Coming to Terms With the American

Empire
Geopolitical Weekly
APRIL 14, 2015
George Friedman
"Empire" is a dirty word. Considering the behavior of many empires, that is not unreasonable. But
empire is also simply a description of a condition, many times unplanned and rarely intended. It is
a condition that arises from a massive imbalance of power. Indeed, the empires created on
purpose, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, have rarely lasted. Most empires do not
plan to become one. They become one and then realize what they are. Sometimes they do not
realize what they are for a long time, and that failure to see reality can have massive
consequences.

World War II and the Birth of an Empire

The United States became an empire in 1945. It is true that in the Spanish-American War, the
United States intentionally took control of the Philippines and Cuba. It is also true that it began
thinking of itself as an empire, but it really was not. Cuba and the Philippines were the fantasy of
empire, and this illusion dissolved during World War I, the subsequent period of isolationism and
the Great Depression.
The genuine American empire that emerged thereafter was a byproduct of other events. There
was no great conspiracy. In some ways, the circumstances of its creation made it more powerful.
The dynamic of World War II led to the collapse of the European Peninsula and its occupation by
the Soviets and the Americans. The same dynamic led to the occupation of Japan and its direct
governance by the United States as a de facto colony, with Gen. Douglas MacArthur as viceroy.
The United States found itself with an extraordinary empire, which it also intended to abandon.
This was a genuine wish and not mere propaganda. First, the United States was the first antiimperial project in modernity. It opposed empire in principle. More important, this empire was a
drain on American resources and not a source of wealth. World War II had shattered both Japan
and Western Europe. The United States gained little or no economic advantage in holding on to
these countries. Finally, the United States ended World War II largely untouched by war and as
perhaps one of the few countries that profited from it. The money was to be made in the United
States, not in the empire. The troops and the generals wanted to go home.
But unlike after World War I, the Americans couldn't let go. That earlier war ruined nearly all of the
participants. No one had the energy to attempt hegemony. The United States was content to
leave Europe to its own dynamics. World War II ended differently. The Soviet Union had been
wrecked but nevertheless it remained powerful. It was a hegemon in the east, and absent the
United States, it conceivably could dominate all of Europe. This represented a problem for

Washington, since a genuinely united Europe whether a voluntary and effective federation or
dominated by a single country had sufficient resources to challenge U.S. power.
The United States could not leave. It did not think of itself as overseeing an empire, and it
certainly permitted more internal political autonomy than the Soviets did in their region. Yet, in
addition to maintaining a military presence, the United States organized the European economy
and created and participated in the European defense system. If the essence of sovereignty is the
ability to decide whether or not to go to war, that power was not in London, Paris or Warsaw. It
was in Moscow and Washington.
The organizing principle of American strategy was the idea of containment. Unable to invade the
Soviet Union, Washington's default strategy was to check it. U.S. influence spread through
Europe to Iran. The Soviet strategy was to flank the containment system by supporting
insurgencies and allied movements as far to the rear of the U.S. line as possible. The European
empires were collapsing and fragmenting. The Soviets sought to create an alliance structure out
of the remnants, and the Americans sought to counter them.

The Economics of Empire

One of the advantages of alliance with the Soviets, particularly for insurgent groups, was a
generous supply of weapons. The advantage of alignment with the United States was belonging
to a dynamic trade zone and having access to investment capital and technology. Some nations,
such as South Korea, benefited extraordinarily from this. Others didn't. Leaders in countries like
Nicaragua felt they had more to gain from Soviet political and military support than in trade with
the United States.
The United States was by far the largest economic power, with complete control of the sea,
basesaround the world, and a dynamic trade and investment system that benefitted countries that
were strategically critical to the United States or at least able to take advantage of it. It was at this
point, early in the Cold War, that the United States began behaving as an empire, even if not
consciously.
The geography of the American empire was built partly on military relations but heavily on
economic relations. At first these economic relations were fairly trivial to American business. But
as the system matured, the value of investments soared along with the importance of imports,
exports and labor markets. As in any genuinely successful empire, it did not begin with a grand
design or even a dream of one. Strategic necessity created an economic reality in country after
country until certain major industries became dependent on at least some countries. The obvious
examples were Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, whose oil fueled American oil companies, and which
therefore quite apart from conventional strategic importance became economically
important. This eventually made them strategically important.
As an empire matures, its economic value increases, particularly when it is not coercing others.
Coercion is expensive and undermines the worth of an empire. The ideal colony is one that is not
at all a colony, but a nation that benefits from economic relations with both the imperial power and

the rest of the empire. The primary military relationship ought to be either mutual dependence or,
barring that, dependence of the vulnerable client state on the imperial power.
This is how the United States slipped into empire. First, it was overwhelmingly wealthy and
powerful. Second, it faced a potential adversary capable of challenging it globally, in a large
number of countries. Third, it used its economic advantage to induce at least some of these
countries into economic, and therefore political and military, relationships. Fourth, these countries
became significantly important to various sectors of the American economy.

Limits of the American Empire

The problem of the American Empire is the overhang of the Cold War. During this time, the United
States expected to go to war with a coalition around it, but also to carry the main burden of war.
When Operation Desert Storm erupted in 1991, the basic Cold War principle prevailed. There was
a coalition with the United States at the center of it. After 9/11, the decision was made to fight in
Afghanistan and Iraq with the core model in place. There was a coalition, but the central military
force was American, and it was assumed that the economic benefits of relations with the United
States would be self-evident. In many ways, the post-9/11 wars took their basic framework from
World War II. Iraq War planners explicitly discussed the occupation of Germany and Japan.
No empire can endure by direct rule. The Nazis were perhaps the best example of this. They tried
to govern Poland directly, captured Soviet territory, pushed aside Vichy to govern not half but all of
France, and so on. The British, on the other hand, ruled India with a thin layer of officials and
officers and a larger cadre of businessmen trying to make their fortunes. The British obviously did
better. The Germans exhausted themselves not only by overreaching, but also by diverting troops
and administrators to directly oversee some countries. The British could turn their empire into
something extraordinarily important to the global system. The Germans broke themselves not
only on their enemies, but on their conquests as well.
The United States emerged after 1992 as the only global balanced power. That is, it was the only
nation that could deploy economic, political and military power on a global basis. The United
States was and remains enormously powerful. However, this is very different from omnipotence.
In hearing politicians debate Russia, Iran or Yemen, you get the sense that they feel that U.S.
power has no limits. There are always limits, and empires survive by knowing and respecting
them.
The primary limit of the American empire is the same as that of the British and Roman empires:
demographic. In Eurasia Asia and Europe together the Americans are outnumbered from
the moment they set foot on the ground. The U.S. military is built around force multipliers,
weapons that can destroy the enemy before the enemy destroys the relatively small force
deployed. Sometimes this strategy works. Over the long run, it cannot. The enemy can absorb
attrition much better than the small American force can. This lesson was learned in Vietnam and
reinforced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is a country of 25 million people. The Americans sent
about 130,000 troops. Inevitably, the attrition rate overwhelmed the Americans. The myth that
Americans have no stomach for war forgets that the United States fought in Vietnam for seven
years and in Iraq for about the same length of time. The public can be quite patient. The

mathematics of war is the issue. At a certain point, the rate of attrition is simply not worth the
political ends.
The deployment of a main force into Eurasia is unsupportable except in specialized cases when
overwhelming force can be bought to bear in a place where it is important to win. These
occasions are typically few and far between. Otherwise, the only strategy is indirect warfare:
shifting the burden of war to those who want to bear it or cannot avoid doing so. For the first years
of World War II, indirect warfare was used to support the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union
against Germany.
There are two varieties of indirect warfare. The first is supporting native forces whose interests
are parallel. This was done in the early stages of Afghanistan. The second is maintaining the
balance of power among nations. We are seeing this form in the Middle East as the United States
moves between the four major regional powers Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey
supporting one then another in a perpetual balancing act. In Iraq, U.S. fighters carry out air
strikes in parallel with Iranian ground forces. In Yemen, the United States supports Saudi air
strikes against the Houthis, who have received Iranian training.
This is the essence of empire. The British saying is that it has no permanent friends or permanent
enemies, only permanent interests. That old cliche is, like most cliches, true. The United States is
in the process of learning that lesson. In many ways the United States was more charming when
it had clearly identified friends and enemies. But that is a luxury that empires cannot afford.

Building a System of Balance

We are now seeing the United States rebalance its strategy by learning to balance. A global
power cannot afford to be directly involved in the number of conflicts that it will encounter around
the world. It would be exhausted rapidly. Using various tools, it must create regional and global
balances without usurping internal sovereignty. The trick is to create situations where other
countries want to do what is in the U.S. interest.
This endeavor is difficult. The first step is to use economic incentives to shape other countries'
behavior. It isn't the U.S. Department of Commerce but businesses that do this. The second is to
provide economic aid to wavering countries. The third is to provide military aid. The fourth is to
send advisers. The fifth is to send overwhelming force. The leap from the fourth level to the fifth is
the hardest to master. Overwhelming force should almost never be used. But when advisers and
aid do not solve a problem that must urgently be solved, then the only type of force that can be
used is overwhelming force. Roman legions were used sparingly, but when they were used, they
brought overwhelming power to bear.

The Responsibilities of Empire

I have been deliberately speaking of the United States as an empire, knowing that this term is
jarring. Those who call the United States an empire usually mean that it is in some sense evil.
Others will call it anything else if they can. But it is helpful to face the reality the United States is
in. It is always useful to be honest, particularly with yourself. But more important, if the United

States thinks of itself as an empire, then it will begin to learn the lessons of imperial power.
Nothing is more harmful than an empire using its power carelessly.
It is true that the United States did not genuinely intend to be an empire. It is also true that its
intentions do not matter one way or another. Circumstance, history and geopolitics have created
an entity that, if it isn't an empire, certainly looks like one. Empires can be far from oppressive.
The Persians were quite liberal in their outlook. The American ideology and the American reality
are not inherently incompatible. But two things must be faced: First, the United States cannot give
away the power it has. There is no practical way to do that. Second, given the vastness of that
power, it will be involved in conflicts whether it wants to or not. Empires are frequently feared,
sometimes respected, but never loved by the rest of the world. And pretending that you aren't an
empire does not fool anyone.
The current balancing act in the Middle East represents a fundamental rebalancing of American
strategy. It is still clumsy and poorly thought out, but it is happening. And for the rest of the world,
the idea that the Americans are coming will become more and more rare. The United States will
not intervene. It will manage the situation, sometimes to the benefit of one country and
sometimes to another.