Dismantling The Empire

Mr. Chalmers Johnson is an astute thinker and well respected author. He has spent his life exploring and researching the inter-twined realms of Economics, International Relations, and Politics.
Here is an excerpt from his latest book:
 Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy. It may, for all we know, still be Hollywood's century decades from now, and so we may still make waves on the cultural scene, just as Britain did in the 1960s with the Beatles and Twiggy. Tourists will undoubtedly still visit some of our natural wonders and perhaps a few of our less scruffy cities, partly because the dollar-exchange rate is likely to be in their favor.

If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. Peering into that foggy future, I simply can't imagine the U.S. dismantling its empire voluntarily, which doesn't mean that, like all sets of imperial garrisons, our bases won't go someday.

Instead, I foresee the U.S. drifting along, much as the Obama administration seems to be drifting along in the war in Afghanistan. The common talk among economists today is that high unemployment may linger for another decade.  Add in low investment and depressed spending (except perhaps by the government) and I fear T.S. Eliot had it right when he wrote: "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." 

I have always been a political analyst rather than an activist. That is one reason why I briefly became a consultant to the CIA's top analytical branch, and why I now favor disbanding the Agency. Not only has the CIA lost its raison d'être by allowing its intelligence gathering to become politically tainted, but its clandestine operations have created a climate of impunity in which the U.S. can assassinate, torture, and imprison people at will worldwide.

Just as I lost interest in China when that country's leadership headed so blindly down the wrong path during the Cultural Revolution, so I'm afraid I'm losing interest in continuing to analyze and dissect the prospects for the U.S. over the next few years. I applaud the efforts of young journalists to tell it like it is, and of scholars to assemble the data that will one day enable historians to describe where and when we went astray.  I especially admire insights from the inside, such as those of ex-military men like Andrew Bacevich and Chuck Spinney. And I am filled with awe by men and women who are willing to risk their careers, incomes, freedom, and even lives to protest -- such as the priests and nuns of SOA Watch, who regularly picket the School of the Americas and call attention to the presence of American military bases and misbehavior in South America.

I'm impressed as well with Pfc. Bradley Manning, if he is indeed the person responsible for potentially making public 92,000 secret documents about the war in Afghanistan. Daniel Ellsberg has long been calling for someone to do what he himself did when he released the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. He must be surprised that his call has now been answered -- and in such an unlikely way. 

My own role these past 20 years has been that of Cassandra, whom the gods gave the gift of foreseeing the future, but also cursed because no one believed her. I wish I could be more optimistic about what's in store for the U.S.  Instead, there isn't a day that our own guns of August don't continue to haunt me.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire(2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), among other works.  

I was first introduced to Mr. Chalmers Johnson a few years ago. He was interviewed as part of the documentary Why We Fight. This Movie won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. (link @ right in Other Links)  After watching that movie I did an internet search of Mr. Johnson and found out more about this very interesting man. I found out about his Blowback Trilogy, and started reading. Here is an insight into Blowback in Mr. Johnson's own words: "In Blowback, I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept "blowback" does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when the retaliation comes - as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 - the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as a nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia - the area of my academic training - than on the Middle East."

The Second book in the trilogy The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic is also very interesting and enlightening. Here again I will defer to the authors thoughts: "The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I began to study our continuous military buildup since World War II and  the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries.  This empire of bases is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony,  and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true  purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners as Guantanamo Bay, brings them to our attention. But the people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization.

The third book in the trilogy is titled:
 Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. In this third installment of the series Mr. Johnson adds to our understanding of our situation going forward and I will again defer to the author for a greater understanding of his thinking: 
  “In Nemesis, I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behavior is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy.Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation.”


This series of books either separately 

 (as each was written as a 'stand alone' entity) or collectively 
 as a set, are an incredibly enlightening journey through modern history. Fleshed out in detail, analyzed from the insiders perspective, with the relevant details concerning many events never told of, or explained by our domestic politicians, and "talking heads". 
 This is a man who had the knowledge base, experience and "connections" to know what the relevant questions were to ask, and where to find the answers.  He backs up his thoughts and findings with the sources. His books have extensive and thorough footnotes and annotation. To put it in common parlance: He does his homework, and shows his work. 
 In summary, Chalmers Johnson and his Empire Series should be on everyones reading list.
Here is a link to Mr. Johnson's books @ alibris.com
Also here is a link to his books @ Amazon.com