Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [169]
But as the levers of global wealth shifted from land to sea, and from conquest to commerce, the link between military and economic power began to shift as well. Invasion, occupation, and annexation were no longer essential prerequisites for a hyperpower seeking to reap the riches of faraway lands. Conquest and rule were expensive, and control over trade could be far more efficient.
This was a lesson the Romans had begun to learn the hard way a millennium earlier. The conquest of Dacia (AD 101-106) was in fact the last time that the Roman treasury would reap large profits from the plunder of foreign lands. Yet Rome, “[a] society persistently primed for war, most of whose adult males could expect to see active military duty,” continued to field its massive legions on missions of conquest and expansion long after the material costs of warfare had far outstripped its benefits.9
With the Dutch Republic, the balance between trade and conquest shifted decisively in favor of the former. To an unprecedented degree, the Dutch strategy for global preeminence dispensed with the whole enterprise of conquest and territorial expansion. In the Americas, Africa, and Southeast Asia (with a few exceptions like Java and Ceylon), most of the Dutch “empire” consisted of mere trading outposts, with native peoples and inland cities left largely to their own devices.10 These outposts were protected by the Netherlands’ extraordinary navy, which also did its best to keep out competitor merchants from other European countries, securing the republic its fantastically lucrative commercial monopolies.
For the Dutch, strategic tolerance was just as essential to world dominance as it had been for the ancient hyperpowers, but Dutch tolerance began to assume a radically new and modern form. Tolerance for the ancients essentially meant tolerating conquered peoples: leaving intact their customs and languages, co-opting their elites, and recruiting their best craftsmen and warriors. By contrast, Dutch tolerance turned the Netherlands itself into a magnet, not for conquered peoples but for persecuted religious minorities from all over Europe. Amsterdam in the seventeenth century became the most cosmopolitan city in the world—“a veritable melting pot,” in which “Flemings, Walloons, Germans, Portuguese and German Jews, and French Huguenots” all became “true Dutchmen.”11 As a direct result of its immigrants’ contributions, the Dutch Republic became the center of world trade, industry, and finance.
For a brief moment in history, the Dutch Republic pointed the way to a new kind of world dominance in which military conquest and colonization could play a much diminished role. But the next hyperpower on the world stage—Great Britain—was as much a successor to Rome as it was to the Netherlands. Like Holland, England became famous for its tolerance at home and thereby attracted immigrants fleeing religious persecution in neighboring countries. But unlike the Dutch, Great Britain took up Rome's civilizing and expansionist mission. The British sought to rule and to legislate over all the immense territories they conquered; Victoria was not only queen of England but empress of India. At the same time, the British rediscovered the ancient formula for imperial expansion, amassing through strategic tolerance enormous armies filled with hundreds of thousands of soldiers native to India and other conquered lands.
It fell to the United States to follow the path the Dutch had charted. Like the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, America's tolerance turned it into a magnet for refugees and others seeking better opportunities. Although the United States certainly has had its imperialist moments, and although its