military mechanisms is the focus ofmuch of my discussion in the subsequent sections.

Given the narrow definition of imperial rule introduced above, theUnited States presently possesses imperial relationships with a variety ofstates in international politics. In the case of Iraq, for example, the UnitedStates, as the leader of a multinational coalition, has exercised varying degreesof control over Iraqs political and military sovereignty from March 2003 tothe present. In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, political sovereigntywas transferred to coalition-established governance institutions such as theCoalition Provisional Authority, which was vested with all executive, legisla-tive and judicial authority.24 Coalition military forces were likewise responsi-ble for Iraqs internal and external security and retained supreme command,control, and administrative authority over all Iraqi military personnel.25 Evenafter the nominal transfer of sovereignty to the Interim Iraqi Government inJune 2004, the United States retained considerable de facto control. The pro-visions of Iraqs Transitional Administrative Law, for example, ensured thatthe interim government would be largely bound by the laws and regulationsimposed by the coalition.26 The transitional law also granted the coalitionprimary responsibility for Iraqs security affairs.27 While the formation of anelected constitutional government in May 2006 represents an important step

22 Meiksins Wood, The Empire of Capital, 14368.23 Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 2005), 36.24 CPA Regulation 1, 16 May 2003, 1. See also L. Elaine Halchin, The Coalition Provisional Authority:

Origin, Characteristics, and Institutional Authorities, Congressional Research Service, RL32370, 6 June2005, 13.

25 CPA Order 22, 18 August 2003, 3. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Rebuilding Iraq: Pre-liminary Observations on Challenges in Transferring Security Responsibilities to Iraqi Military and Police,GAO-05431T, 14 March 2005, 4; and Anthony H. Cordesman, Strengthening Iraqi Military and SecurityForces, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 17 February 2005, 58.

26 See Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, 8 March 2004. Seealso Celeste J. Ward, The Coalition Provisional Authoritys Experience with Governance in Iraq, SpecialReport 139, United States Institute for Peace, May 2005, 8.

27 Coalition personnel were exempt from Iraqi law, while Iraqs security forces remained under theoperational control of coalition commanders. See GAO, Iraqs Transitional Law, GAO-04746R, 25 May



toward complete political sovereignty for Iraq, the United States retains con-siderable authority over Iraqs internal affairs, especially the areas of internalsecurity and provision of public goods.28

The United States established a comparable relationship of imperial gov-ernance over Afghanistan following its war against the Taliban. Politically, theUnited States played a central role in pushing through the December 2001Bonn Agreements, which established the interim and transitional Afghan gov-ernments, as well as overseeing the subsequent constitution writing and elec-toral process.29 In terms of security, American troops make up the bulk of theNATO security assistance force, which continues to provide internal stability,conduct counterinsurgency operations, train and equip the Afghan NationalArmy, as well as oversee provincial reconstruction efforts.30

In the recent past, the United States took the lead in establishing rela-tions of multilateral imperial rule in cases such as Bosnia and Kosovo. In theformer, the United States played a primary role in negotiating the 1995 Day-ton Peace accords, which granted the international community responsibilityfor transforming the war torn enclave into a democratic multiethnic state.31

Subsequently, the United States led the international communitys efforts toimplement the Dayton treaty provisions. Until 2005, it assumed primary re-sponsibility for internal security as head of successive NATO military deploy-ments. It also exploited its position as head of the Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe mission to help shape Bosnias postwar politicaland electoral systems.32 The United States played a similar role in the case ofKosovo. American diplomacy played a leading part in securing the passage

2004, 10. One U.S. official accurately described the situation as one of limited sovereignty. New YorkTimes, 23 April 2004, A1.

28 Coalition advisors continue to work closely with Iraqi cabinet members and ministers, andIraqi security forces remain heavily dependent on the coalition for supply and support. As of mid-2006,for example, only half of Iraqs army divisions were capable of assuming primary responsibility forconducting security operations. Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, 26 May2006, 49.

29 J. Alexander Their, The Politics of Peacebuilding Year One: From Bonn to Kabul, in Nation-Building Unraveled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan, eds., Antonio Donnini, Norah Niland, andKarin Wermester (Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, 2004), 3960; Barnett R. Rubin, Crafting a Constitutionfor Afghanistan, Journal of Democracy 15, no. 3 (July 2004): 519; and S. Frederick Starr, Sovereigntyand Legitimacy in Afghan Nation-Building, in Nation Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, ed. FrancisFukuyama (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 14773.

30 Kimberly Marten, Defending Against Anarchy: From War to Peacekeeping in Afghanistan, Wash-ington Quarterly 26, no. 1 (Winter 2002/03): 3552; and Simon Chesterman, Walking Softly in Afghanistan:The Future of UN State-Building, Survival 44, no. 3 (Autumn 2002).

31 Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House 1998), 26288; and Derek Chollet,The Road to Dayton: U.S. Diplomacy and the Bosnia Peace Process (New York: Palvgrave Macmillan, 2005),15783.

32 This often put the United States at odds with the European-led Office of the High Commissioner.See International Crisis Group, Bosnia: Reshaping the International Machinery, Report No. 121, 29November 2001, 28. David Chandler, Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton (London: Pluto Press,2000), 3465; and Gerald Knaus and Felix Martin, Travails of the European Raj, Journal of Democracy14, no. 3 (July 2003): 6074.


86 P. K. MacDonald

of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, which establishedan interim United Nations administration to oversee the rebuilding of demo-cratic institutions in the semiautonomous territory.33 The United States alsoassumed primary responsibility for Kosovos internal and external security asone of the primary contributors to the NATO Kosovo Force.34 Although signif-icant differences exist between cases such as Iraq and Afghanistan (whereAmerican efforts were more unilateral in nature) and Bosnia and Kosovo(where the international community played a larger role), in each of thesecases the United States used military force to seize sovereignty from a sub-ordinate polity to achieve its national security goals.

Just because the United States possesses imperial relations with otherpolities in international politics, however, does not make it a coherent em-pire or the intentions of American policy makers imperialistic. The UnitedStates clearly does not have a traditional empire in which its possessions aremarked red on the map, nor do American policy makers necessarily seekto dominate others in an imperial manner. But just because a state does notdescribe itself as an empire or act in a self-consciously imperialist mannerdoes not mean its individual relations with particular states are not imperialin nature. Indeed, as the historical record demonstrates, imperial possessionsare often acquired unintentionally or as a result of unanticipated develop-ments in the periphery of the international system. The main question forthe contemporary United States, therefore, is not whether it harbors impe-rialist intentions, but whether developments overseas will draw it into newimperial missions. Will the United States continue to seize sovereignty overdistant polities in response to novel threats, or will systemic- and domestic-level barriers emerge to check new imperial activities? This is the crux of thedebate examined by this paper.

Systemic-Level Factors: Technology, Trade, and Norms

One set of authors point to barriers to imperial rule in the structure of theinternational system. Systemic-level changes in technology, economics, andideology are all said to inhibit the viability of imperial strategies. Systemic-level barriers are potentially significant because they are difficult to change.Indeed, if these barriers are present, there is little that any single state cando to overcome them.

33 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. OHanlon, Winning Ugly: NATOs War to Save Kosovo (Washington:Brookings Institution Press, 2001), 17090; and International Crisis Group, The New Kosovo Protectorate,Report No. 69, 20 June 1999, 45.

34 Kimberly Marten, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press 2004), 11944.



TECHNOLOGY AND THE TOOLS OF EMPIRE

One type of systemic-level barrier is technological. In the late-nineteenthcentury, changes in military technology, medicine, transport, and communi-cation favored European overseas expansion.35 Technological changes today,it is claimed, work in the opposite direction. The spread of small arms, lightweapons, and explosives are all said to make a long-term strategy of im-perial control impossible.Michael Mann, for example, speaks of a secondrevolution in military affairs that has turned the tide of pacification tech-nology against imperialism.36 Similarly, former Deputy Secretary of DefensePaul Wolfowitz argued that this is not the Roman era when you could usemilitary power to enforce your will on subject nations . . . military power isa much more defensive tool.37 More generally, the proliferation of nuclearweapons has raised the barriers of offensive military operations, limiting thescope of empire to those states that do not possess such weapons, while alsoproviding an incentive for nonnuclear powers to acquire them.38

It is difficult to dispute the general point that small arms, light weapons,and explosives are more widely available today than ever before. The StateDepartment estimates there are between one hundred to five hundred millionsmall arms and light weapons in circulation worldwide.39 In 2005, the valueof arms deliveries to developing nations totaled $17.7 billion.40 Similarly,terrorist and insurgent groups have found it easy to acquire high explosives,either through legal or illegal channels.41 In one incident in Iraq, for example,insurgent groups stole an estimated 380 tons of explosive materials froman unguarded arms depot at Al Qa Qaa.42 Moreover, todays weapons are

35 Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the NineteenthCentury (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

36 Mann, The First Failed Empire, 641. See also John Mueller, The Essential Irrelevance of NuclearWeapons: Stability in the Postwar World, International Security 13, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 5579. StephenVan Evera, Primed for Peace: Europe after the Cold War, International Security 15, no. 3 (Winter1990/91): 1415.

37 Interview with Los Angeles Times, 29 April 2002.38 Robert Jervis, America and the Twentieth Century: Continuity and Change, in The Ambiguous

Legacy: U.S. Foreign Relations in the American Century, ed. Michael Hogan (New York: Cambridge,1999), 99104.

39 Richard F. Grimmett, International Small Arms and Light Weapons Transfers: U.S. Policy, CRSReport to Congress, RS20958, October 2006, 3

40 The value of all arms transfer agreements with developing nations in 2005 was nearly $30.2billion. Agreements with developing nations comprised 66.8 percent of all global agreements. RichardF. Grimmett, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 19982005, CRS Report to Congress,RL33696, October 2006, 1. The United States is consistently a leading exporter. Between 199698, theUnited States alone authorized or delivered $3.7 billion in small arms and light weapons to over 150different nations. GAO, Conventional Arms Transfers: U.S. Efforts to Control the Availability of Small Armsand Light Weapons, GAO/NSIAD-00141, July 2000, 7

41 Christian Science Monitor, 26 February 2002.42 BBC News, 26 October 2004; New York Times, 27 October 2004; and GAO, Operation Iraqi Freedom:

DOD Should Apply Lessons Learned Concerning the Need for Security over Conventional MunitionsStorage Sites to Future Operations Planning, GAO-07444, March 2007, 34.


88 P. K. MacDonald

more accurate, lethal, durable, and affordable.43 For example, the rifle mostcommonly associated with the British Empirethe Martini-Henryhad a rateof fire of approximately ten rounds per minute, compared with todays assaultrifles that feature rates of fire of upwards of six hundred rounds per minute.44

Similarly, small explosives have been responsible for over 50 percent of allthe American combat casualties in Iraq and 30 percent in Afghanistan.45

There are a number of problems, however, with the argument that con-temporary technology inhibits imperial occupation. First, technology wasrarely the decisive factor in the historical expansion of empire. To be sure,advancements such as breech loading rifles, shallow draught steamers, andthe prophylactic use of quinine assisted the exploration of distant territo-ries.46 Yet European colonial military forces frequently faced disadvantagesin terms of numbers, terrain, and supply.47 Similarly, indigenous forces werenot as poorly armed as is often assumed. Africa during the precolonial periodwas awash in firearms,48 while princes in precolonial India fielded profes-sionally drilled armies with trained cavalry and artillery units.49 The ability ofEuropean armies to pacify local populations, therefore, was less a function oftechnology than the ability of European administrators to cultivate relationswith reliable local collaborators who could provide them with accurate infor-mation, access to indigenous military manpower, and political legitimacy.50

Imperial control, therefore, is primarily a function of a complex interplay

43 Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Rise of Complex Terrorism, Foreign Policy, no.128, January/February2002; George I. Brown, The Big Bang: A History of Explosives (Sutton Publishing, 2000); and Alfred W.Crosby, Throwing Fire: Projectile Technology through History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2002).

44 Kenneth Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).45 Clay Wilson, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Counter-

measures, CRS Report for Congress, RS22330, February 2007, 1. See also International Crisis Group (ICG),In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency, Middle East Report No. 50, February 2006, 23

46 Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the NineteenthCentury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 1112, 2078.

47 See Douglas M. Peers, Introduction, in Warfare and Empires, ed. Douglas M. Peers (Aldershot:Asgate, 1997), xviixviii; essays in J. A. De Moor and H. L. Wesseling, ed., Imperialism and War: Essayson Colonial Wars in Asia and Africa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989).

48 Prior to the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War, for example, the Zulu kingdom possessed at least eight thousandfirearms. See J. J. Guy, A Note on Firearms in the Zulu Kingdom, Journal of African History 12, no. 4(1971): 56061. More generally, see Gavin White, Firearms in Africa: An Introduction, Journal of AfricanHistory 12, no. 2 (1971): 17384.

49 John Pemble, Resources and Techniques in the Second Maratha War, Historical Journal 19, no.2 (1976): 379; and Bruce P. Lenman, The Transition to European Military Ascendancy in India, 16001800, in Tools of War, ed. John A. Lynn (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 11920. See alsoPeter Stephen Rosen, Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,1996), 16572.

50 See Ronald E. Robinson, Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism, in Studies in theTheory of Imperialism, eds., Roger Owen and Robert B. Sutcliffe (London, Longman, 1972), 139; andJohn Darwin, Imperialism and the Victorians: the Dynamics of Territorial Expansion, English HistoricalReview 112, no. 447, (June 1997): 62941.



between politics and technology, not simply a result of military superiorityor technical dominance alone.

The importance of political rather than technological factors in impe-rial governance can be seen in contemporary Iraq. The inability of coalitionforces to reduce IED attacks, for example, is often assumed to be the result ofthe ubiquity of heavy explosives. Yet while explosive materials may be widelyavailable, skilled bombmakers are not. Indeed, as one expert recently con-cluded, the functional specialization of IED manufacturing and emplacementsuggests there are relatively few expert bombmakers.51 In other words, thechallenge facing the United States in Iraq is not merely to control the tech-nologies available to insurgents, but to cultivate social contacts to penetrateand disrupt insurgent networks.52 It is not technology, therefore, but pre-existing political conditions that alter the balance between pacification andresistance.

A second problem with the argument that technology has rendered im-perial rule obsolete is that the impact of modern technology is ambiguousand cuts in both directions. Certain technologies may increase the capac-ity of subject populations to resist imperial encroachments, yet at the sametime, many technological developments enhance the potential for success-ful imperial occupation.53 The use of networked light-armor vehicles suchas the Stryker brigade combat team, for example, can increase the agility,survivability, and adaptability of American combat forces in hostile combatzones.54 Unmanned aerial vehicles can be used to track and monitor en-emy forces or insurgent members.55 Computerized databases can be usedto collate, share, and distribute intelligence while advanced social network-ing software can be used to model and map insurgent groups.56 Moreover,advances in military medicine have dramatically reduced the percentage of

51 Montgomery McFate, Iraq: The Social Context of IEDs, Military Review 85, no. 3 (May/June 2005):3738.

52 Thomas X. Hammes, Countering Evolved Insurgent Networks, Military Review 86, no. 3(July/August 2006): 2223; Jeffrey White, An Adaptive Insurgency: Confronting Adversary Networks inIraq, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Focus No. 58 (September 2006), 1516; and Mar-ian E. Vlasak, Paradox of Logistics in Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies, Military Review 87, no. 1(January/February 2007), 9394.

53 Peter Liberman, Does Conquest Pay? The Exploitation of Occupied Industrial Societies (Princeton:Princeton University Press 1996), 2628.

54 Daniel Gonzales et al., Network-Centric Operations Case Study: The Stryker Brigade Combat Team(Santa Monica: Rand Corporation 2005). Stryker Brigades have received mixed reviews in Iraq. See Wash-ington Post, 3 April 2005.

55 Howard D. Belote, Counterinsurgency Airpower: Air-Ground Integration for the Long War, Air& Space Power Journal 20, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 5658; and John M. Doyle, COIN of the Realm, AviationWeek & Space Technology 165, no. 16 (October 2006).

56 Kyle Teamey and Jonathan Sweet, Organizing Intelligence for Counterinsurgency, Military Review86, no. 5 (September/October 2006): 2728.


90 P. K. MacDonald

American casualties who die from wounds sustained in combat.57 While aterrorist groups reliance on information technology may allow it to main-tain a decentralized cell structure, it also renders its communications andfinancial flows vulnerable to monitoring, interception, disruption, and disin-formation.58 This is not to say that new technology will be a panacea or cansubstitute for robust forces on the ground. Indeed, neither of the battlefieldvictories in Afghanistan or Iraq should be interpreted as a triumph for hightechnology.59 Yet while advances in technology may not make Americanmilitary forces invincible, they can assist in successful imperial occupations.

Finally, while technological changes may give local populations a greatercapacity to resist imperial occupation, they also provide would-be imperialpowers with a greater incentive to seek empire. Many of the novel threatsfacing the United States today are partly the consequence of technologicalchange. The danger posed by states or groups armed with weapons of massdestruction, for example, stems from the rise of global proliferation rings andthe diffusion of nuclear material, knowledge, and technical components.60

Similarly, both the ability and desire of transnational terrorist networks to per-petrate mass violence on Western societies is enhanced by technological ad-vancements associated with globalization, including the rapid movement ofgoods, information, and people.61 The spread of small arms, light weapons,and explosives likewise enhances the strength of nonstate criminal groupsand ethnic militias, which increase the potential for state-failure, enduringcivil war, and the spillover of internal conflict.62 Indeed, it is the rise of these

57 Atul Gawande, Casualties of WarMilitary Care for the Wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan,New England Journal of Medicine 351, no. 24 (December 2004): 22, 47172; and Philip Carter and OwenWest, Iraq 2004 Looks like Vietnam 1966, Slate, 27 December 2004.

58 Martin J. Muckian, Structural Vulnerabilities of Networked Insurgencies: Adapting to the NewAdversary, Parameters 36, no. 4 (Winter 2006/07): 2223. On networked insurgency more generally, seeThomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul: Zenith Press, 2004),12; and Bruce Hoffman, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation,2004), 1618.

59 See Stephen Biddle, Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and DefensePolicy, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2002, 4349. Stephen Biddle et al.,Toppling Saddam: Iraq and American Military Transformation, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army WarCollege, April 2004, 1722.

60 Chaim Braun and Christopher F. Chyba, Proliferation Rings: New Challenges to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime, International Security 29, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 649; and Alexander H. Montgomery,Ringing in Proliferation: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb Network, International Security 30, no. 2(Fall 2005): 15387.

61 Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2001), 4150;and Audrey Kruth Cronin, Behind the Curve: Globalization and International Terrorism, InternationalSecurity 27, no. 3 (Winter 2002/03): 3031.

62 William W. Keller and Jane E. Nolan, The Arms Trade: Business as Usual? Foreign Policy, no. 109,Winter 1997/98, 11325; and Shannon Lindsey Blanton, Instruments of Security or Tools of Repression?Arms Imports and Human Rights Conditions in Developing Countries, Journal of Peace Research 36, no.2 (March 1999): 23344. See also Martin Libicki, Rethinking War: The Mouses New Roar? Foreign Policy,no. 117, Winter 1999/2000, 3738.



new security threats that prompts many authors to call for a more imperialstrategy on the part of the United States.63

In sum, the importance of technological balances is exaggerated. Tech-nology is rarely the decisive factor determining the successful imposition ofimperial rule. Technology seldom tilts the balance decisively in favor of eitherpacification or resistance, and technology can affect not only the ability of astate to impose imperial rule but also the incentives to do so. Given the factthat technological change has increased the severity of new security threatsin the international system, it is much more likely to encourage, rather thaninhibit empire.

ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION

A second potential barrier to the emergence of imperial relations in interna-tional politics is the changing nature of the global economy. While mercan-tilist international economy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuriesencouraged powerful states to seize resource-rich colonies, the contemporaryglobal economy is said to discourage conflict.64 Increased trade interdepen-dence, for example, reduces the incentives to seek empire as well as to useforce in international politics because wars disrupt the exchange of goods.65

Similarly, the geographic dispersion of the means of production and the riseof transnational multinational corporations limits the economic profitability ofconquest.66 Contemporary knowledge-based economies, moreover, are dif-ficult to plunder,67 while global investment has made it progressively easierfor many of the most economically advanced states to achieve most of thesame ends of conquest without any of the costs.68

There are a number of problems, however, with these assorted eco-nomic arguments. First, these authors vastly overestimate both the extent

63 See Michael Cox, Empire, Imperialism and the Bush Doctrine, Review of International Studies30, no. 4 (2004): 598601.

64 Jeffrey A. Frieden, International Investment and Colonial Control: A New Interpretation, Inter-national Organization 48, no. 4 (Autumn 1994): 55993.

65 See Hendrick Spruyt, Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition (Ithaca: Cor-nell University Press, 2005), 3987; and Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce andConquest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

66 Edward Morse, The Transformation of Foreign Policies: Modernization, Interdependence, andExternalization, World Politics 22, no. 3 (April 1970): 37787; and Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye,Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).

67 Carl Kaysen, Is War Obsolete? International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 4953; RichardRosecrance, The Rise of the Virtual State, Foreign Affairs 75, no. 4 (July/August 1996): 4856; andStephen G. Brooks, Globalization of Production and the Changing Benefits of Conquest, Journal ofConflict Resolution 43, no. 5 (October 1999): 65559. See also Liberman, Does Conquest Pay? 1835.

68 Brooks, Globalization of Production, 66566; and Stephen G. Brooks, Producing Security: Multi-national Corporations, Globalization and the Changing Calculus of Conflict (Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 2007), 12960.


92 P. K. MacDonald

and influence of economic globalization.69 Global exports of goods and ser-vices, for example, have certainly increased between 1980 and 2005 from $2.3trillion (36.6 percent of global GDP) to $12.7 trillion (47.3 percent of globalGDP) respectively.70 Yet the ratio of total trade to GDP did not exceed pre-WWIlevels until the late 1960s and are only modestly larger than pre-WWI figurestoday.71 Moreover, the structure of trade has proven remarkably stable overtime, while commodity prices continue to be determined by local, rather thanglobal, pressures.72 Similarly, global net inflows of foreign direct investment(FDI) have increased between 1980 and 2005 from $58.2 billion (0.58 percentof global GDP) to $974 billion (2.24 percent of global GDP) respectively.73 Yetforeign assets as a percentage of global GDP did not exceed pre-WWI lev-els until the early 1980s, while capital flows (as measured by the averageabsolute value of current account as a percentage of GDP) are noticeablysmaller than pre-WWI figures.74 Net capital flows are also far smaller thanone would expect them to be in a world of perfect international capital mo-bility, while global investors demonstrate a significant home country biasin favor of local securities.75 Similarly, while multinational corporations areexpanding their activities, the vast majority of economic production remainsnational rather than international.76

More importantly, contemporary economic globalization is not a univer-sal processit has disproportionately affected the developed economies in

69 Kenneth N. Waltz, Globalization and Governance, PS: Political Science and Politics 32, no. 4(December 1999): 69495; Paul Q. Hirst and Grahame Thompson, Globalization in Question: The Inter-national Economy and the Possibilities of Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), 2098; and RobertH. Wade, Globalization and Its Limits, in National Diversity and Global Capitalism, eds., S Berger andR. Dore (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 6684.

70 See World Bank, World Development Indicators (WDI), http://www.worldbank.org/data, accessed29 May 2007.

71 Richard E. Baldwin and Philippe Martin, Two Waves of Globalization: Superficial Similarities, Fun-damental Differences, NBER Working Paper No. W6904, January 1999, 1516; and Nicholas Crafts, Glob-alization and Growth in the Twentieth Century, International Monetary Fund Working Paper, WP/00/44,March 2000, 2526.

72 Europes exports to Asia and North America, for example, remained constant between 1910 and1996 at roughly 10 percent and 7 percent respectively. Baldwin and Martin, Two Waves, 1617. Onarbitrage, see Jeffrey Frankel, Globalization of the Economy, in Governance in a Globalizing World,eds., Joseph S. Nye and John D. Donahue (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 4245.

73 World Bank, WDI, accessed at http://www.worldbank.org/data.74 Baldwin and Martin, Two Waves, 2728; and Alan H. Taylor, International Capital Mobility in

History: The Savings-Investment Relationship, NBER Working Paper No. 5743, 89.75 Frankel, Globalization of the Economy; Martin Feldstein and Charles Horioka, Domestic Saving

and International Capital Flows, Economic Journal 90, no. 358 (June 1980): 31429; and Jeffrey Frankel,Measuring International Capital Mobility: A Review, American Economic Review 82, no. 2 (May 1992):197202.

76 Paul N. Doremus, William W. Keller, Louis W. Pauly, and Simon Reich, The Myth of the GlobalCorporation, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 1121.



general and the United States in particular.77 In 2005, for example, devel-oped nations accounted for 71.8 percent of global exports and 75.6 percentof global imports. Developed nations also dominate FDI accounting for 91.2percent of direct investment outflows and 71.2 percent of inflows.78 Similarly,in 2000, the United States alone imported $1.45 trillion worth of goods andservices (18.3 percent of the global total) and attracted $321.3 billion in FDI(21.2 percent of the global total). In the same year, by comparison, both theMiddle East and North Africa imported just $125.7 billion in goods and ser-vices (1.6 percent of the global total) and attracted just $4.8 billion in FDI (0.3percent of the global total). In other words, the areas of the world plaguedby political unrest are precisely those least integrated into the global econ-omy. While war between developed states may be unthinkable, there arefew economic barriers to the use of force to impose imperial relations overimpoverished and globally disconnected states in Africa, the Middle East, orCentral Asia.

A second problem with the argument that economic globalization canprevent empire is that economic globalization often generates adverse po-litical and economic conditions in countries that prompt, rather than inhibit,imperial reactions. The standard liberal story praises economic globalization,arguing that it provides a cornucopia of benefits including economic growthand political stability. If this were the case, economic globalization wouldreduce the incentives for powerful states to impose imperial solutions over-seas.

The evidence linking globalization with economic growth, however,is not particularly compelling. Indeed, developing states that open theireconomies to global competition in the hopes of reaping major benefitsare frequently disappointed.79 Cross-national time-series studies have alsofound strong links between openness to the global economy and economicvolatility in developing countries, yet not sustained growth.80 Moreover, glob-alization has been linked to various forms of economic inequality. There is

77 See Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 7998; and LindaWeiss, The Myth of the Powerless State (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), chap. 6. Waltz, Globalizationand Governance, 69899.

78 World Bank, WDI, accessed at http://www.worldbank.org/data. For similar numbers, see David L.Hummels and Robert M. Stern, Evolving Patterns of North American Merchandise Trade and ForeignDirect Investment, 19601990, The World Economy 17, no. 1 (January 1994): 530.

79 Sebastian Edwards, Trade Policy, Growth, and Income Distribution, American Economic Review87, no. 2 (May 1997): 20510; Sebastian Edwards, Openness, Productivity and Growth: What do WeReally Know? Economic Journal 108, no. 447 (March 1998): 38398; and Francisco Rodrguez and DaniRodrik, Trade Polity and Economic Growth: A Skeptics Guide to the Cross-National Evidence, NBERMacroeconomics Annual 15 (2000): 261325. See, however, Jeffrey Frankel and David Romer, DoesTrade Cause Growth? American Economic Review 89, no. 3 (June 1999): 37999.

80 See Eswar Prasad, Kenneth Rogoff, Shang-Jin Wei, and Ayhan Kose, Financial Globalization,Growth and Volatility in Developing Countries, NBER Working Paper No. 10942, 2004; And Nancy Birdsall,Stormy Days on an Open Field: Asymmetries in the Global Economy, Center for Global DevelopmentWorking Paper No. 81 (February 2006), 810.


94 P. K. MacDonald

strong evidence, for example, that globalization has exacerbated absoluteeconomic inequality between countries.81 There is also compelling evidencethat openness to the global economy generates income inequality withincountries, especially in those countries that are already relatively poor.82

On the political side, the issue is somewhat murkier. Quan Li and RafaelReuveny find that trade openness and portfolio investment inflows neg-atively affect democracy, with the negative effect of foreign investmentstrengthening over time.83 Nita Rudra, however, finds that globalization en-hances democracy in developing countries, yet only in those states that es-tablish safety nets to shield groups harmed by greater economic openness.84

Similarly, statistical studies have linked globalization with increased domesticpolitical instability, yet have not found a relationship between globalizationand civil war.85

Taken together, however, these results suggest that globalization can beprofoundly dislocating to developing states in the short term. Globalizationfails to provide massive growth, exacerbates inequality, harms the prospectsfor democratization under certain circumstances, and may generate domesticunrest. In this way, globalization creates rather than ameliorates the very con-ditions of political turmoil abroad that encourage great powers to intervenein an imperial manner.

These findings may seem paradoxical given the argument advanced inthe previous sectionthat the extent of globalization is overrated. Yet it isprecisely the uneven and incomplete nature of globalization that producesthese negative economic and political effects. The truncated nature of glob-alization, for example, means its benefits are more likely to be distributedunevenly, exacerbating inequality. In addition, it is often the efforts to capturethe elusive benefits of globalization that can produce negative consequences.The imposition of liberal economic reforms in developing states, for example,

81 L. Pritchett, Divergence, Big Time, Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 3 (1997): 317; andJ. Temple, The New Growth Evidence, Journal of Economic Literature 37, no. 1 (March 1999): 11256.

82 Mattias Lundberg and Lyn Squire, The Simultaneous Evolution of Growth and Inequality, WorldBank unpublished manuscript, 2003, 3132; Robert Barro, Inequality and Growth in a Panel of Countries,Journal of Economic Growth 5, no. 1 (March 2000): 532; and Martin Ravallion, Growth, Inequality, andPoverty: Looking Beyond Averages, World Development 19, no. 11 (November 2001): 1,811. See, however,David Dollar and Aart Kraay, Trade, Growth, and Poverty, World Bank Working Paper No. 2615 (2000).Robert Wade, Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality? World Development 32, no. 4 (April2004): 56789.

83 Quan Li and Rafael Reuveny, Economic Globalization and Democracy: An Empirical Analysis,British Journal of Political Science 33, no. 1 (January 2003): 2954.

84 Nita Rudra, Globalization and the Strengthening of Democracy in the Developing World, Ameri-can Journal of Political Science 49, no. 4 (October 2005): 70430. See also Ross E. Burkhart and Michael S.Lewis-Beck, Comparative Democracy: The Economic Development Thesis, American Political ScienceReview 88, no. 4 (December 1994): 9034.

85 Ranveig Gissinger and Nils Petter Gleditsch, Globalization and Conflict: Welfare, Distribution andPolitical Unrest, Journal of World Systems Research 5, no. 2 (1999): 32765; and Katerine Barbieri andRafael Reuveny, Economic Globalization and Civil War, Journal of Politics 67, no. 4 (November 2005):1,22847.



are often profoundly dislocating to the local economy. Moreover, austeritymeasures such as the dismantling of state subsidies or the reduction of publicdebt can produce widespread political dissatisfaction.86

The final problem with the argument that globalization inhibits empireis that existing globalization helps rather than hinders the imperial capacityof powerful states. Indeed, historically, there has been a strong positive feed-back between global economic integration on the one hand and Europeanpolitical expansion on the other.87 During the late-eighteenth century, for ex-ample, the growing commercialization of the international economy providedEuropean states with the resources necessary to centralize state institutions,as well as to construct large standing armies and blue-water navies.88 Dur-ing the nineteenth century, the increasing density of economic and politicalties with the rest of the world provided European great powers with greateraccess to indigenous resources and local information, which proved vitalduring periods of imperial expansion.89

The United States reaps similar benefits from todays global economy.Robert Hunter Wade, for example, argues the structural power of global finan-cial capital allows the United States to sustain large current-account deficitsprimarily through foreign purchase of treasury bills. These large deficits, inturn, allow the United States to consume and invest imports, and to spend onmilitary activities abroad.90 In this way, American global financial integrationhelps underwrite American geopolitical dominance.

In sum, the economic barriers to empire are not as sizable as commonlyassumed. Indeed, by bolstering developed economies while simultaneouslydisrupting developing societies, economic globalization increases both theability and the incentive for the United States to adopt imperial strategies.

86 Ironically, there is no strong link between these structural adjustment programs and economicgrowth. See James Raymond Vreeland, The Effect of IMF Programs on Labor, World Development 30,no. 1 (January 2002): 21139; and Adam Prezworski and James Raymond Vreeland, The Effects of IMFPrograms on Economic Growth, Journal of Development Economics 62, no. 2 (August 2000): 385421.For the opposing view, however, see Brian F. Crisp and Michael J. Kelly, The Socioeconomic Impacts ofStructural Adjustment, International Studies Quarterly 43, no. 3 (September 1999): 53352; and M. Rod-wan Abouharb and David L. Cingranelli, The Human Rights Effects of World Bank Structural Adjustment,19812000, International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 2 (June 2006): 23362.

87 A. G. Hopkin, The History of Globalizationand the Globalization of History? in A. G. Hopkins,ed. Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002). See also Tarak Barkawi and Mark Laffey,The Imperial Peace: Democracy, Force and Globalization, European Journal of International Relations5, no. 4 (December 1999): 40334.

88 C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 17801914: Global Connections and Comparisons(New York: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 12169; and C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empireand the World, 17801830 (New York: Longman, 1989).

89 See Paul K. MacDonald, Networks of Domination: Social Ties and Imperial Governance in Inter-national Politics, unpublished manuscript.

90 Robert Hunter Wade, Bringing the Economics Back In, Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (June 2004):24446; and Robert Hunter Wade, The Invisible Hand of the American Empire, Ethics & InternationalAffairs 17, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 87. See also Susan Strange, The Future of the American Empire, Journal ofInternational Affairs 42, no. 1 (Fall 1988): 10.


96 P. K. MacDonald

NORMS AGAINST CONQUEST

A final systemic-level barrier to imperial rule frequently discussed in the liter-ature is the rise of new transnational norms. International norms prohibitingconquest in conjunction with domestic ideologies of nationalism and self-determination are said to limit the attractiveness of imperial rule as a strategyin contemporary international politics.91

To be sure, the decline in outright conquest during the post-war periodhas been dramatic. Mark Zacher, for example, notes that: while approxi-mately 80 percent of territorial wars led to re-distributions of territory for allperiods prior to 1945, this figure dropped to 30 percent after 1945.92 Sim-ilarly, Tanisha Fazal points out that a state in the post-1945 period is 94percent more likely to survive than a state in the pre-1945 period.93 BothZacher and Fazal explain the absence of territorial alterations or violent statedeath to the emergence and consolidation of a norm of territorial integrityduring the postwar period.94 James Fearon identifies a similar social conven-tion against territorial partition.95

There are a number of problems, however, with the argument that in-ternational norms render conquest obsolete. First, international norms pro-moting territorial integrity are frequently violated.96 Of Zachers forty cases ofinterstate territorial aggression between 19462000, twelve resulted in majorterritorial adjustments and six in minor border changes. Of the twelve ma-jor territorial adjustments, only twothe Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974and the Israeli acquisition of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967werenot subsequently accepted by the international community. Moreover, of thetwenty-two cases Zacher identifies in which the aggressor failed to changeinternational boundaries, only eight cases were the result of mediation orintervention by the international community. In ten cases, the aggressor wassimply defeated on the battlefield by its opponent. In other words, as PageFortna has noted, while the [territorial integrity norm] seems to have been

91 Mann, The First Failed Empire, 647; and Anna Simons, The Death of Conquest, The NationalInterest 71 (Spring 2003): 41. See also John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of MajorWar (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1989).

92 Mark W. Zacher, The Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force,International Organization 55, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 223.

93 Tanisha M. Fazal, State Death in the International System, International Organization 58, no. 2(Spring 2004): 328.

94 Zacher, Territorial Integrity, 22122; and Fazal, State Death, 33940. See also Robert Jackson,Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1991), 4047. Samuel J. Barkin and Bruce Cronin, The State and the Nation: Changing Normsand Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations, International Organization 48, no. 1 (Winter1994):10730.

95 James D. Fearon, Separatist Wars, Partition and World Order, Security Studies 13, no. 4 (Summer2004): 394.

96 See Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1999), 184219.



quite effective at stopping states from taking territory by force, it sadly hasnot stopped them from trying.97 Indeed, Fortna presents data suggestingthat wars over territory are more prevalent, as a percentage of all wars, afterWorld War II than before. The frequency of secession and partition like-wise calls into question the sanctity of international boundaries. As ChaimKaufmann notes, some fifteen secessions and ten partitions have taken placebetween 190094. Of these, only six were not recognized and accepted by theinternational community.98 All of this evidence indicates that norms againstconquest are not nearly as sacred as commonly assumed.Powerful stateshave violated these norms on occasion, while the international communityhas frequently legitimated territorial annexations.

Second, international norms against conquest may actually encouragethe adoption of imperial strategies by encouraging violence and instabilityin much of the world. Many boundaries inherited from the colonial periodwere both poorly mapped and legally contested.99 A number of third worldcountries have resorted to force to settle these boundaries before they couldachieve international recognition.100 By making boundaries harder to change,therefore, the norm of territorial integrity has provided an incentive for statesto bargain hard and use force in their territorial disputes. Moreover, as BoazAtzili has argued, the norm of territorial integrity has perpetuated and exac-erbated state-weakness.101 Colonial powers cobbled together rival religiousand ethnic groups in artificial states, setting the stage for much of the con-temporary civil conflict in the third world.102 The porous and undefinedboundaries can facilitate the smuggling of contraband or terrorist groups.In sum, by inadvertently encouraging both interstate conflict and intrastateweakness, norms of territorial integrity encourage, rather than discourage,the adoption of imperial strategies.

Finally, international norms against conquest may fail to preclude empirebecause international norms are not monolithic or unidirectional. Indeed,many contemporary normative transformations are congruent with imperialprojects. Robert Jackson, for example, argues that traditional understand-ings of sovereignty have shifted from one of juridical sovereignty in which

97 Page Fortna, Where Have All the Victories Gone? War Outcomes in Historical Perspective, paperpresented at the American Political Science Association, September 2004, 38.

98 Chaim D. Kaufmann, When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfers and Partitions in the Twen-tieth Century, International Security 23, no. 2 (Autumn 1998): 126.

99 Ravi L. Kapil, On the Conflict Potential of Inherited Boundaries in Africa, World Politics 18, no. 4(July 1966): 65673; and Jeffery Herbst, The Creation and Maintenance of National Boundaries in Africa,International Organization 43, no. 4 (Autumn 1989): 68387

100 Stephen A. Kocs, Territorial Disputes and Interstate War, 19451987, Journal of Politics 57, no.1 (February 1995): 16465, 16970.

101 Boaz Atzili, When Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors: Fixed Borders, State Weakness, and In-ternational Conflict, International Security 31, no. 3 (Winter 2006/07): 14550.

102 Jeffrey Herbst, War and the State in Africa, International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 13335; and Stephen Krasner, Building Democracy After Conflict: The Case for Shared Sovereignty, Journalof Democracy 16, no. 1 (January 2005): 7375.


98 P. K. MacDonald

self-determination is emphasized to one of empirical sovereignty in whichstate-leaders have an obligation to their citizens.103 As a result, members ofthe international community increasingly accept the notion that a state canforfeit its sovereignty if its leaders abuse their citizens or if it acts irrespon-sibly. Similarly, cosmopolitan liberal notions of individual security, humanrights, and universal equality are increasingly accepted and enshrined in in-ternational legal arrangements and charters of multilateral organizations.104

As a result, the violation of sovereignty in order to protect individuals caughtin civil strife, ethnic violence, or interstate war is more likely to be viewedas legitimate.

To be clear, to say these interventions are legitimate is not to say theyare always legal: the United Nations charter clearly prioritizes the norm ofstate sovereignty and nonintervention.105 Successive General Assembly reso-lutions have likewise rejected outright colonial domination as incompatiblewith the principle of self-determination.106 Yet even these legal principles arebeing called into question.107 A small yet prominent group of liberal interna-tional legal experts has asserted and defended the right of the internationalcommunity to violate traditional norms of nonintervention on humanitar-ian grounds.108 Similar arguments have been advanced to justify transitional

103 Jackson, Quasi-States, 4047. See also Michael Barnett, The New United Nations Politics of Peace:From Juridical Sovereignty to Empirical Sovereignty, Global Governance 1, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 8083.

104 On the imperial potential in cosmopolitan liberalism, see Jean Cohen, Sovereign Equality vs.Imperial Right: The Battle over the New World Order, Constellations 13, no. 4 (December 2006): 48790; and Jean Cohen, Whose Sovereignty? Empire Versus International Law, Ethics & International Affairs18, no. 3 (August 2004): 124.

105 See, for example, United Nations Charter, Article 1 Para. 2 and Article 2 Para. 1. For an overview,see David Armstrong, Theo Farrell, and Helene Lambert, International Law and International Relations(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007): 11750. Dino Kritsiotis, When States Use Armed Force,in The Politics of International Law, ed. Christian Reus-Smit (New York: Cambridge University Press,2004), 4579.

106 See General Assembly Resolution 1514, Declaration on the granting of independence to colonialcountries and peoples, December 1960. See also Daniel Philpott, Revolutions in Sovereignty: How IdeasShaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 4672, 15367.Neta C. Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics, Ethics, Decolonization and HumanitarianIntervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 291342.

107 See Simon Chesterman, Legality Verses Legitimacy: Humanitarian Intervention, the Security Coun-cil, and the Rule of Law, Security Dialogue 33, no. 3 (September 2002): 293307.

108 See Thomas M. Franck, Recourse to Force: State Action Against Threats and Armed Attacks (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 13573; Fernando R. Teson, The Liberal Case for HumanitarianIntervention, in Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, eds., J. L. Holzgrefeand Robert O. Keohane (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003): 93129. See discussion in SimonChesterman, Just War of Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2001), 11262; Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about theUse of Force (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 5284; and Roland Paris, International Peacebuildingand the Mission Civilisatrice, Review of International Studies 28, no. 4 (October 2002): 63839.



international administrations109 and extended military occupations.110 Thereis also growing pressure for a revival of trusteeship as a solution to in-stability and state failure in much of the third world.111 Some legal expertshave gone as far as to suggest that members of the international communityhave a responsibility to intervene to protect oppressed populations and torebuild war-torn communities.112 During the nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, European great powers relied heavily on multilateral agreements,appeals to international law, and paternalistic normative arguments of theirsuperior civilization to legitimate colonial occupations.113 There is no reasonwhy contemporary states cannot similarly appeal to humanitarian norms andshifting legal interpretations of sovereignty to give their actions the patina oflegitimacy.

In sum, norms of territorial integrity are unlikely to inhibit the adoptingof imperial strategies in international politics. Powerful states often violatethese norms, occasionally with the sanction of the international community.To the extent these norms are respected, they may increase political turmoiland strife in the third world. Finally, countervailing norms such as thoseassociated with humanitarianism can be used to legitimate imperial conquest.

109 Ralph Wilde, From Danzig to East Timor and Beyond: The Role of International TerritorialAdministration, American Journal of International Law 95, no. 3 (July 2001): 583606. See discussion inSimon Chesterman, You the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration and State-building(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 99125. Dominik Zaum, The Sovereignty Paradox: The Normsand Politics of International Statebuilding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 2750.

110 David B. Rivkin and Darin R. Bartram, Military Occupation: Legally Ensuring a Lasting Peace,The Washington Quarterly 26, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 87103; and Conor McCarthy, The Paradox ofInternational Law of Military Occupation: Sovereignty and the Reformation of Iraq, Journal of Conflictand Security Law 10, no. 1 (Spring 2005), 4374.

111 Richard Caplan, A New Trusteeship? The International Administration of War-Torn Territories,Adelphi Paper No. 341 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Fearon and Laitin, Neotrusteeship andthe Problem of Weak States, 1013; and Stephen Krasner, Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions forCollapsed and Failing States, International Security 29, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 8586, 1058. See, however,Roland Paris Peacekeeping and the Constraints of Global Culture, European Journal of InternationalRelations 9, no. 3 (September 2003): 46263.

112 See, for example, the conclusions of the International Commission on Intervention and StateSovereignty, Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Center, 2001), 114.See also Carsten Stahn, Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm? AmericanJournal of International Law 101, no. 1 (January 2007): 99120.

113 Seminal examples include the General Act of the Berlin Conference that established the principalof effective occupation and Article 22 of the Convent of the League of Nations that established themandate system. See Antony Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: TheRise and Fall of International Law, 18701960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 98178;Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of Civilization in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984);and Edward Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 12044.


100 P. K. MacDonald

Domestic-Level Factors: Ambivalence, Exceptionalism, and MilitaryCapacity

Even if systemic-level factors do not discourage the adoption of imperialstrategies, domestic barriers may prevent the United States from realizingits full imperial potential. Americas domestic political environmentwithits casualty-averse public, anti-imperial political ideology, and burdened all-volunteer militaryare said to inhibit the ability of the United States to im-plement an imperial strategy.114 While the United States may be able to over-come these barriers through determined effort, they are likely to make anyimperial strategy prohibitively costly.

AMERICAN PUBLIC AMBIVALENCE

One of the most common arguments used to refute the notion that the UnitedStates will create an empire is the claim that the ambivalence of the Americanpublic will prevent policy makers from undertaking (even necessary) imperialadventures. Charles Kupchan, for example, argues that the American publicwill resist foreign adventurism because of the absence of clear threats, con-cerns about the domestic economy, and public ambivalence toward overseasevents.115 Similarly, Niall Ferguson bemoans the lack of interest among theAmerican population toward establishing an empire.116 He points to the smallnumber of Americans living abroad and the unwillingness of the Americanpublic to tolerate casualties as evidence of American doubt and hesitationtoward imperial projects.

There are a number of problems with the prediction that public apathywill check imperial adventures. First, studies of American public opinion re-veal a more complicated picture than the isolationist public stereotype. Tobegin with, the American public generally supports an active and forward in-ternational posture. In its 2004 Global Views study, for example, the ChicagoCouncil on Foreign relations found widespread support for an active overseasforeign policy: 91 percent of respondents agreed that maintaining superiormilitary power worldwide is an important goal, and 65 percent supported ei-ther the maintenance or increase in the number of military bases abroad.117

114 Stanley Kurtz, Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint, Policy Review 112 (April/May 2003); MartinWalker, Americas Virtual Empire, World Policy Journal 19, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 13; and BenjaminBarber, Imperialism or Interdependence? Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (June 2004): 240.

115 Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics ofthe Twenty-First Century (New York: Knopf, 2002), 7481; and G. John Ikenberry, America and theAmbivalence of Power, Current History 102, no. 667 (November 2003): 38182.

116 Ferguson, Colossus; Niall Ferguson, Hegemony or Empire? Foreign Affairs 82, no. 5 (Septem-ber/October 2003); and Niall Ferguson, Recovering our Nerve, The National Interest 76 (Summer 2004):5155.

117 Only 10 percent of respondents agreed that the United States should withdraw from most effortsto solve international problems, while just 31 percent pressed for fewer overseas military bases. Chicago



Moreover, while the public is skeptical of using force to prompt regimechange, it is generally supportive of foreign intervention to prevent aggres-sion or to address humanitarian crises. In a 2007 study by the Program onInternational Policy Attitudes, for example, 65 percent of Republicans and69 percent of Democrats opposed the use of American troops to installdemocratic governments in states where dictators rule, yet nearly identicalmajorities favored the use of troops to deal with humanitarian crises as wellas to stop a government from committing genocide.118 Similarly, a Securityand Peace Institute study found that a majority of Americans were willingto support the deployment of American forces overseas to prevent an at-tack on the homeland (81 percent), to prevent a terrorist attack on Americanembassies abroad (65 percent), to support both NATO (60 percent) and UN(55 percent) peacekeeping missions, and to halt genocide in a country withminimal strategic importance to American interests (51 percent).119

Similarly, most studies refute the notion that the American public is re-flexively and inexorably casualty averse. A RAND report, for example, foundthe rate of decline as a function of casualties varies dramatically from op-eration to operation and does not suggest a high tolerance for casualtiesin the past and a low tolerance in the present.120 Similarly, Peter Feaverand Christopher Gelpi find that when the public believes that the missionwill succeed, it continues to support the mission, even as costs mount.121 Inhis study of public opinion and military intervention, Bruce Jentleson like-wise finds that American public support of military intervention depends onthe principal policy objective of the intervention rather than on the risk ofcasualties.122

Council on Foreign Relations, Global Views 2004: American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (Chicago:Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 2004), 7, 18, 1516.

118 On the specific question of Darfur, for example, 64 percent of Republicans and 68 percent ofDemocrats favor sending American troops as part of an international peacekeeping force. Steven Kull etal., Opportunities for Bipartisan Consensus2007: What Both Republicans and Democrats Want in USForeign Policy, Program on International Policy Attitudes (January 2007), 1112, 31.

119 Republicans had either identical or stronger preferences in favor of each of these interventions.Security and Peace Institute, American Attitudes toward National Security, Foreign Policy, and the Waron Terror (Center for American Progress, 2005), 1718, 2122.

120 Eric V. Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Supportfor U.S. Military Operations (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 1996). See also Eric V. Larson and BogdanSavych, American Public Support for U.S. Military Operations from Mogadishu to Baghdad, Rand ReportMG-231-A (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2005).

121 Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relationsand the Use of Force (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 94. Feaver and Gelip also find that thegeneral public is more casualty acceptant than both civilian elites and the military brass. Idem, Soldiersand Civilians: The Civil Military Gap and American National Security (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), 485.

122 Bruce W. Jentleson, The Pretty Prudent Public: Post-Vietnam American opinion on the Useof Military Force, International Studies Quarterly 36, no. 1 (March 1992): 4974. See also Bruce W.Jentleson and Rebecca L. Britton, Still Pretty Prudent: Post-Cold War American Public Opinion on theUse of Military Force, Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 4 (August 1998): 395417; and Richard C.Eichenberg, Victory Has Many Friends: U.S. Public Opinion and the Use of Military Force, 19812005,International Security 30, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 14077.


102 P. K. MacDonald

The trend in public opinion during the Iraq war would seem to confirmthe rational public hypothesis. While the Gallup Organization found that thepercentage of the American public arguing it was worth going to war hasfallen sharply from the high of 75 percent in March 2003, the level of sup-port rose modestly after key eventssuch as the handover of sovereignty,the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the January 2005 electionsand fluc-tuated around the 50 percent level between August 2004 to January 2006,suggesting the effect of casualties on public opinion is not immediate orsimply additive.123 While the American public has undoubtedly soured onthe Iraq War, these trends suggest the public is not unbendingly isolationistor casualty phobic.124 If the American public is convinced the use of forcewill substantively enhance national security, then it is willing both to supportoverseas missions and tolerate casualties.

A second problem with the argument that American ambivalence willcheck imperial adventures is that political leaders can manipulate the Amer-ican public. Indeed, American politicians have frequently relied on dishon-esty or elision to obtain public support for aggressive actions overseas.125

Following the sinking of the Maine in February 1898, for example, jingoisticRepublican politicians inflated Spanish involvement in the incident to buildpublic sentiment in support of war.126 Similarly, President Roosevelt resortedto deception both to support the allies while maintaining a guise of neu-trality prior to Pearl Harbor and to hide the administrations Germany-firststrategy afterwards.127 President Lyndon Johnson likewise relied on decep-tion, using an alleged torpedo attack in the Tonkin Gulf in August 1964to prod Congress into providing him with the authorization to escalate theVietnam War.128 More recently, President George W. Bush took advantage of

123 In the aftermath of the upswing of sectarian strife in 2006, however, recent pollshave put support for the war in the low 40 percent range. Numbers acquired fromhttp://www.gallup.com/poll/1633/Iraq.aspx, accessed 2 February 2007.

124 Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity andthe War in Iraq, International Security 30, no. 3 (Winter 2005/06): 89. See also Washington Post, 10September 2004.

125 Eric Alterman, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences (NewYork, NY: Viking, 2004); and Jon Western, Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, andthe American Public (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

126 Doris A. Graber, Crisis Diplomacy: A History of U.S. Intervention Policies and Practices (Washington:Public Affairs Press, 1959), 7780; and Ruhl Jacob Bartlett, Policy and Power: Two Centuries of AmericanForeign Relations (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), 12627.

127 Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the WarAgainst Nazi Germany (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001); and John Schuessler, Democracy,Deception, and the Use of Force: FDRs Undeclared War, paper presented at the International StudiesAssociation Annual Conference, (February/March 2007).

128 David Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 33139; and Robert Mann, A Grand Delusion: Americas Descentinto Vietnam (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 33639.



his public authority and executive power to frame the debate over war inIraq in a manner favorable to the use of military force.129

Moreover, statistical studies support the presence of the rally around theflag effect in American politics. In the wake of almost all cases of militaryaction, Presidential public opinion increased. Moreover, this boost in popu-larity occurred regardless of the relative importance of the issues at stake orthe severity of the crisis.130 While Presidents may choose to intervene onlyin those cases in which public support is guaranteed, the fact that the publicrarely punishes presidents for overseas adventurism does lend credence tothe hypothesis that it is politicians who direct public opinion, not the publicwho constrains politicians.

Why might politicians be able to shape public opinion in this manner?One possible explanation is that the public is relatively uninformed aboutforeign affairs and defense.131 In a 2007 study by the Pew Research Center,only 36 percent of respondents could name the president of Russia, only 21percent could correctly identify Robert Gates as the Secretary of Defense,and only 32 percent could correctly name Sunni as the second major sect ofIslam alongside Shiite.132 The American publics ignorance on foreign affairs,moreover, is not new. In a comparison of public opinion surveys conductedbetween 1946 and 1994, for example, Stephen Bennett found that a consistentportion of the American public, roughly one-third of all respondents, knewnext to nothing about foreign affairs.133 Thi

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