America's virtual empire: U.S. soldiers are great warriors, but unwilling imperial guards. If we want to secure our interests, we must draw on other sources of power

Washington Monthly, Nov, 2003 by Wesley (American computer scientist) Clark

Last March, somewhere in Kuwait, the troops of the 101st Airborne Division gathered the last of their gear onto trucks that would carry them into war. They were a magnificent sight. All in uniform, taut and fit, talking quietly; their weapons slung over their shoulders; their rucksacks hung neatly along the trucks' rails. The scene reeked of training and discipline, the quiet professionalism of soldiers who have prepped for months and years, who know their moment is at hand. No scene showed more clearly the achievements of the all-volunteer force or the distance our Army had come since the trying days of Vietnam.

In the days that followed, performance lived up to appearance and reputation. Driving through the dust and grit, fighting to clear the built-up areas of Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla, and later surging into the far north of Iraq to work with the Kurds, the 101st burnished the reputation of the American man-of-arms. Fighting, as did those who fought alongside them, with skill, courage, and compassion, controlling their firepower to minimize civilian casualties and limit the destruction of local roads and buildings, this compelling image of force sprang on its nation's citizens, and the world's, like the genie emerging from Aladdin's lamp--unexpected, almost magically powerful.

But they were not only the world's most overwhelming military force. Their presence embodied a powerful political message. As the 101st's troops carved their way through the desert landscape and overcame scattered resistance, they signaled a new American assertiveness, a willingness to risk lives and treasure for our beliefs. The U.S. military was so superior as to be virtually unchallengeable on the field of battle. Perhaps not since the Roman Empire had a single state's power under arms so dominated every possible opponent. In Iraq, the destruction and dismemberment of the enemy's army had been accomplished with vast U.S. capabilities left over. This was a military that could rewrite the boundaries of what force could achieve. This was an armed force that made a new kind of empire appear inevitable. And many foreign policy theorists in and around the White House and the office of the secretary of defense were putting forward the idea that America should embrace its destiny as a new imperial power, using military force as the chief tool to create a more democratic and pro-American world order.

On the eve of conflict with Iraq, President Bush appeared to agree. "A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region," he argued in a televised address to the nation last February. "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace." The president's vision brought pride to America, reflecting self-confidence in our worth and the superiority of our values. But it all came down to success on the ground: success not just in the military sense, after all, but in a broader sense, one articulated by the president during the last two years. This was to be a new America, reborn from adversity and threat, reaching out constructively to the world, liberating peoples, reforming a vital region," enabling the emergence of a new, universal morality, and taking advantage of this unique window of American military dominance to secure into the foreseeable furore our security and safety. A Pax Americana--and maybe even more--was to fall into place around the globe: a dizzying journey from the "more humble" foreign policy to which Bush had aspired during the 2000 campaign.

But today, such a mission appears to be hanging in the balance. Certainly the United States retains a preponderance of resources--if it can bring them to bear. There is no opposing superpower to stoke the opposition in Iraq, as we did a generation earlier to the Soviets in Afghanistan. But the occupation has thus far failed to meet popular Iraqi expectations in restoring security and minimal economic standards; Saddam Hussein has evaded capture for months; Baathist elements remain hostile; al Qaeda and other Islamic fighters continue to infiltrate the country; and daily sniping attacks, bombings, and ambushes are inflicting more casualties each week upon our people. This resistance is, of course, far from sufficient to defeat the U.S. military on the ground. But it nevertheless casts a deepening shadow.

Our difficulties in Iraq are not just evidence of careless planning for the postwar--though they are that. More fundamentally, they call into question the whole theory that America is capable of--or that it is in our interest to create--an empire founded on force of arms. The American military has never been and probably cannot be made into an imperial force along neo-Roman lines. This is not to say that America lacks sufficient power to defend its interests in the world, including spreading values such as democracy and free-market economics. We've had that power for decades, and wielded it successfully. But while a powerful military has been vital, the chief means of our influence has been an interlocking web of international institutions and arrangements, from NATO to the World Bank to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This network of mutual interdependence, though marginalized by the Bush administration, was largely devised by America, which has also been its chief beneficiary. It is, for all practical purposes, a kind of empire--but to use a contemporary term, a virtual one. Properly used and expanded, it can he the secret to a secure and prosperous future.