All That Glitters Is Not Gold
How America’s post-WWII identity leaves it ill-equipped to understand Russia and China
“Why did the United States, at the peak of its power, distance itself from colonial empire?” — Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States
This morning I started reading Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide and Empire in an attempt to dig into popular books that are loosely in my niche interest area. I’ve only made it through the introduction, but I’m loving it so far. One assertion, in particular, stood out to me as it may be among the most crucial features of our present world-historic moment.
Immerwahr asserts that technological advancement following World War II gave America “many of the benefits of empire without having to actually hold colonies.”
- Man-Made plastics replaced raw materials previously imported from the tropics
- Planes, radio, and insecticides reduced barriers to the transport of goods and people
- American hegemony allowed the export of U.S. standardized machine parts and helped English become the new Lingua Franca
- The post-1945 era of globalization dramatically reduced America’s reliance on colonies.
This approach to understanding America’s post-WWII shift away from colonialism implies a competition between competing systems for world power:
First — an approach that seeks continued technological advancement in the pursuit of liberal-state cultural, economic, and military hegemony.
Second — a classically imperialistic reaction unconstrained by disruptions to the technological networks upon which liberal world hegemony relies to perpetuate itself.
In the nearly eighty years since the end of World War II, America became accustomed to its self-perceived post-colonial identity. Along with this came a peculiar outlook venerating trade and technological advancement rooted in the advantages it gained from them. These advantages were not shared by less dominant states. It should be unsurprising if technology and trade are less esteemed by newly re-ascendent world powers.
This is crucial in an era when autocratic states seem increasingly willing to initiate destructive wars to extend their borders and assert their sovereignty over territorial possessions. Today, it may behoove authoritarian states which cannot compete with the liberal world order for hegemony on its own terms to disrupt and destroy the bases from which the liberal world order receives its dominance. It may be foolish to perceive Russian interests in Ukraine or Chinese interests in Taiwan as likely to be deterred by detrimental impacts of global financial sanctions or disrupted global trade flows. Failure to understand this could be a grave error in judgment and an exceedingly costly mistake.
