Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times

IMPERIAL TEMPTATIONS 2003

THE IDEA OF EMPIRE, once so effectively used by Ronald Reagan to discredit the Soviet Union, has recently undergone a strange rehabilitation in the United States. This process, which started some years ago, has accelerated markedly since September 11. References to empire are no longer deployed ironically or in a tone of warning; the idea has become respectable enough that the New York Times ran an article describing the enthusiasm it now evokes in certain circles.

It is of some significance that these circles are not easily identified as being located either on the right or on the left. If there are some on the right who celebrate the projection of U.S. power, there are others on the left who believe that the world can only benefit from an ever-increasing U.S. engagement and intervention abroad — for example, in ethnic and religious conflicts (such as those in Rwanda and Bosnia) or in states run by despotic regimes or "rogue" leaders (such as Iraq). It is on grounds like these that the idea of a new imperialism has recently been embraced by Britain's Labour Party.

That elements of the left and the right should discover common ground on the matter of empire should come as no surprise. Contrary to popular belief, empire is by no means a strictly conservative project; historically it has always held just as much appeal for liberals. Conversely, the single greatest critic of the British Empire, Edmund Burke, was an archconservative who saw imperialism as an essentially radical project, not unlike that of the French Revolution.

The idea of empire may seem too antiquated to be worth combating. But it is always the ideas that appeal to both ends of the spectrum that stand the best chance of precipitating an unspoken consensus, especially when they bear the imprimatur of such figures as the British prime minister. That is why this may be a good time to remind ourselves of some of the reasons that imperialism fell into discredit in the first place.

To begin with, empire cannot be the object of universal human aspirations. In a world run by empires, some people are rulers and some are the ruled; it is impossible to think of a situation in which all peoples possess an empire. In contrast, the idea of the nationstate, for all its failings, holds the great advantage that it can indeed be generalized to all peoples everywhere. The proposition that every human being should belong to a nation and that all nations should be equal is not a contradiction in terms, although it may well be utterly unfounded as a description of the real world.

It is precisely the exclusivism of empire that makes it a program for ever-increasing conflict. If the mark of success for a nation consists of the possession of an empire, then it follows that every nation that wants to achieve success must aspire to one. That is why the twentieth century was a period of such cataclysmic conflict: emergent powers like Germany and Japan wanted empires as proof of their success. Those who embrace the idea frequently cite the advantages of an imperial peace over the disorder of the current world situation, but this disregards the fact that the peace of the British, French, and Austro-Hungarian empires was purchased at the cost of a destabilization so radical as to generate the two greatest conflicts in human history, the world wars. Because of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, there can be no doubt that a twenty-first-century empire would have consequences that are graver still.

An imperium also generates an unstoppable push toward overreach, which is one of the reasons it is a charter for destabilization. This is not only because of an empire's inherent tendency to expand; there is another reason, so simple as often to go unnoticed. The knowledge that an imperial center can be induced to intervene in local disputes, at a certain price, is itself an incentive for lesser players to provoke intervention. I remember an occasion a few years ago when one of the leaders of a minor and utterly hopeless insurgency asked me, What kind of death toll do you think we need to get the United States to intervene here?

There can be no doubt that political catastrophes can often be prevented by multilateral intervention, and clearly such actions are sometimes necessary. But it is also true that in certain circumstances the very prospect of intervention can become an incentive, as it were, for the escalation of violence. The reason the idea of empire appeals to many liberals is that it appears to offer a means of bettering the world's predicament. History shows us, unfortunately, that the road to empire is all too often thickly paved with good intentions.

During the past few months, much has been said and written on the subject of a "new American empire." I believe this term to be a misnomer. If the Iraq war is to be seen as an imperial venture, then the project is neither new nor purely American. What President Bush likes to call the "coalition of the willing" is dominated, after all, by America, Britain, and Australia — three English-speaking countries whose allegiances are rooted not just in a shared culture and common institutions but in a shared history of territorial expansion. Seen in this light, the alignment is only the newest phase in the evolution of the most potent political force of the past two centuries: the anglophone empire.

I am an Indian, and my history has been shaped as much by the institutions of this empire as by a long tradition of struggle against them. Now I live in New York; for me, the September 11 attacks and their aftermath were filled with disquieting historical resonances. I was vividly reminded, for example, of the Indian uprising of 1857, an event known to the British as the Great Indian Mutiny. That year in Kanpur, a busy trading junction beside the Ganges, several hundred defenseless British civilians, including women and children, were cut down in an orgy of blood lust by Indians loyal to a local potentate, Nana Sahib. Many of the Indians involved in the rebellion were erstwhile soldiers of the empire who had been seized by nihilistic ideas. The rebels' methods were so extreme that Indian moderates were torn between sympathy, revulsion, and fear. Many Indians chose to distance themselves from the uprising. Others went so far as to join hands with the British. A similar process is clearly under way in today's Middle East, where Islamist fundamentalism has inflamed some Arabs while alienating others.

The phrase "shock and awe," used by the U.S. military to describe the initial air attack on Baghdad, provided another reminder of the 1857 uprising. In the aftermath of the mutiny, the British too mounted a campaign to create terror and awe among the rebels' supporters. The road from Kanpur to Allahabad was lined with the corpses of Indian soldiers who had been hanged; there were public displays of rebels being shot from cannons. British soldiers sacked cities across northern India. The instruments of state were deployed in such a way as to reward allies and to punish areas and populations that had supported the rebels. The effects of these policies were felt for generations and arguably can still be observed in the disparities that divide, say, the relatively affluent region of Punjab and the impoverished state of Bihar.

The rights and wrongs of the British actions are not at issue here. I want, rather, to pose a question that is not articulated often enough: Do such exercises of power work? Many believe that displays of military might are always erased or offset by countervailing forces of resistance. But those who are accustomed to the exercise of power know otherwise. They know that power can sometimes be used to redirect the forces of resistance.

In the case of the 1857 uprising, the truth is that the reigning power's brutal response resulted in some significant changes in Indian political life. Britain's overwhelming victory was instrumental in persuading a majority of Indians that it was futile to oppose the empire by force of arms. This consensus caused many in the next generation of anticolonialists to turn in a more parliamentary and constitutionalist direction, and was thus a necessary backdrop to Mahatma Gandhi's tactics of nonviolent resistance.

Some of today's imperial enthusiasts have pointed to Indian democracy as proof that a colonial presence can be reconstructive, helping to create a stable civil society. To counter this argument, however, we need only look at a list of cities where al Qaeda's fugitive leaders are said to have taken refuge: Aden, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, Karachi. The British dominated these cities for centuries, and yet the antagonism to the West that simmers in them now is greater even than it was in 1857.

In the world of human beings, even defeat is a transaction. If there is any lesson to be drawn from the subcontinent's experience of empire, it is that defeat can be negotiated in many different ways. In India democracy thrives, while in Pakistan democracy has consistently devolved into authoritarianism. For Iraq to go the way of India, the current avatar of the anglophone empire will have to succeed in creating, in the span of a few years, what earlier incarnations failed to do over decades.

The chances of success are close to nil. The strongest counterindications are to be seen, paradoxically, in the very imbalance in military power that led to the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime. The military power of the United States is so overwhelming that it has caused American advocates of empire to forget that the imperial project rests on two pillars. Weaponry is only the first and most obvious of these; the other is persuasion. When empire was in British hands, its rulers paid almost as much attention to this second pillar as to the first. Its armies were often accompanied by an enormously energetic apparatus of persuasion, which included educational institutions, workshops, media outlets, printing houses, and so on.

Many hawks in the United States now openly admit to a veneration of past empires, yet they seem to have absorbed the military lessons of imperialism to the exclusion of all else. I suspect that this is the reason that many in the British political establishment were so dismayed by the buildup to the Iraq war. They know all too well that an aura of legitimacy and consent is essential in matters of empire.

Legitimacy and the tactics of persuasion are obviously not high priorities for the Bush administration. But the task would be difficult anyway. In the nineteenth century, the apparatus of persuasion was effective partly because the colonizing force could exercise close control over the flow of information. In Iraq, every effort at persuasion will be offset by daily doses of dissuasion, delivered through the Internet and satellite television channels. The persuasive effectiveness of nineteenth-century empires also rested in large part on the talismanic role of science. Today high technology is too widespread to astonish. Although smart bombs are terrifying, they do not have the mystique that the Gatling gun once held.

The modern connotations of the word "empire" also show how the context of imperialism has changed. For many, especially in America, it is a reminder of an image that played a significant part in discrediting the Soviet Union: the "evil empire." This is not a purely rhetorical anxiety; the unease goes deeper than that. A substantial proportion of America's population remains unconvinced of the need to undertake a new version of a "civilizing mission." This is what distinguishes America from the imperial nations of the past.

As George Orwell and many other observers of imperialism have pointed out, empires imprison their rulers as well as their subjects. In today's United States, where people are increasingly disinclined to venture beyond their borders, this has already come to pass. But perhaps, in these accelerated times, it won't be long before most Americans begin to dream of an escape from the imprisonment of absolute power.