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America: The New Roman Empire?
America: The New Roman Empire? by Peter Bender Peter Bender is a retired journalist and guest lecturer on postwar history at the Universities of Berlin and Rostock. His most recent book is Fall and Rise: Germany from the End of War to Division and Uni®cation (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2002). This article was translated from German by Andrew I. Port (Yale University).
W
hen politicians or professors are in need of a historical comparison in order to illustrate the United States' incredible might, they almost always think of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire included almost the entire then-known world; the United States dominates almost the entire globe since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Are the Americans the Romans of our time? The differences are inevitably what ®rst come to mind. One was a city-state that acquired everything by using weapons; the other is a federation that grew through settlement, purchase, and economic expansion. One was an aristocracy with full power of initiative; the other was started by a group of dynamic farmers, ship owners, merchants, gold miners, and adventurers. One exempli®es what a state is capable of; the other is proof of how much is possible without the state. There is a world of difference as well with respect to political ideals: the one peopled by pragmatists without any sense of ideology; the other by pragmatists with a missionary zeal for republican values, democracy, and human rights. The source of their power was quite different as well: political instinct, civic discipline, and military might on the one hand; entrepreneurial energy, economic power, and progressive technology on the other. And, in the end, their systems delivered different results: the one a monarchical empire, the other a democratic and economically-driven ``informal empire.'' In addition to all of this, a distance of two thousand years separates them. Geography The Americans and Romans nevertheless have a number of essential commonalties independent of time, place, or constitution, the ®rst of which is ß 2003 Foreign Policy Research Institute Published by Elsevier Science Limited. All rights reserved.
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BENDER a geopolitical one: Italy and the United States are not islands, but they nevertheless have long coastlines that were more important for their development than their inland borders. ``From the military point of view the United States must be considered as an insular nation,'' observed the Senate Committee for Naval Questions in 1940. ``We are separated from potential enemies on the east and west by broad and deep oceans. On our northern and southern borders are nations which have been friendly heretofore.''1 American and Roman security, policies, culture, and lifestyles were much less in¯uenced by their neighbors than by the fact that Italy and the United States are both surrounded by seas. Italy is a Mediterranean land, and the United States is on a continent separated from the rest of the world by the Atlantic and Paci®c. The word that Fernand Braudel coined for ``rather strictly isolated worlds'' applies to both: ``semi-islands.''2 But regardless of the nomenclature one prefersÐquasi, half, or semi-islandsÐthe in¯uence that this geographic situation had on its inhabitants was of historic importance: Romans and Americans were for a long time insular in their thoughts and feelings. The Americans, borrowing from the British, even have a word for this: ``isolationism.'' Seas protect. Islands and peninsulas are less vulnerable to foreign attack than inland states. Oceans distance islands from the outside world and give rise to the impression that threats are few. But one must ®rst establish rule over the ``island'' itself. Rome had laid claim to this by 279 BCE, at the very latest, when the Senate declared that it would only make peace with the intruder Pyrrhus once he had left Italy. With the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the Americans made themselves champion of the Americas against European colonialism. At the very latest following the end of the Civil War in 1865, they had obtained a degree of security hardly imaginable for most countries in any epoch: ``In the north a weak Canada, in the south a weak Mexico, in the east ®sh and in the west ®sh.''3 As ``islanders,'' Romans and Americans both thought in the same way: Italy belongs only to the Romans, America only to the Americans! The Senatorial decree of 279 BCE and the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 both became guiding principles in the respective foreign policies of Rome and Washington. As ``island'' states, both could develop for a long time without being seriously disturbed from beyond. When Rome entered the First Punic War in 264 BCE, it enjoyed the military power of all of Italy; Carthage and later the Hellenistic kings, who mainly used mercenaries, were not the equal of Rome. When America entered the First World War, it enjoyed the same industrial 1
U.S. Congress, Senate, 76th Congress, 3rd Sess., Report 1615 (To Accompany H.R. 8026), pp. 1±31. 2 Fernand Braudel, Das Mittelmeer und die mediterrane Welt in der Epoche Philipps II. (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 1990), p. 231. 3 Quote from Detlev Junker, Von der Weltmacht zur Supermacht (Mannheim: B.I.Taschenbuchverlag, 1995), p. 18.
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America and Rome output as Germany, England, and France combined. Even before world leadership fell to the Romans and Americans, their superiority over all other countries was unequalled. When they later extended their power to overseas territories, they shied away from assuming direct control wherever possible. Rome set up its ®rst province in Sicily, which lay dangerously nearby and which had only been conquered with great dif®culty; in addition, it only made into provinces, at least at ®rst, those acquisitionsÐSardinia, Corsica, and SpainÐinhabited by tribes lacking a ®rm state organization. In the Hellenistic world, however, where it encountered highly developed cities and states, it withdrew its legions after three wars and instead settled for a role as all-powerful patron and arbitrator. A half-century and four wars ®nally made Macedonia a province; in the following century, it ruled there mainly by imposition, by issuing threats, and later by applying the axiomatic divide und impera. Up through the late nineteenth century, the Senate in Washington rigorously rejected any form of annexation beyond the American continent. Such inhibitions ®rst disappeared during the war against Spain in 1898, when the United States annexed a series of islands in the Caribbean and Paci®c. But that was all. In fact, it gradually granted partial autonomy to its ®rst great colony, the Philippines, which became independent in 1946. The respective constitutions of Rome and the United States help explain the general propensity to control rather than govern. As a city-state republic, Rome was unable to administer an entire empire. The American federation could only expand by absorbing into the Union ``territories,'' already settled by Americans, as new states. Similarly, both also drew strict geographic and cultural lines between their Italian and North American possessions, on the one hand, and their overseas acquisitions, on the other, differentiating between populations that seemed capable of being Romanized or Americanized and those that were not. Both sought control over foreign islands and coastal regions for protection. For this reason, the Romans governed their acquisitions beyond the Italian peninsula as ``provinces,'' which were no more than military districts; settlement and the administration of justice developed gradually. The Americans called their annexations in the Caribbean and Paci®c ``territories,'' whichÐunlike the territories on the continentÐremained constitutional non-entities placed under the administration of the interior, naval, or war ministries, depending on the given situation. Hawaii, which was annexed in 1898, ®rst entered the Union in 1959, for example. The Romans and Americans retained their insular characteristic for centuries. Rome's campaigns outside of Italy may have brought glory and riches for the nobility and spoils for the little centurion, but both great and small alike only wanted to live in Italy; in fact, the systematic settlement of Roman citizens in the provinces ®rst began under Caesar. Italy slowly lost its core position during the imperial period, and then only completely around Winter 2003
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BENDER 300 CE under Diocletian. In Washington, isolationism no longer determines, but nevertheless continues to in¯uence, policy. Continental expanse, economic welfare, and the belief in the supremacy of the American way of life have all led to a sense of complacency and contentedness. Foreign policy continues to interest only a small elite of senators and experts except during the most extraordinary of times. For most Americans, their ``island'' remains an ``island.'' It is perhaps only possible for a nation that has long felt secure, thanks to the expanse of the seas, to doggedly seek strategic invulnerability, now for a second time, through the development of technological means such as missile defense. Wars The second great similarity between Americans and Romans is linked to the question of why both decided not to remain on their ``islands'' but instead deeply engage themselves, politically and militarily, beyond the protective seas. The answer is the same in both cases: the oceans ceased to offer protection, or so it seemed. The Romans concluded this during the First Punic War, which they were dragged into by carelessly responding to a dubious request for aid from Messina in Sicily. The Carthaginian navy pillaged the Italian coasts and spread feelings of unease among Rome's allies. Carthage could only be brought to heel at sea, and so for the ®rst time, the Romans were forced to build war ships. Finally victorious after twenty-three years of a war that had brought them close to exhaustion, they hoped to eliminate completely a future maritime threat. This led to the occupation of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, all in an attempt to rid the Carthaginian navy of its operating bases. Within a decade, however, the enemy was trying to build a new base in southern Spain (Cartagena). To keep her as far away as possible from Italy, the Senate not only tried to secure Greek ports in northern Spain, but also ordered the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal not to venture any farther north than the river Ebro. When his successor, the young and energetic Hannibal, nevertheless crossed the Ebro in an attempt to conquer northern Spain, Rome declared war, conquered Spain's eastern coast, and maintained control there for the same reason it had done so in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica: the Carthaginians were to be kept from a region that could pose a renewed threat to Italy, either by land or by sea. Soon after traumatically experiencing the vulnerability of their ``island,'' the Romans perceived the development of a new threat: eloquent Greeks from Pergamon and Rhodos dramatically claimed that the unscrupulous conquerors Philipp of Macedonia and Antiochos of Syria had entered a clandestine alliance, and that the resulting concentration of power would create a situation that was dangerous not only for the free states in the East 148
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America and Rome but also for Rome itself. The Roman city-state still had a score to settle with Philipp, one of Hannibal's erstwhile allies. The political elite reacted as it always had when a threat, however distant, appeared on the horizon. One year after its victory over Hannibal, Rome's Senate declared war on the Macedonian king, though it took two attempts for it to obtain the consent of the People's Assembly. Eight years later, the Roman Legions took to the battle®eld against the Syrian king, an action the Senate felt compelled to take after Antiochos had succumbed to temptation and promised to free the Greeks from Rome, thereby assuming the role of liberator in Greece. The peace conditions that the Senate secured after both wars achieved Italy's security vis-aÁ-vis the East. The defeated kings had to give up all of their acquisitions, send their crown princes to Rome as hostages, and disarm. The tendons of their war elephants were severed and their navies handed over; the ten ships that remained in Antiochos' possession were even forbidden access to the Aegean. The Americans ®rst concluded that they were no longer protected by the seas during the Second World War. Twenty-four years earlier, they had not so much entered as gotten caught up in the Great War. An initial U.S. position of strict neutrality had gradually given way to one of taking sides with the Entente. Only Germany's foolish proclamation of unrestricted submarine warfare forced them into declaring war. But that was not to happen a second time. Over the next two decades, the United States once again withdrew into its traditional insularity, refused to join the League of NationsÐthe brainchild of its own presidentÐand passed a series of laws that forbade the type of policies that had led to its involvement in the First World War: no weapons, no loans, and no arms deliveries on American ships to belligerent states! When the Second World War ®rst broke out, 84 percent of Americans opposed American involvement.4 But this attitude suddenly changed as the Axis gained initial victories. Europe under German rule and East Asia under Japanese rule meant an end to free world trade and, consequently, a threat to America's very foundations. The end of democracy in Europe called for the defense of civilization against barbarism. A world conquered by Hitler seemed to signal the end of America's century-old security as the Americans imagined what the Romans had experienced ®rsthand during the First Punic War: that the seas would provide, in President Roosevelt's words, ``highways'' for attackers.5 By April 1941, one of every two respondents polled by Fortune magazine believed that Hitler would be able to invade America if England were to fall and the British ¯eet were no longer to control the Atlantic.6 When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor that winter and Hitler declared war 4 The Gallup Poll, Public Opinion, 1935±1957, vol. I, 1935±1948 (New York, 1972) (date of interview: Aug. 30±Nov. 5, 1939). 5 Junker, Weltmacht, p. 57. 6 Fortune, April 1941, pp. 102±104.
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BENDER several days later, the United States entered a battle for which it had already been internally prepared. Following the victory over Hitler, and at a time when America could not get her ``boys'' back home fast enough, Stalin posed a new threat that seemed in many ways similar to the old one: a totalitarian Europe, removed from free world trade; a Europe that would give the Soviet Union enough power to threaten even America. As a result, the United States pledged a long-term defense of Western Europe by establishing NATO (withdrawal from the alliance was ®rst possible after twenty years). This represented a profound caesura in America foreign policy. During the world wars, the country had, of course, been militarily involved on other continents, but only for a limited time. Membership in the NATO military alliance, on the other hand, went against the almost holy tenet of refusing to enter ``entangling alliances'' overseas. The United States indivisibly tied the New World to the Old and, at the same time, committed itself to defending Japan. By 1950, the country had emerged from its splendid isolation, a policy that had allowed it to remain aloof for one and a half centuries from events that did not affect it directly. From an American perspective, the danger took on global dimensions after Mao Tse-tung's victorious entry into Peking, Kim Il-Sung's surprise attack on South Korea, and France's failure to deal effectively with Ho ChiMinh in Vietnam: the United States could now only oppose ``world communism'' worldwide, or so it thought. It dispatched its navy, set up military bases, and entered alliances not only in Europe but also throughout the entire world. Atomic weaponry became necessary for survival because the oceans were unable to protect America against Soviet intercontinental missiles; moreover, they could even become ``highways'' for submarines laden with missiles. The ``island'' was no longer invulnerable. For the ®rst time there was an enemy that could destroy it. World Power When one compares the American and Roman paths to world power, one notes a similarity distinguishing them from that of other great world empires. The American and Roman empires were not the creation of one great conqueror such as Alexander, Ghengis Khan, or Napoleon, whose empires grew quickly but then rapidly fell apart. Rome's and America's power increased slowly and steadily until each grew into a superpower that could no longer be resisted and was seen by many as a salvation. Whoever found themselves in a dif®cult situation called on Rome or Washington for assistance. Restricting itself to the ``island'' appeared to be less and less practical, yet only extraordinary challenges led to engagement beyond the protective seas; and only existential threats, real or imagined, would lead to long-term commitments in other countries and on other continents. 150
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America and Rome The decisive struggles that made world powers of both (America vs. the Soviet Union, Rome vs. Carthage) were essentially duels. In each case, the foes had sunk their teeth so deeply into one other that they no longer had complete control over their own decisions. ``We are both caught in an unholy and dangerous cycle,'' President Kennedy observed, ``in which suspicion on the one side engenders suspicion on the other, and in which new weapons lead again to new defensive weapons.''7 Rome and America both expanded in order to achieve security. Like concentric circles, each circle in need of security demanded the occupation of the next larger circle. The Romans made their way around the Mediterranean, driven from one challenge to their security to the next. The struggles against Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Japan brought the Americans to Europe and East Asia; the Americans soon wound up all over the globe, driven from one attempt at containment to the next. The boundaries between security and power politics gradually blurred. The Romans and Americans both eventually found themselves in a geographical and political position that they had not originally desired, but which they then gladly accepted and ®rmly maintained. Neither power, it would seem, corresponds to the distorted picture painted by their enemies or to the ideal portrait depicted by their admirers. They were neither world conquerors nor unwilling world powers. Special Traits Almost all states have security concerns and commercial interests, but not all become world powers. Only certain special characteristics can explain why a Latin state under Etruscan rule and why thirteen English colonies were able to reach the highest peak of power. In the American case, one ®rst thinks of its democratic constitution, which not only released great stores of energy but also gave its citizens opportunities that proved bene®cial to the state itself. The Roman state was able to function with its unwritten constitution in a way that a state seldom functions. In the decisive century between 264 and 168 BCE, it both developed and was able to focus energies that allowed Rome to survive the most dif®cult of times. Even if one is skeptical of Livius' pious histories or of jingoist ¯agwaving in the United States, one can still recognize a genuine constitutional patriotism on the part of both Romans and Americans. The steady immigration of especially active, entrepreneurial, and powerful individuals provided a permanent source of energy for the United States. Thomas Jefferson believed early on that rapid population increase would eventually encompass the entire northern continent, and perhaps the southern one as well. The Romans, for their part, created a masterpiece unmatched by anyone else in antiquity. Rome the city-state grew into an 7
Public Papers of the President 1963, p. 459.
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BENDER Italian territorial powerÐand eventually a territorial stateÐthrough incorporations, the extension of civic rights, the founding of colonies, and the creation of ``eternal'' alliances. No matter how different the paths they took and the forms they ultimately created, Americans and Romans provided their states with a broad-based population, in the absence of which their economic and military expansion would have been well-nigh unimaginable. But expansion required personal qualities as well. Regardless of how problematic ``folk-based'' psychological categories are, one can only understand America by focusing on its unmatched economic dynamism; Rome's secret of success was its political genius. But what unites both are their untamed energy, their refusal to be content with half measures, their determination to carry something out to its logical conclusion, and their conviction that anything can be achieved quickly if one only invests enough energy. The Americans at times had dif®culty sustaining the con¯ict with the Soviet Union because there was no end in sight; Polybios, who came to know Rome intimately during the second century BCE, criticized the Romans for wanting ``to achieve everything by force'' and thinking that ``anything they have set their hearts on can be achieved.''8 Americans and Romans aimed, wherever possible, for victoryÐand not for a negotiated peace; ``unconditional surrender'' was the equivalent of the deditio, according to which ``the Romans rule over all, the vanquished nothing.''9 Both claimed the unlimited right to render their enemies permanently harmless. The Japanese constitution, which was written by Americans, declares that Japan renounces ``forever'' the ``sovereign right'' to make war. Using the terminology of the Nuremberg Trials, the German Basic Law forbids the Federal Republic from preparing an offensive war. After the Second Punic War, Carthage was allowed to wage war only with Roman permission, and after the Second Macedonian War, Philipp was only permitted to travel north in order to ®ght against the barbarians. Finally, in perhaps the most important similarity, Romans and Americans both developed that sense for power in the absence of which one could not become a world power in the ®rst place. The logic of security for their respective ``islands'' led each to demand to rule over their ``islands.'' They became protective lords after each act of assistance provided to other states; in effect, they offered protection and gained control. The protected were mistaken when they assumed that they could use Rome or America to their own ends without suffering a partial loss of sovereignty. With increasing power grew the consciousness of power and the willingness to use it, as when Rome demanded that Antiochos IV abort his campaign for the conquest of Egypt. The Roman senator sent to tell Antiochos this drew a circle around him with a stick and told him he could only leave the circle once he gave the 8 9
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Polybios 1, 37, 7. Polybios 36, 4; Livius 1, 38, 1±2.
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America and Rome senator his answer. After brief hesitation, Antiochos promised to comply with Rome's demand. American senators and diplomats certainly don't go to such extremes, but one hears echoes of Antiochos and Egypt when they publicly exhort, warn, censor, and lecture, and when they make known almost everywhere they go that disobedience will lead to certain consequences. The conviction of the Romans that they had a calling to rule the worldÐalready recognizable beginning in the middle of the ®rst century BCEÐengendered a high degree of single-minded self-certainty. Americans act in the unswerving belief that their country has a world mission: if it's good for America, then it must be good for the entire world. William Fulbright's dictum about the ``arrogance of power'' had its corollary in the superbia of which Rome was accused by both friends and foes alike. Global Imperium When power is no longer limited by an adversarial power, power politics and the sense of one's own power reaches its greatest heights. After the battle of Pydna, which marked the ®nal victory over Macedonia in 168 BCE, no other state in the entire Mediterranean was in a position to challenge Rome. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States no longer has an enemy that must be feared. Rome and America both became the only world powers in their time, a situation unparalleled in world history except perhaps by China during certain epochs. Seriously endangered by no one, superior to all, almost always the more powerful in every relationship, hated by many, solicited by just as many for protection, even from friends less loved than used, but only accountable to itselfÐbeing the only world power creates a sense of giddiness. It allows for almost complete arbitrariness, but also calls for the greatest responsibility. No regime or nation can bear such a situation without undergoing changes and perhaps suffering damage. World powers without rivals are mainly concerned with making sure that no future rivals appear on the horizon. In Cicero's words, the Romans fought against some enemies in order to ensure Rome's existence (uter esset) and against others for power (uter imperaret).10 According to one de®nition of American national interests in 1996, two things had to be prevented above all: ®rst, an attack against America with atomic, biological, or chemical weapons; and second, the creation of a hostile hegemonic power in Europe or Asia.11 The securing of one's own existence is the ®rst requirement of all states; the second, howeverÐthe securing of one's own ruleÐis an imperative peculiar to dominant world powers. 10 11
Cicero Deof®ciis 1, 38. A report from The Commission on America's National Interests (Manuscript, 1996).
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BENDER Rome was always concerned with making sure that defeated enemies never rose again; this goal was accomplished with increasing brutality after the victory at Pydna. Macedonia was divided into quarters, the kingdom (which had produced an Alexander) dissolved, the last king incarcerated, 150,000 Epirotes enslaved, and 2,000 Greek hostages deported to Italy. Later, in the year 146, Rome ¯attened Carthage and brought about the destruction and enslavement of Corinth, the richest city in Greece. Future policy was aimed at making sure that everyone else remained small; those that managed to become even a little larger were reduced again in size. But even the status of being a satellite state became unbearable for some as a result, kings bequeathed their kingdoms to the Romans. Roman policies offered a prime example of the high-handed behavior of a state no longer inhibited by anything: destroying foes that no longer present any threat (Carthage became the victim of a historical complex) and punishing diplomatic insults as if they were a form of leÁse-majeste (the Roman envoy had been booed in Corinth). Rome strove for the maintenance and extension of its power solely for power's sake: the small and medium-sized powers in the East posed not even the smallest of threats to Italy's security. Washington's policies have also become gradually more stringent since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. America may not become as brutal as RomeÐan essential distinction for those affectedÐyet its increasing highhandedness as well as its primary goal of preventing the appearance of a rival nevertheless remind one of Rome. It relies on the other former Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, in order to place restrictions on Russia; it penetrates economically into the oil-rich regions of Central Asia, where it promotes non-Russian interests. It places limits on Russia in the West and extends its power over Europe by accepting the former Soviet satellites into NATO. It maintains its political and military position against China in Japan and South Korea and enjoys the fact that its presence is generally desired in most of these countries because it helps create stability. Prior to 9/11/01, power had also become a means to an end for the Americans. They no longer armed in order to frighten an enemy, but rather in order to assure that their military strength remained unrivaled. They maintained military bases throughout the world as if ``world communism'' still had to be contained. They spoke of a global order for which they supposedly had to provide, but to which they failed to adhere; instead, they laid claim to a privileged position above all other states in the world. They refused to join an international court of justice by arguing that they had special global responsibilities. Even before 1990 they ignored the United Nations, their own creation, when it came to minor disputes; they have done so since even when it came to war and peace, such as in the case of Yugoslavia. They shunt aside that which goes against their own interests or wishes: global humanitarian and ecological agreements just as much as disarmament treaties vital to world peace. 154
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America and Rome America after 9/11/01 All of that appears to have changed somewhat since the 9/11/01 attacks on America. In order to ®nd and punish those involved in the attacks and put a stop to terrorism, the United States sought the assistance of its allies and the benevolent patience of other countries. As a result, the world experienced a more conciliatory America. The United States sought understanding, took into consideration Russian and Chinese interests and concerns, and continually assured the Islamic world that it was not ®ghting against its religion but only against terrorists. Even the authority of the UN, which Washington has ignored in the past, has been solicited or invoked. It is questionable whether the post±9/11 attitude marks a fundamental change. Current circumstances need to be taken into account. How will America behave when the fear of terror disappears or tapers off? Nobody can con®dently answer that question. But historical experience suggests reason for doubt. Power can only be effectively and lastingly limited by an equal counter-powerÐand regardless of its awful and frightening effect, terrorism does not have the strength to change the habits of the world's ®rst state or its understanding of its own interests. America's power will ®rst be restricted when a multipolar world develops in which other states gradually become more powerful. Meanwhile, America will continue to use and demonstrate its superiority. No superior state manages to exercise more than enlightened power. A country that has nothing to fear does what suits itself best; its domestic policy determines its foreign policy. Caesar conquered Gaul in order to assert himself against his enemies in Rome. He who feels secure allows himself to wage civil war for ®fty-two years, from Marius and Sulla to Octavianus and Antonius. Democratic America has transformed civil war into election campaigns; along the way, foreign policy is simply forgotten during certain periods, regardless of what may be going on in the world. World powers without rivals are a class unto themselves. They do not accept anyone as an equal, and are quick to call loyal followers friends, or amicus populi Romani. They no longer know any foes, just rebels, terrorists, and rogue states. They no longer ®ght, merely punish. They no longer wage wars but merely create peace. They are honestly outraged when vassals fail to act like vassals. But world powers enjoy no real periods of rest even when they no longer have any rivals. Because they are the only ones whose power allows for the hope that problems will be solved, they are continually called upon and can seldom allow themselves to reject the requests, wishes, calls for aid, and demands that they use their power to provide for peace. If they fail to respond, their credibility becomes endangered, and, in consequence, their power as well. Yet involvement runs counter to their desires. One detects feelings of ambivalence in Rome as well as in Washington: on the one hand, Winter 2003
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BENDER one would like to remain undisturbed by quarrels among lesser powers, but on the other, one wants to maintain control. Prospects Long-lasting power is not only based on legionnaires, interventions, and investments. Culture must play a role as well, as it did in the case of both Rome and America. That this is so suggests another similarity. For a long time, both Rome and America remained dependent on their forefathers: ``Graecia capta Romam cepit,'' in Horace's wordsÐGreece, which had been conquered by sword, conquered Rome in turn with its spirit.12 Both Romans and Americans felt a mixture of awe and disdain for their models. The Roman aristocrats had spoken Greek since the second century BCE, but felt condescension toward the minor political quarrels that characterized relations among the ``little Greeks.'' The latter may have been able to sculpt better statues out of marble, but the Romans, for their part, had mastered the art of ruling the world.13 Up to the 1930s Americans went to Europe to become acquainted with traditional culture and the newest trends; today, they can only look on with frustration at the confusion of states that has brought about two great wars and which remains unable to deal effectively with minor trouble spots on its own continent. The Romans and Americans gradually emancipated themselves from their models, creating their own literature, arts, and sciences. They not only became independent but also came to set standards in some areas. And the more powerful they became, the more attractive the power became for intellectuals. In the end, the Romans Romanized the world, to the extent that it did not remain Greek; today the Americans have Americanized a good portion of the world and are trying to do so in the rest as well. They are a world power not only because they can reach every place on the globe militarily, but also because they have already done so with the products of their mass culture. But world powers do not remain world powers for eternity. There are three main reasons for their eventual downfall: new states or coalitions of states that become more powerful than they, overextension of their own power, and internal decay. Beginning in the middle of the fourth century, Rome faced both an invasion by primarily Germanic people and the challenge of a new major power, the Persian Sassanid Empire; the defensive struggle launched on almost all of its borders exceeded its human and material resources. But all of that ®rst occurred after Rome had been the sole world power for almost a half millennium. There will not be a single power or coalition of powers that could endanger America's imperial position, at least for the next two to three 12 13
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Epistulae 2, 1, 156. Vergil, Aeneas 6, pp. 847±53.
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America and Rome decades. Only China has the capacity, ambition, and desire to modernize necessary to challenge America's leading positionÐbut only if it ®rst overcomes its immense internal dif®culties. The danger for the United States lies less in the increasing strength of other states than in a reduction of its own power. Prescient individuals already warned against the overcommitment of the 1960s.14 And even before 9/11/01, America was facing the insurmountable challenge of having more foreign interests and responsibilities than it could effectively master. The war against terrorism has expanded U.S. power for the time being, but it can also weaken the United States in the long run. Maintaining a huge defense budget to ensure its military predominance, coupled with a multi-front global struggle that threatens to increase both the number and tenacity of its enemies, may possibly become too great a challenge even for such a strong and rich land. Over-extension is one danger, exhaustion the other. The axiomatic phrase ``conditions like in ancient Rome'' refers to the decline of those customs that had made Rome great in the ®rst place: a commitment to serving the respublica instead of pursuing personal interests, moderation instead of luxury, military discipline instead of softness. In short, it signi®es the loss of power through the loss of old virtues. Even Richard Nixon wandered at night among the columns of the Lincoln Memorial and the National Archives thinking about the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was RomeÐ of which nothing tangible remains today except for the columns. But, he thought, America had the vitality, strength, and health to avoid succumbing to the decadence that had destroyed the ancients.15 Less optimistically, Zbigniew Brzezinski later spoke of ``personal hedonism'' and a ``dramatic decline in values,'' observing ``parallels with the decline'' of earlier ``imperial systems,'' including the Roman one.16 For all their decadence, the Romans created an empire that lasted four to ®ve centuries, but they were only able to do so by changing their constitution. The Roman Republic ended as Rome became the Roman Empire; the aristocratic city-state could not effectively deal with ruling the world. Then the Augustinian monarchy could not survive the Germanic invasions (which began under Marc Aurel); the defense of the imperial borders called for forces and means that only the coercive state of late antiquity was still able to muster. The question now being discussed in America is whether the United States can remain a republic if it rules an empire. Can a republic and an empire go hand in hand? Some say that America is an empire and that it should openly 14
This idea surfaced during a number of conversations the author had during several visits to Harvard University in the mid-1960s. It received larger attention two decades later following the appearance of Paul Kennedy's major historical study, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Con¯ict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987). 15 Klaus Harpprecht, Zeit Magazin 11, 3, 1972. 16 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 212.
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BENDER recognize that fact. Lawrence S. Kaplan recommends that one read the ancient historians for helpful hints about navigating in today's world.17 Henry Kissinger dissents: The road to empire leads to domestic decay because, in time, the claims of omnipotence erode domestic restraints. No empire has avoided the road to Caesarianism unless, like the British Empire, it devolved its power before this process could develop. In long-lasting empires, every problem turns into a domestic issue because the outside world no longer provides a counterweight. . . . A deliberate quest for hegemony is the surest way to destroy the value that made the United States great.18
Do the parallels between Rome and America end here, or will they continue in an even more dramatic way? What is America today? The sole world power, surpassing and dominating all other states, or an empire in a form ®t for the times? Rome ruled by forging the orbis terrarum, the world at that time, into a single state; America rules by indirectly steering the world with as much soft power as possible and as much hard power as necessary.19 Ultimately, there can be no American ``world state,'' nor will there be an American renunciation of world power. One cannot foretell the exact path the United States will seek or whether it will remain the democracy it currently is. It is helpful, in this respect, to consider what differentiates the United States from the empire of antiquity. The Romans were able to rule their geographically limited world. The Americans have to deal with the entire globe: in some areas they have the say, in others they can only exert their in¯uence. Their client states are also stronger: France is no Bithynia, Germany no Pergamon, and Japan no Rhodos. Rome remained a sole great power for a very long time; America, on the other hand, expects a multipolar world in the foreseeable future, one shared by China, India, and perhaps Europe and even Russia again. Compared to the Pax Romana, the Pax Americana not only has far less reach but also less of a chance to exist. In the middle of the second century BCE, Polybios wondered whether Rome's empire was a blessing or a curse for humanity.20 It was both, ®rst a curse and then a blessing. Up until the imperial period, Rome's policies toward its provinces and client states proved thoroughly destructive; they had no aim, were not guided by morals, and meant centuries of misery for those subjected. Augustus' re-formation of the state ®rst led to the realization that power also meant responsibility. The violent pre-Augustan peace of metamorphosed into a peace that dispensed blessings. The ®rst, and even more so the second, century of the common era was one of the happiest epochs in world history. 17
New York Herald Tribune, Apr. 2, 2002. Henry A. Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 287±88. 19 On the idea of soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: the Changing Nature of American Power (Basic Books: New York, 1990). 20 Polybios 3, 4, 7. 18
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America and Rome The Americans areÐand wereÐhardly less inhibited than the Romans when it comes to using their military might. But they seldom act in as irresponsible a fashion as the Roman Republic did for a long time. America truly wants to bring the world peace, freedom, and welfare, as it claimsÐas long as this accords with its own interests. A democracy builds in greater restraint and self-control than an aristocracy or monarchy. Hardly a single annexation or act of violence by the United States took place without the government's ®rst having to overcome strong domestic opposition or without later being regretted. But this cannot be the last word on the subject, for we have only experienced the United States as a world power for a half century and as the sole world power for a mere twelve years. The containment of the Soviet Union now stands as one of its great achievements. What remains to be seen is the meaning of America's notion of a new world order and what it will mean in terms of gain and loss for humanity. We will only be able to determine this in hindsightÐthat is, once America is no longer the sole world power.
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W
hen politicians or professors are in need of a historical comparison in order to illustrate the United States' incredible might, they almost always think of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire included almost the entire then-known world; the United States dominates almost the entire globe since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Are the Americans the Romans of our time? The differences are inevitably what ®rst come to mind. One was a city-state that acquired everything by using weapons; the other is a federation that grew through settlement, purchase, and economic expansion. One was an aristocracy with full power of initiative; the other was started by a group of dynamic farmers, ship owners, merchants, gold miners, and adventurers. One exempli®es what a state is capable of; the other is proof of how much is possible without the state. There is a world of difference as well with respect to political ideals: the one peopled by pragmatists without any sense of ideology; the other by pragmatists with a missionary zeal for republican values, democracy, and human rights. The source of their power was quite different as well: political instinct, civic discipline, and military might on the one hand; entrepreneurial energy, economic power, and progressive technology on the other. And, in the end, their systems delivered different results: the one a monarchical empire, the other a democratic and economically-driven ``informal empire.'' In addition to all of this, a distance of two thousand years separates them. Geography The Americans and Romans nevertheless have a number of essential commonalties independent of time, place, or constitution, the ®rst of which is ß 2003 Foreign Policy Research Institute Published by Elsevier Science Limited. All rights reserved.
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BENDER a geopolitical one: Italy and the United States are not islands, but they nevertheless have long coastlines that were more important for their development than their inland borders. ``From the military point of view the United States must be considered as an insular nation,'' observed the Senate Committee for Naval Questions in 1940. ``We are separated from potential enemies on the east and west by broad and deep oceans. On our northern and southern borders are nations which have been friendly heretofore.''1 American and Roman security, policies, culture, and lifestyles were much less in¯uenced by their neighbors than by the fact that Italy and the United States are both surrounded by seas. Italy is a Mediterranean land, and the United States is on a continent separated from the rest of the world by the Atlantic and Paci®c. The word that Fernand Braudel coined for ``rather strictly isolated worlds'' applies to both: ``semi-islands.''2 But regardless of the nomenclature one prefersÐquasi, half, or semi-islandsÐthe in¯uence that this geographic situation had on its inhabitants was of historic importance: Romans and Americans were for a long time insular in their thoughts and feelings. The Americans, borrowing from the British, even have a word for this: ``isolationism.'' Seas protect. Islands and peninsulas are less vulnerable to foreign attack than inland states. Oceans distance islands from the outside world and give rise to the impression that threats are few. But one must ®rst establish rule over the ``island'' itself. Rome had laid claim to this by 279 BCE, at the very latest, when the Senate declared that it would only make peace with the intruder Pyrrhus once he had left Italy. With the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the Americans made themselves champion of the Americas against European colonialism. At the very latest following the end of the Civil War in 1865, they had obtained a degree of security hardly imaginable for most countries in any epoch: ``In the north a weak Canada, in the south a weak Mexico, in the east ®sh and in the west ®sh.''3 As ``islanders,'' Romans and Americans both thought in the same way: Italy belongs only to the Romans, America only to the Americans! The Senatorial decree of 279 BCE and the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 both became guiding principles in the respective foreign policies of Rome and Washington. As ``island'' states, both could develop for a long time without being seriously disturbed from beyond. When Rome entered the First Punic War in 264 BCE, it enjoyed the military power of all of Italy; Carthage and later the Hellenistic kings, who mainly used mercenaries, were not the equal of Rome. When America entered the First World War, it enjoyed the same industrial 1
U.S. Congress, Senate, 76th Congress, 3rd Sess., Report 1615 (To Accompany H.R. 8026), pp. 1±31. 2 Fernand Braudel, Das Mittelmeer und die mediterrane Welt in der Epoche Philipps II. (Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 1990), p. 231. 3 Quote from Detlev Junker, Von der Weltmacht zur Supermacht (Mannheim: B.I.Taschenbuchverlag, 1995), p. 18.
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America and Rome output as Germany, England, and France combined. Even before world leadership fell to the Romans and Americans, their superiority over all other countries was unequalled. When they later extended their power to overseas territories, they shied away from assuming direct control wherever possible. Rome set up its ®rst province in Sicily, which lay dangerously nearby and which had only been conquered with great dif®culty; in addition, it only made into provinces, at least at ®rst, those acquisitionsÐSardinia, Corsica, and SpainÐinhabited by tribes lacking a ®rm state organization. In the Hellenistic world, however, where it encountered highly developed cities and states, it withdrew its legions after three wars and instead settled for a role as all-powerful patron and arbitrator. A half-century and four wars ®nally made Macedonia a province; in the following century, it ruled there mainly by imposition, by issuing threats, and later by applying the axiomatic divide und impera. Up through the late nineteenth century, the Senate in Washington rigorously rejected any form of annexation beyond the American continent. Such inhibitions ®rst disappeared during the war against Spain in 1898, when the United States annexed a series of islands in the Caribbean and Paci®c. But that was all. In fact, it gradually granted partial autonomy to its ®rst great colony, the Philippines, which became independent in 1946. The respective constitutions of Rome and the United States help explain the general propensity to control rather than govern. As a city-state republic, Rome was unable to administer an entire empire. The American federation could only expand by absorbing into the Union ``territories,'' already settled by Americans, as new states. Similarly, both also drew strict geographic and cultural lines between their Italian and North American possessions, on the one hand, and their overseas acquisitions, on the other, differentiating between populations that seemed capable of being Romanized or Americanized and those that were not. Both sought control over foreign islands and coastal regions for protection. For this reason, the Romans governed their acquisitions beyond the Italian peninsula as ``provinces,'' which were no more than military districts; settlement and the administration of justice developed gradually. The Americans called their annexations in the Caribbean and Paci®c ``territories,'' whichÐunlike the territories on the continentÐremained constitutional non-entities placed under the administration of the interior, naval, or war ministries, depending on the given situation. Hawaii, which was annexed in 1898, ®rst entered the Union in 1959, for example. The Romans and Americans retained their insular characteristic for centuries. Rome's campaigns outside of Italy may have brought glory and riches for the nobility and spoils for the little centurion, but both great and small alike only wanted to live in Italy; in fact, the systematic settlement of Roman citizens in the provinces ®rst began under Caesar. Italy slowly lost its core position during the imperial period, and then only completely around Winter 2003
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BENDER 300 CE under Diocletian. In Washington, isolationism no longer determines, but nevertheless continues to in¯uence, policy. Continental expanse, economic welfare, and the belief in the supremacy of the American way of life have all led to a sense of complacency and contentedness. Foreign policy continues to interest only a small elite of senators and experts except during the most extraordinary of times. For most Americans, their ``island'' remains an ``island.'' It is perhaps only possible for a nation that has long felt secure, thanks to the expanse of the seas, to doggedly seek strategic invulnerability, now for a second time, through the development of technological means such as missile defense. Wars The second great similarity between Americans and Romans is linked to the question of why both decided not to remain on their ``islands'' but instead deeply engage themselves, politically and militarily, beyond the protective seas. The answer is the same in both cases: the oceans ceased to offer protection, or so it seemed. The Romans concluded this during the First Punic War, which they were dragged into by carelessly responding to a dubious request for aid from Messina in Sicily. The Carthaginian navy pillaged the Italian coasts and spread feelings of unease among Rome's allies. Carthage could only be brought to heel at sea, and so for the ®rst time, the Romans were forced to build war ships. Finally victorious after twenty-three years of a war that had brought them close to exhaustion, they hoped to eliminate completely a future maritime threat. This led to the occupation of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, all in an attempt to rid the Carthaginian navy of its operating bases. Within a decade, however, the enemy was trying to build a new base in southern Spain (Cartagena). To keep her as far away as possible from Italy, the Senate not only tried to secure Greek ports in northern Spain, but also ordered the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal not to venture any farther north than the river Ebro. When his successor, the young and energetic Hannibal, nevertheless crossed the Ebro in an attempt to conquer northern Spain, Rome declared war, conquered Spain's eastern coast, and maintained control there for the same reason it had done so in Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica: the Carthaginians were to be kept from a region that could pose a renewed threat to Italy, either by land or by sea. Soon after traumatically experiencing the vulnerability of their ``island,'' the Romans perceived the development of a new threat: eloquent Greeks from Pergamon and Rhodos dramatically claimed that the unscrupulous conquerors Philipp of Macedonia and Antiochos of Syria had entered a clandestine alliance, and that the resulting concentration of power would create a situation that was dangerous not only for the free states in the East 148
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America and Rome but also for Rome itself. The Roman city-state still had a score to settle with Philipp, one of Hannibal's erstwhile allies. The political elite reacted as it always had when a threat, however distant, appeared on the horizon. One year after its victory over Hannibal, Rome's Senate declared war on the Macedonian king, though it took two attempts for it to obtain the consent of the People's Assembly. Eight years later, the Roman Legions took to the battle®eld against the Syrian king, an action the Senate felt compelled to take after Antiochos had succumbed to temptation and promised to free the Greeks from Rome, thereby assuming the role of liberator in Greece. The peace conditions that the Senate secured after both wars achieved Italy's security vis-aÁ-vis the East. The defeated kings had to give up all of their acquisitions, send their crown princes to Rome as hostages, and disarm. The tendons of their war elephants were severed and their navies handed over; the ten ships that remained in Antiochos' possession were even forbidden access to the Aegean. The Americans ®rst concluded that they were no longer protected by the seas during the Second World War. Twenty-four years earlier, they had not so much entered as gotten caught up in the Great War. An initial U.S. position of strict neutrality had gradually given way to one of taking sides with the Entente. Only Germany's foolish proclamation of unrestricted submarine warfare forced them into declaring war. But that was not to happen a second time. Over the next two decades, the United States once again withdrew into its traditional insularity, refused to join the League of NationsÐthe brainchild of its own presidentÐand passed a series of laws that forbade the type of policies that had led to its involvement in the First World War: no weapons, no loans, and no arms deliveries on American ships to belligerent states! When the Second World War ®rst broke out, 84 percent of Americans opposed American involvement.4 But this attitude suddenly changed as the Axis gained initial victories. Europe under German rule and East Asia under Japanese rule meant an end to free world trade and, consequently, a threat to America's very foundations. The end of democracy in Europe called for the defense of civilization against barbarism. A world conquered by Hitler seemed to signal the end of America's century-old security as the Americans imagined what the Romans had experienced ®rsthand during the First Punic War: that the seas would provide, in President Roosevelt's words, ``highways'' for attackers.5 By April 1941, one of every two respondents polled by Fortune magazine believed that Hitler would be able to invade America if England were to fall and the British ¯eet were no longer to control the Atlantic.6 When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor that winter and Hitler declared war 4 The Gallup Poll, Public Opinion, 1935±1957, vol. I, 1935±1948 (New York, 1972) (date of interview: Aug. 30±Nov. 5, 1939). 5 Junker, Weltmacht, p. 57. 6 Fortune, April 1941, pp. 102±104.
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BENDER several days later, the United States entered a battle for which it had already been internally prepared. Following the victory over Hitler, and at a time when America could not get her ``boys'' back home fast enough, Stalin posed a new threat that seemed in many ways similar to the old one: a totalitarian Europe, removed from free world trade; a Europe that would give the Soviet Union enough power to threaten even America. As a result, the United States pledged a long-term defense of Western Europe by establishing NATO (withdrawal from the alliance was ®rst possible after twenty years). This represented a profound caesura in America foreign policy. During the world wars, the country had, of course, been militarily involved on other continents, but only for a limited time. Membership in the NATO military alliance, on the other hand, went against the almost holy tenet of refusing to enter ``entangling alliances'' overseas. The United States indivisibly tied the New World to the Old and, at the same time, committed itself to defending Japan. By 1950, the country had emerged from its splendid isolation, a policy that had allowed it to remain aloof for one and a half centuries from events that did not affect it directly. From an American perspective, the danger took on global dimensions after Mao Tse-tung's victorious entry into Peking, Kim Il-Sung's surprise attack on South Korea, and France's failure to deal effectively with Ho ChiMinh in Vietnam: the United States could now only oppose ``world communism'' worldwide, or so it thought. It dispatched its navy, set up military bases, and entered alliances not only in Europe but also throughout the entire world. Atomic weaponry became necessary for survival because the oceans were unable to protect America against Soviet intercontinental missiles; moreover, they could even become ``highways'' for submarines laden with missiles. The ``island'' was no longer invulnerable. For the ®rst time there was an enemy that could destroy it. World Power When one compares the American and Roman paths to world power, one notes a similarity distinguishing them from that of other great world empires. The American and Roman empires were not the creation of one great conqueror such as Alexander, Ghengis Khan, or Napoleon, whose empires grew quickly but then rapidly fell apart. Rome's and America's power increased slowly and steadily until each grew into a superpower that could no longer be resisted and was seen by many as a salvation. Whoever found themselves in a dif®cult situation called on Rome or Washington for assistance. Restricting itself to the ``island'' appeared to be less and less practical, yet only extraordinary challenges led to engagement beyond the protective seas; and only existential threats, real or imagined, would lead to long-term commitments in other countries and on other continents. 150
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America and Rome The decisive struggles that made world powers of both (America vs. the Soviet Union, Rome vs. Carthage) were essentially duels. In each case, the foes had sunk their teeth so deeply into one other that they no longer had complete control over their own decisions. ``We are both caught in an unholy and dangerous cycle,'' President Kennedy observed, ``in which suspicion on the one side engenders suspicion on the other, and in which new weapons lead again to new defensive weapons.''7 Rome and America both expanded in order to achieve security. Like concentric circles, each circle in need of security demanded the occupation of the next larger circle. The Romans made their way around the Mediterranean, driven from one challenge to their security to the next. The struggles against Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Japan brought the Americans to Europe and East Asia; the Americans soon wound up all over the globe, driven from one attempt at containment to the next. The boundaries between security and power politics gradually blurred. The Romans and Americans both eventually found themselves in a geographical and political position that they had not originally desired, but which they then gladly accepted and ®rmly maintained. Neither power, it would seem, corresponds to the distorted picture painted by their enemies or to the ideal portrait depicted by their admirers. They were neither world conquerors nor unwilling world powers. Special Traits Almost all states have security concerns and commercial interests, but not all become world powers. Only certain special characteristics can explain why a Latin state under Etruscan rule and why thirteen English colonies were able to reach the highest peak of power. In the American case, one ®rst thinks of its democratic constitution, which not only released great stores of energy but also gave its citizens opportunities that proved bene®cial to the state itself. The Roman state was able to function with its unwritten constitution in a way that a state seldom functions. In the decisive century between 264 and 168 BCE, it both developed and was able to focus energies that allowed Rome to survive the most dif®cult of times. Even if one is skeptical of Livius' pious histories or of jingoist ¯agwaving in the United States, one can still recognize a genuine constitutional patriotism on the part of both Romans and Americans. The steady immigration of especially active, entrepreneurial, and powerful individuals provided a permanent source of energy for the United States. Thomas Jefferson believed early on that rapid population increase would eventually encompass the entire northern continent, and perhaps the southern one as well. The Romans, for their part, created a masterpiece unmatched by anyone else in antiquity. Rome the city-state grew into an 7
Public Papers of the President 1963, p. 459.
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BENDER Italian territorial powerÐand eventually a territorial stateÐthrough incorporations, the extension of civic rights, the founding of colonies, and the creation of ``eternal'' alliances. No matter how different the paths they took and the forms they ultimately created, Americans and Romans provided their states with a broad-based population, in the absence of which their economic and military expansion would have been well-nigh unimaginable. But expansion required personal qualities as well. Regardless of how problematic ``folk-based'' psychological categories are, one can only understand America by focusing on its unmatched economic dynamism; Rome's secret of success was its political genius. But what unites both are their untamed energy, their refusal to be content with half measures, their determination to carry something out to its logical conclusion, and their conviction that anything can be achieved quickly if one only invests enough energy. The Americans at times had dif®culty sustaining the con¯ict with the Soviet Union because there was no end in sight; Polybios, who came to know Rome intimately during the second century BCE, criticized the Romans for wanting ``to achieve everything by force'' and thinking that ``anything they have set their hearts on can be achieved.''8 Americans and Romans aimed, wherever possible, for victoryÐand not for a negotiated peace; ``unconditional surrender'' was the equivalent of the deditio, according to which ``the Romans rule over all, the vanquished nothing.''9 Both claimed the unlimited right to render their enemies permanently harmless. The Japanese constitution, which was written by Americans, declares that Japan renounces ``forever'' the ``sovereign right'' to make war. Using the terminology of the Nuremberg Trials, the German Basic Law forbids the Federal Republic from preparing an offensive war. After the Second Punic War, Carthage was allowed to wage war only with Roman permission, and after the Second Macedonian War, Philipp was only permitted to travel north in order to ®ght against the barbarians. Finally, in perhaps the most important similarity, Romans and Americans both developed that sense for power in the absence of which one could not become a world power in the ®rst place. The logic of security for their respective ``islands'' led each to demand to rule over their ``islands.'' They became protective lords after each act of assistance provided to other states; in effect, they offered protection and gained control. The protected were mistaken when they assumed that they could use Rome or America to their own ends without suffering a partial loss of sovereignty. With increasing power grew the consciousness of power and the willingness to use it, as when Rome demanded that Antiochos IV abort his campaign for the conquest of Egypt. The Roman senator sent to tell Antiochos this drew a circle around him with a stick and told him he could only leave the circle once he gave the 8 9
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Polybios 1, 37, 7. Polybios 36, 4; Livius 1, 38, 1±2.
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America and Rome senator his answer. After brief hesitation, Antiochos promised to comply with Rome's demand. American senators and diplomats certainly don't go to such extremes, but one hears echoes of Antiochos and Egypt when they publicly exhort, warn, censor, and lecture, and when they make known almost everywhere they go that disobedience will lead to certain consequences. The conviction of the Romans that they had a calling to rule the worldÐalready recognizable beginning in the middle of the ®rst century BCEÐengendered a high degree of single-minded self-certainty. Americans act in the unswerving belief that their country has a world mission: if it's good for America, then it must be good for the entire world. William Fulbright's dictum about the ``arrogance of power'' had its corollary in the superbia of which Rome was accused by both friends and foes alike. Global Imperium When power is no longer limited by an adversarial power, power politics and the sense of one's own power reaches its greatest heights. After the battle of Pydna, which marked the ®nal victory over Macedonia in 168 BCE, no other state in the entire Mediterranean was in a position to challenge Rome. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States no longer has an enemy that must be feared. Rome and America both became the only world powers in their time, a situation unparalleled in world history except perhaps by China during certain epochs. Seriously endangered by no one, superior to all, almost always the more powerful in every relationship, hated by many, solicited by just as many for protection, even from friends less loved than used, but only accountable to itselfÐbeing the only world power creates a sense of giddiness. It allows for almost complete arbitrariness, but also calls for the greatest responsibility. No regime or nation can bear such a situation without undergoing changes and perhaps suffering damage. World powers without rivals are mainly concerned with making sure that no future rivals appear on the horizon. In Cicero's words, the Romans fought against some enemies in order to ensure Rome's existence (uter esset) and against others for power (uter imperaret).10 According to one de®nition of American national interests in 1996, two things had to be prevented above all: ®rst, an attack against America with atomic, biological, or chemical weapons; and second, the creation of a hostile hegemonic power in Europe or Asia.11 The securing of one's own existence is the ®rst requirement of all states; the second, howeverÐthe securing of one's own ruleÐis an imperative peculiar to dominant world powers. 10 11
Cicero Deof®ciis 1, 38. A report from The Commission on America's National Interests (Manuscript, 1996).
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BENDER Rome was always concerned with making sure that defeated enemies never rose again; this goal was accomplished with increasing brutality after the victory at Pydna. Macedonia was divided into quarters, the kingdom (which had produced an Alexander) dissolved, the last king incarcerated, 150,000 Epirotes enslaved, and 2,000 Greek hostages deported to Italy. Later, in the year 146, Rome ¯attened Carthage and brought about the destruction and enslavement of Corinth, the richest city in Greece. Future policy was aimed at making sure that everyone else remained small; those that managed to become even a little larger were reduced again in size. But even the status of being a satellite state became unbearable for some as a result, kings bequeathed their kingdoms to the Romans. Roman policies offered a prime example of the high-handed behavior of a state no longer inhibited by anything: destroying foes that no longer present any threat (Carthage became the victim of a historical complex) and punishing diplomatic insults as if they were a form of leÁse-majeste (the Roman envoy had been booed in Corinth). Rome strove for the maintenance and extension of its power solely for power's sake: the small and medium-sized powers in the East posed not even the smallest of threats to Italy's security. Washington's policies have also become gradually more stringent since the Soviet Union ceased to exist. America may not become as brutal as RomeÐan essential distinction for those affectedÐyet its increasing highhandedness as well as its primary goal of preventing the appearance of a rival nevertheless remind one of Rome. It relies on the other former Soviet republics, especially Ukraine, in order to place restrictions on Russia; it penetrates economically into the oil-rich regions of Central Asia, where it promotes non-Russian interests. It places limits on Russia in the West and extends its power over Europe by accepting the former Soviet satellites into NATO. It maintains its political and military position against China in Japan and South Korea and enjoys the fact that its presence is generally desired in most of these countries because it helps create stability. Prior to 9/11/01, power had also become a means to an end for the Americans. They no longer armed in order to frighten an enemy, but rather in order to assure that their military strength remained unrivaled. They maintained military bases throughout the world as if ``world communism'' still had to be contained. They spoke of a global order for which they supposedly had to provide, but to which they failed to adhere; instead, they laid claim to a privileged position above all other states in the world. They refused to join an international court of justice by arguing that they had special global responsibilities. Even before 1990 they ignored the United Nations, their own creation, when it came to minor disputes; they have done so since even when it came to war and peace, such as in the case of Yugoslavia. They shunt aside that which goes against their own interests or wishes: global humanitarian and ecological agreements just as much as disarmament treaties vital to world peace. 154
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America and Rome America after 9/11/01 All of that appears to have changed somewhat since the 9/11/01 attacks on America. In order to ®nd and punish those involved in the attacks and put a stop to terrorism, the United States sought the assistance of its allies and the benevolent patience of other countries. As a result, the world experienced a more conciliatory America. The United States sought understanding, took into consideration Russian and Chinese interests and concerns, and continually assured the Islamic world that it was not ®ghting against its religion but only against terrorists. Even the authority of the UN, which Washington has ignored in the past, has been solicited or invoked. It is questionable whether the post±9/11 attitude marks a fundamental change. Current circumstances need to be taken into account. How will America behave when the fear of terror disappears or tapers off? Nobody can con®dently answer that question. But historical experience suggests reason for doubt. Power can only be effectively and lastingly limited by an equal counter-powerÐand regardless of its awful and frightening effect, terrorism does not have the strength to change the habits of the world's ®rst state or its understanding of its own interests. America's power will ®rst be restricted when a multipolar world develops in which other states gradually become more powerful. Meanwhile, America will continue to use and demonstrate its superiority. No superior state manages to exercise more than enlightened power. A country that has nothing to fear does what suits itself best; its domestic policy determines its foreign policy. Caesar conquered Gaul in order to assert himself against his enemies in Rome. He who feels secure allows himself to wage civil war for ®fty-two years, from Marius and Sulla to Octavianus and Antonius. Democratic America has transformed civil war into election campaigns; along the way, foreign policy is simply forgotten during certain periods, regardless of what may be going on in the world. World powers without rivals are a class unto themselves. They do not accept anyone as an equal, and are quick to call loyal followers friends, or amicus populi Romani. They no longer know any foes, just rebels, terrorists, and rogue states. They no longer ®ght, merely punish. They no longer wage wars but merely create peace. They are honestly outraged when vassals fail to act like vassals. But world powers enjoy no real periods of rest even when they no longer have any rivals. Because they are the only ones whose power allows for the hope that problems will be solved, they are continually called upon and can seldom allow themselves to reject the requests, wishes, calls for aid, and demands that they use their power to provide for peace. If they fail to respond, their credibility becomes endangered, and, in consequence, their power as well. Yet involvement runs counter to their desires. One detects feelings of ambivalence in Rome as well as in Washington: on the one hand, Winter 2003
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BENDER one would like to remain undisturbed by quarrels among lesser powers, but on the other, one wants to maintain control. Prospects Long-lasting power is not only based on legionnaires, interventions, and investments. Culture must play a role as well, as it did in the case of both Rome and America. That this is so suggests another similarity. For a long time, both Rome and America remained dependent on their forefathers: ``Graecia capta Romam cepit,'' in Horace's wordsÐGreece, which had been conquered by sword, conquered Rome in turn with its spirit.12 Both Romans and Americans felt a mixture of awe and disdain for their models. The Roman aristocrats had spoken Greek since the second century BCE, but felt condescension toward the minor political quarrels that characterized relations among the ``little Greeks.'' The latter may have been able to sculpt better statues out of marble, but the Romans, for their part, had mastered the art of ruling the world.13 Up to the 1930s Americans went to Europe to become acquainted with traditional culture and the newest trends; today, they can only look on with frustration at the confusion of states that has brought about two great wars and which remains unable to deal effectively with minor trouble spots on its own continent. The Romans and Americans gradually emancipated themselves from their models, creating their own literature, arts, and sciences. They not only became independent but also came to set standards in some areas. And the more powerful they became, the more attractive the power became for intellectuals. In the end, the Romans Romanized the world, to the extent that it did not remain Greek; today the Americans have Americanized a good portion of the world and are trying to do so in the rest as well. They are a world power not only because they can reach every place on the globe militarily, but also because they have already done so with the products of their mass culture. But world powers do not remain world powers for eternity. There are three main reasons for their eventual downfall: new states or coalitions of states that become more powerful than they, overextension of their own power, and internal decay. Beginning in the middle of the fourth century, Rome faced both an invasion by primarily Germanic people and the challenge of a new major power, the Persian Sassanid Empire; the defensive struggle launched on almost all of its borders exceeded its human and material resources. But all of that ®rst occurred after Rome had been the sole world power for almost a half millennium. There will not be a single power or coalition of powers that could endanger America's imperial position, at least for the next two to three 12 13
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Epistulae 2, 1, 156. Vergil, Aeneas 6, pp. 847±53.
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America and Rome decades. Only China has the capacity, ambition, and desire to modernize necessary to challenge America's leading positionÐbut only if it ®rst overcomes its immense internal dif®culties. The danger for the United States lies less in the increasing strength of other states than in a reduction of its own power. Prescient individuals already warned against the overcommitment of the 1960s.14 And even before 9/11/01, America was facing the insurmountable challenge of having more foreign interests and responsibilities than it could effectively master. The war against terrorism has expanded U.S. power for the time being, but it can also weaken the United States in the long run. Maintaining a huge defense budget to ensure its military predominance, coupled with a multi-front global struggle that threatens to increase both the number and tenacity of its enemies, may possibly become too great a challenge even for such a strong and rich land. Over-extension is one danger, exhaustion the other. The axiomatic phrase ``conditions like in ancient Rome'' refers to the decline of those customs that had made Rome great in the ®rst place: a commitment to serving the respublica instead of pursuing personal interests, moderation instead of luxury, military discipline instead of softness. In short, it signi®es the loss of power through the loss of old virtues. Even Richard Nixon wandered at night among the columns of the Lincoln Memorial and the National Archives thinking about the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was RomeÐ of which nothing tangible remains today except for the columns. But, he thought, America had the vitality, strength, and health to avoid succumbing to the decadence that had destroyed the ancients.15 Less optimistically, Zbigniew Brzezinski later spoke of ``personal hedonism'' and a ``dramatic decline in values,'' observing ``parallels with the decline'' of earlier ``imperial systems,'' including the Roman one.16 For all their decadence, the Romans created an empire that lasted four to ®ve centuries, but they were only able to do so by changing their constitution. The Roman Republic ended as Rome became the Roman Empire; the aristocratic city-state could not effectively deal with ruling the world. Then the Augustinian monarchy could not survive the Germanic invasions (which began under Marc Aurel); the defense of the imperial borders called for forces and means that only the coercive state of late antiquity was still able to muster. The question now being discussed in America is whether the United States can remain a republic if it rules an empire. Can a republic and an empire go hand in hand? Some say that America is an empire and that it should openly 14
This idea surfaced during a number of conversations the author had during several visits to Harvard University in the mid-1960s. It received larger attention two decades later following the appearance of Paul Kennedy's major historical study, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Con¯ict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987). 15 Klaus Harpprecht, Zeit Magazin 11, 3, 1972. 16 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 212.
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BENDER recognize that fact. Lawrence S. Kaplan recommends that one read the ancient historians for helpful hints about navigating in today's world.17 Henry Kissinger dissents: The road to empire leads to domestic decay because, in time, the claims of omnipotence erode domestic restraints. No empire has avoided the road to Caesarianism unless, like the British Empire, it devolved its power before this process could develop. In long-lasting empires, every problem turns into a domestic issue because the outside world no longer provides a counterweight. . . . A deliberate quest for hegemony is the surest way to destroy the value that made the United States great.18
Do the parallels between Rome and America end here, or will they continue in an even more dramatic way? What is America today? The sole world power, surpassing and dominating all other states, or an empire in a form ®t for the times? Rome ruled by forging the orbis terrarum, the world at that time, into a single state; America rules by indirectly steering the world with as much soft power as possible and as much hard power as necessary.19 Ultimately, there can be no American ``world state,'' nor will there be an American renunciation of world power. One cannot foretell the exact path the United States will seek or whether it will remain the democracy it currently is. It is helpful, in this respect, to consider what differentiates the United States from the empire of antiquity. The Romans were able to rule their geographically limited world. The Americans have to deal with the entire globe: in some areas they have the say, in others they can only exert their in¯uence. Their client states are also stronger: France is no Bithynia, Germany no Pergamon, and Japan no Rhodos. Rome remained a sole great power for a very long time; America, on the other hand, expects a multipolar world in the foreseeable future, one shared by China, India, and perhaps Europe and even Russia again. Compared to the Pax Romana, the Pax Americana not only has far less reach but also less of a chance to exist. In the middle of the second century BCE, Polybios wondered whether Rome's empire was a blessing or a curse for humanity.20 It was both, ®rst a curse and then a blessing. Up until the imperial period, Rome's policies toward its provinces and client states proved thoroughly destructive; they had no aim, were not guided by morals, and meant centuries of misery for those subjected. Augustus' re-formation of the state ®rst led to the realization that power also meant responsibility. The violent pre-Augustan peace of metamorphosed into a peace that dispensed blessings. The ®rst, and even more so the second, century of the common era was one of the happiest epochs in world history. 17
New York Herald Tribune, Apr. 2, 2002. Henry A. Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), pp. 287±88. 19 On the idea of soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: the Changing Nature of American Power (Basic Books: New York, 1990). 20 Polybios 3, 4, 7. 18
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America and Rome The Americans areÐand wereÐhardly less inhibited than the Romans when it comes to using their military might. But they seldom act in as irresponsible a fashion as the Roman Republic did for a long time. America truly wants to bring the world peace, freedom, and welfare, as it claimsÐas long as this accords with its own interests. A democracy builds in greater restraint and self-control than an aristocracy or monarchy. Hardly a single annexation or act of violence by the United States took place without the government's ®rst having to overcome strong domestic opposition or without later being regretted. But this cannot be the last word on the subject, for we have only experienced the United States as a world power for a half century and as the sole world power for a mere twelve years. The containment of the Soviet Union now stands as one of its great achievements. What remains to be seen is the meaning of America's notion of a new world order and what it will mean in terms of gain and loss for humanity. We will only be able to determine this in hindsightÐthat is, once America is no longer the sole world power.
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