US Hegemony and the Continuity of Imperial Foreign Policy

Introduction: Continuity and Change in International Politics

There are no fundamental differences between the present and what international politics used to be in the first half of the 20th century. It is true that the post-WWII period has been more peaceful, but this is not because of a fundamental transformation in the way international politics works.

To state that there are no fundamental differences between international politics in 1900–45 and afterwards would be to carry the argument to an extreme, even though the continuities are greater than the discontinuities. Above all else, the liberal, democratic states and empires of the US and Western Europe were highly interventionist and aggressive in the developing world and Global South long before World War II, and this did not change during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Even governments that were democratically elected were sometimes overthrown and replaced by more pliable regimes, such as the "friendly" dictators of Central America and the Caribbean. At the same time, there has been far more harmony and cooperation between the Great Powers since 1945 than in the previous fifty years, especially through NATO and the European Union. America's alliance with Japan, Britain, France, and Germany has survived various stresses and strains over the decades, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, and this requires explanation.

None of the imperial powers has fought a major war since the invention of nuclear weapons, even though they have intervened frequently against the non-nuclear states of the developing world. Perhaps this alliance is explained by political and ideological affinities, as liberals maintain, or by cultural affinities as opposed to Muslim and Orthodox civilizations, as Samuel Huntington argues — though Japan remains a notable outlier in that framework. Realists would counter that self-interest holds the liberal powers together, particularly against the political, military, and economic threats they face from outsiders. In practice, these powers do seem to operate on the basis of mutual self-interest among capitalist states, with the US still playing the role of hegemon despite its relative weakening in recent years.

American Interventionism Before and After World War II

Although the US was not a global superpower before the Second World War, there have been important continuities between the pre- and post-1945 periods, especially in relations with Latin America and other countries in the Global South. James K. Polk planned a war of aggression against Mexico and provoked an incident on the Rio Grande in 1846 in order to obtain by force the western territories that Mexico refused to sell. History affords few clearer examples of ruthless realism and the use of power, which brought about the annexation of the northern half of Mexico in 1848.

Before World War II, American interventionism was often overt and direct — simply landing troops on the shores of some prospective banana republic and installing a "friendly" government. This is exactly what happened in Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic, in some cases more than once. Although the "men who directed these 'regime change' operations may not have explained forthrightly why they were acting, but they took responsibility for their acts" (Kinzer 5). Theodore Roosevelt was hardly shy about admitting that he sent troops to Puerto Rico and the Philippines, took Panama from Colombia, or landed in person with the army in Cuba in 1898. Indeed, more sober imperialists feared he was too much of a "cowboy" and perhaps unsound in his boasting about a new American Empire.

During the Cold War, overthrowing governments was more commonly accomplished through CIA covert operations, conducted in the shadows rather than in the open. Once the Soviet Union ceased to exist, however, the US increasingly reverted to the older methods of direct intervention.

Liberal Democracies and the Global South

Sebastian Rosato notes that peace may exist among democracies or liberal empires such as France, Britain, and the United States, but their entire record in the Global South is anything but peaceful. As evidence, he offers a long list of colonial wars — the Opium War of 1839, numerous wars against the indigenous peoples of Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas, and imperial takeovers of India, Burma, Indochina, the Congo, the Philippines, and Indonesia by liberal Western powers — none of which seemed overly concerned with the "rights of non-Europeans" (Rosato 589). In this respect, Cold War and post-Cold War interventions in Haiti, Panama, Sierra Leone, Iraq, and many other countries are part of the same continuity in the imperial foreign policies of liberal, democratic states. With Cold War interventions in Chile, Guatemala, and Iran, the US "did not treat fellow democracies with trust or respect" (Rosato 591).

Far from promoting democracy abroad, the United States has repeatedly acted against the threat that genuine democracy poses to American investments and corporate interests. In overthrowing democratic governments and supporting corrupt and pliable elites in Asia, Central America, and the Caribbean, "no nation in modern history has done this so often, in so many places so far from its shores" (Kinzer 2). Almost always the real motivation has been "economic — specifically to establish, promote and defend the right of Americans to do business around the world without interference" (Kinzer 3). Corporations have been the dominant influence in US politics since the late 19th century, and foreign leaders who resist them often risk being overthrown. Secretaries of State such as John Foster Dulles and Elihu Root have frequently served as agents of Wall Street and large corporate interests within the American foreign policy establishment, which has preferred to deal with "friendly" dictators and corrupt oligarchs rather than with nationalist, populist, or radically democratic governments in the developing world.

Conclusion: Hegemony, Capitalism, and the Future of Imperial Power

Perhaps this continued alliance among the liberal Western powers is best explained by capitalist self-interest and political and ideological affinity, rather than by pure realism and concern with national security threats. Samuel Huntington took the realist position that nation-states remain the leading actors in world affairs, but also argued that cultures and civilizations continue to clash as they always have. The conflict between Muslim, Western, and Orthodox Christian civilizations in the Balkans and the Caucasus, for example, dates back centuries, long before liberal democratic governments existed anywhere in the world. This was equally true of conflicts between Muslims and Christians in West Africa and the Sudan (Huntington 32).

Contrary to liberal theorists, no universal civilization was ever likely to emerge in the foreseeable future, given all these cultural and religious particularisms. Cooperation between the liberal capitalist and imperial powers in the West has continued since 1945, despite certain periods of crisis, and has survived even the strains of more recent economic downturns. None of these powers would regard the collapse of NATO or the European Union as being in their best interests, no matter that the structure of these organizations will have to be modified in the years ahead to meet changed circumstances. For whatever reason, major military conflict between the capitalist Great Powers still appears to be unthinkable.

By the same token, intervention in the weaker states of the Global South by the liberal powers has been ongoing for two hundred years, and there is no evidence that this has changed in the post-Cold War world. If anything, the interventions have become as blatant and imperialistic as any that occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when empires openly seized control of supplies of rubber, tin, oil, and other raw materials, or American presidents like Woodrow Wilson declared that he was going to teach the Mexicans to elect good men by landing the Marines in Veracruz. This seems very unlikely to change in the future, even though some former colonial and peripheral states like China and Brazil might edge closer to actual admission into the imperial club in the years ahead.

Works Cited

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Huntington, Samuel P. "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Summer 1993): 22–49.

Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America's History of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Times Books, 2007.

Mearsheimer, John J. "The False Promise of International Institutions." International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994–95): 5–49.

Renda, Mary. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940. University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Rosato, Sebastian. "The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory." The American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 4 (November 2003): 585–602.

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