Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [174]
Could a democratic hyperpower such as the United States enter into a political union with the people all over the world whom it dominates? Realistically, it is difficult to see how. To do so, the United States would have to give up either its national identity, its sovereignty, or its hyperpower status.
In theory, for example, America could offer every nation in the world an opportunity to become another state in the United States. Possibly, some nations might accept. But if, say, 234 million Indonesians and 190 million Brazilians were to become American citizens, the United States would be a very different country. In any case, this option is politically inconceivable.
Theoretically, the United States might also throw itself behind a new democratic world government ruled by international institutions under international law. In this scenario, there would still be a hyperpower, but it would not be the United States; it would be the world government to which the United States had ceded authority. Many idealists support a world order of this kind, but at present—especially given the problems plaguing the United Nations and other global institutions—such a scenario is completely unrealistic.
Indeed, if anything, after 9/11 the United States moved in the opposite direction. In the last several years, it refused to join the International Criminal Court; walked away from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change; and invaded Iraq without UN authorization or the support of traditional NATO allies such as France, Germany, and Canada. None of these actions has improved America's status in the world. Unilateralism is especially problematic for a democratic hyperpower. No one ever expected Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan to give weaker nations a say in world affairs. But a democratic hyperpower is supposed to recognize the principle that everyone in the world has a right to participate and prosper in global society. Unfortunately for the United States, it is decidedly not the rest of the world's impression that America respects this principle.
THE LAST HEGEMON
Where does this leave the United States? All the factors so far discussed—the lessons of the old and the face of the new—point in one direction: against an American empire.
As the first nation of immigrants and the first mature democracy to become a hyperpower, the United States confronts a far more limited set of choices than the Romans or even the British. To begin with, it is by no means clear that an American empire would pass democratic muster at home. The effort to sustain the Iraq war, particularly after the exposure of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and the continuing violence in Iraq, quickly exhausted U.S. popular support. Unless there is a stunning turnaround in Iraq, it is unlikely that the American electorate would support continuing aggressively interventionist military policies designed to effectuate regime change and democratization. In this way, Americans are very different from the Victorian British, who took great pride in their imperial role. Perhaps because of their country's own anti-colonial history, most Americans do not wish to see themselves as imperialists—even “enlightened” ones.
At the same time, as a democratic hyperpower, the United States is fundamentally limited in what it can offer to, and take from, foreign populations. Although America has the power to invade foreign countries and topple their governments, as a practical matter