Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [168]
The almost instantaneous 2003 collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq seemed to give further strength to those advocating the aggressive use of American military might for regime change and nation building. But three years later, with American military power looking less and less effective in Iraq, the previously widespread support for the war in the United States had eroded severely. Many who had originally supported the war, both liberals and conservatives, asserted that they had done so solely because of an exaggerated threat of weapons of mass destruction.6 Perle, long described as one of the architects of the Iraq war, publicly recanted his support for it. President George W. Bush's approval ratings among Americans fell to 31 percent, and in November 2006 the Republican Party lost both houses of Congress. A CBS News poll a month later found that 62 percent of Americans thought it had been “a mistake” to send U.S. troops to Iraq.7
What calls for an American empire missed was something crucial: history. There are lessons in the rise and fall of hyperpowers past—lessons reflecting both the similarities and differences between the United States and the world-dominant powers that preceded it. Over the centuries, there has been a slow but relentless transformation in what it means—and what it takes—to be a hy-perpower. Reduced to its simplest terms, this transformation has been a shift from conquest to commerce, from invasion to immigration, from autocracy to democracy. At the same time, notwithstanding this transformation, there is one fundamental challenge that all hyperpowers necessarily confront—the problem that I have called “glue.” Because of the changed nature of world dominance today, the United States confronts this ancient problem in a modern form. It is this combination of old and new that holds the key to understanding the prospects of American power in the twenty-first century.
THE EVOLUTION OF HYPERPOWERS
American world dominance is the result of a long process of evolution in the history of hyperpowers. In ancient times, military power and economic power were linked in a very direct way. The more a society conquered, the wealthier it got, whether by taxing, looting, annexing, or exacting tribute. The Achaemenid kings pulled in the “most valuable possessions” and “productions” of every subjugated kingdom, “whether the fruits of the earth, or animals bred there, or manufactures of their own arts.”8 The Romans gained millions of pounds of silver and gold by conquering Dacia alone. The Mongols, who themselves had no industry or technology, became a hyperpower by conquering the territory and absorbing the wealth of the world's then most advanced civilizations—Persia, China, and the Arab lands.
If the key to wealth was military might, then the key to military might was strategic tolerance. It was through tolerance that pre-modern hyperpowers amassed the most powerful armies, both by successfully enlisting hundreds of thousands of conquered foot soldiers and by recruiting the most skilled warriors and commanders of all backgrounds. Greek mercenaries formed the cream of the Achaemenid military. The Roman legions were filled with Libyans, Syrians, Caledonians, Gauls, and Spaniards. Tang China extended its rule to Afghanistan, Samarkand, and Tashkent only by securing the loyalty of the “barbarian” horsemen from the steppe. The Mongols could not have overcome the great walled cities of central Asia and Europe if they had not drawn into their nomadic ranks the Chinese engineers who built their massive siege engines.
With the dawn of the modern age, economic dominance continued to require military dominance, but the parameters began to change. Naval power became increasingly important. Starting around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, technological advances vastly enlarged the reach of the largest, strongest societies. Gold and silver in the faraway Americas, the pepper and spice trades