Twilight of the Republic

RESPONSE / POLITICS

This opinion piece was submitted as a response to an article published in Issue 5. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the original author.

The last edition of The Canterbury Memo featured an article titled “The Tendrils of US Imperialism”. While the article interrogated imperialist values of US foreign policy, the scope of the argument failed to recognise the complexity of its history, especially in the examples used. The article made valid points, however, its impact could have been stronger with a more nuanced lens. This article aims to supplement and expand on the points “Tendrils” made while attempting to provide connections to recent events. The decline of the American Empire is not a new opinion but has become more evident in the last decade.

One contextual backdrop that ties many examples in “Tendrils” is the Cold War. An important chapter in world history, it set the stage for the geopolitical landscape of today. But focusing only on this period masks the deeper roots of the US Empire. Undercurrents of ideological and economic motives for its imperial ambitions run deep into its past. Some stretch as far back as its inception. 

In the Declaration of Independence, the new American republic signalled virtues of the enlightenment, distancing itself from the British Empire. The influence of ancient Greece and Rome in its identity-building analogised American ideals of morals and democracy, even down to grand neoclassical government buildings. Yet its actions were already contradictory: amoral practices continued to maintain economic growth. The Transatlantic slave trade was not officially prohibited until 1808 despite abolitionist movements existing before Independence. Even then, illegal smuggling operations would occur until Abolition after the American Civil War while racial segregation was enforced under the Jim Crow era.

Belief in Manifest Destiny, that westward expansion was America’s divine right, lay the foundations for its image as an “Empire of Liberty” spreading freedom across the world. However, Native Americans, whose combined territories stretched beyond the original thirteen states, would be routinely forced off their land in treaties or armed conflict. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 would legally justify the expulsion of natives west of the Mississippi river, culminating in the notorious “Trail of Tears.” These extermination campaigns carried out by frontiersmen and state would continue into the 1890s.

Further expansion consolidated former French and Spanish territories; Louisiana, Florida, and Texas provided access to more resources crucial to developing American business. This led to the post-Civil War Guided Age, when rapid industrialisation and economic prosperity rivalled those of Europe. However, economic inequality and poverty would peak as monopolies began disregarding consumers and its workers’ rights. US nation-building in this era was, explicitly, only for some, not all. 

The Monroe Doctrine, first mentioned in 1823, opposed the intervention of foreign—specifically European—powers in the Americas, extending its protection to newly independent states of South America. By the late 19th century, a new phase of imperialism emerged. While Europe was busy carving up the African continent, the US set its sights on the Pacific. American businesses were partly responsible for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, reasoning their power over the sugar industry was threatened. The brand Dole can trace its origins to this event. 

Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were acquired after the Spanish-American war—the latter being particularly controversial at the time. Imperialists such as Rudyard Kipling exhorted that control over the Philippines was a “civilizing mission.” His poem, The White Man’s Burden, exhibits ideological continuations of Manifest Destiny. Of these states, only the Philippines would gain its independence from the US in 1946. 

This chapter of US history shaped how it would extend and retain its global reach in the 20th century.

During the 1920s, America found a new cultural currency. Soft power, by way of the fledgling American film industry, showed how culture could be packaged and projected. The establishment of Hollywood presented an illusionary pathway to fame and fortune. The creation of the ‘celebrity’ provided a vessel for ideals that appealed to a nation wrecked by the Great Depression. This mimicry of royalty paved the way for an American-branded pantheon of movie stars, adopting the role of symbols and personifications of American values.

The aftermath of the Second World War propelled the US to global superpower status. It saw itself as the centre of modernity, positioning the Soviet Union as its ideological adversary which threatened its progress. Thus, foreign policy during the Cold War, informed by the Truman Doctrine, sought to contain the spread of communism around the world. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and ECHELON (later Five Eyes) would become important alliances to defend the Western Bloc. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, the US held significant influence over global issues immediately after the war: decisions surrounding the Korean War are an example of this.

The Cold War also bolstered the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in extending American influence abroad through covert operations. Business interests were responsible for CIA involvement in regime changes in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. The failed intervention in Cuba emphasised the need to contain Soviet influence in the Americas. US involvement in Operation Condor enabled ruthless dictatorships by debilitating leftists in South America. In Asia, communist China and North Korea fuelled fears that countries in Indochina would fall to communism like dominoes, forcing US intervention in Vietnam. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, more overlapping trails of espionage would spawn the Iran-Contra affair in which proceeds from arms trafficking in Iran would support the CIA’s assistance of the anti-communist Nicaraguan Contras. 

On the homefront, McCarthyism purged government of suspected communists while social paranoia was induced by the Red Scare. By the sixties, the CIA became heavily involved in domestic spying as antiwar and Black Power movements were seen as threats to national security. The Agency’s role in the Watergate scandal in the seventies would force the disclosure of more illegal operations of covert domestic espionage, as documented in the ‘Family Jewels’ reports.

In the latter half of the 20th century following the Nixon shock, the US economy was marred by periods of stagnation and deindustrialisation. With markets opening abroad and off-shore manufacturing exploiting cheap labour and loose regulations, American businesses were forced to rethink their strategy: controlling foreign trade became paramount. Global supply chains, susceptible to external conflict and passing through strategic chokepoints, highlighted the need for US military presence surrounding the Suez, Hormuz, and Bab el-Mandeb, in order to protect their interests. This new globalised economy paved the way for US stock markets and banks to gain power overseas, ultimately creating a chain of beneficiaries that would be damaged during the 2008 financial crisis.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 signalled a new era in world history. It showed Western ideologies prevailing over Soviet communism. But it also created a void in the US narrative, an antagonist was missing. One that could justify its imperialist actions and maintain legitimacy as a global superpower. Since the nineties, its cast of villains have included various Arab countries, North Korea, Russia, and China. The attacks on September 11, 2001 provided perfect grounds to publicly create an “axis of evil”. The following day, NATO would invoke Article 5 of its charter that “an attack on one is an attack on all”—the only time in NATO’s history the provision was used. The Global War on Terror that followed enabled the US military to act as ‘world police,’ ironically treading over the consequences of US interventionism from the last century. In 2004, war crimes committed on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were publicised, attracting significant media attention and condemnation worldwide. This was only part of a pattern of torture programmes in US-run facilities across the world, including Guantanamo Bay. 

These revelations questioned the moral integrity of the US and its image as a role model for the international community. An image irreparably tarnished under President Donald Trump, whose election marked an inflection point in the direction of the US Empire. Since 2016, US foreign policy has shifted more insular: strongman posturing allowed for the denigration of its global allies, while haphazard use of military power accrued further loss of moral high ground. Recent US interventions in Iran and Venezuela are clear symptoms of this. Even the constitutional checks and balances of Congress and the Supreme Court have done little to stop a rogue administration. 

The culture the empire has created for over two centuries has resulted in a system that prioritises safeguarding ideological hegemony and economic interests, often through military force. Its survival rests on maintaining the image of American exceptionalism to achieve its goals. But as global opinions of the US sour, its security is at threat. As an empire collapses its actions become unpredictable. Its tendrils latch on to whatever it can hold. And as it leaves the structures it once kept in place, the world plunges deeper into uncertainty.