>
>John Lewis Gaddis in “Now we Know” (a survey of the Cold War) also uses
>this language, writing about a Soviet garrison-state empire vs an
>American cooperative “empire.” The fact that we won the Cold War, but
>are still deeply involved in the security structures of a global
>American committment, says a lot about a) inertia and b) how beneficial
>to everyone, not just us, this transnational system of cooperation has
>become.
>
>Timothy L. Francis
>Historian
>Naval Historical Center
>email address: Francis.Timothy@nhc.navy.mil
>voice: (202) 433-6802
>
Hope I’m not killing a horse to kick, but I think there something to be said
in favor of precision in basic terms. I know both Lundestadt’s and Gaddis’
work and was thinking of Gaddis specifically when I made my post the other
day. Frankly I think the term “cooperative empire” is an oxymoron. The
reason nations throughout history have created empires is so they didn’t
have to cooperate. The Romans didn’t cooperate with the Gauls, they gave
them orders. If one was going to talk about an American “empire” in Central
America for the past century, I would be willing to listen. But surely there
must be a difference between coalition and empire. The fact that this web of
relationships between industrial nations continues despite the demise of the
Evil Empire underscores the point. We are now, as we have done in the past,
pursuing basic interests that we have always shared. If there comes a point
when those interests no longer coincide, the coalition will founder – just
as they have countless times in the past. There is something else to
consider. “Empire” has a negative tone in our world. Centuries ago gaining
an empire might get a king or queen the informal title of “The Great.”
Presently imperialism is very much out of fashion. The Cold War revisionists
that threw around terms of “new imperialism” when describing the US policy
after 1945 clearly meant it as a condemnnation or the US or as a means of
equating American and Soviet policy. (Remember “moral equivalency?”) If one
doesn’t like the term the “Free World” to describe the winners of the Cold
War, how about the “industrial democracies.” Whatever term one choses, it
describes a coalition, an alliance of a sort, not an empire.
Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930