Global Assertion, Soft and Hard

This chapter analyzes America’s global assertion in the post–Cold War period. This assertion has followed both economic and military pathways. The imposition of the Washington Consensus on Latin American countries is an example of economic assertion. The United States was moved in this direction to first rescue highly indebted American banks and then to roll back statist models of economic development in the region. Economic benefits to the United States were considerable. Latin American countries experienced a lost decade of growth, followed by some resumption of growth, but were still mainly dependent on commodity exports. Hard militarism in the Middle East has been motivated by goals that were vaguer but included establishing primacy over an oil-rich region. The results have been at best, mixed. The war in Iraq was very costly. A half million Iraqis died. The benefits to the United States are not obvious and Iraq struggles to be a functioning state under American influence.

Varieties of Colonialism

British colonialism in India was prolonged and deep. By contrast, British rule in Africa, including in Nigeria, was relatively short and superficial. This chapter analyzes the motives, mechanisms, and impact of British colonialism by comparing these two experiences. The economic importance of India to Britain was far greater than that of Nigeria. Crown rule over India was established with brutal force and sustained via despotic institutions of rule. The Scramble for Africa was sparked by growing competition among European powers, but the economic context was also important. The British left behind moderately well-functioning state institutions in India but an impoverished economy, in which the life expectancy of an average Indian was thirty-two years. In Nigeria both the state and the economy that the British left behind were seriously underdeveloped.

Seeking Influence Abroad

Born an anticolonial nation, the United States burst upon the global scene as an imperial power at the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter analyzes the American expansion into the Caribbean, Central America, and Pacific Asia. When the United States became a major industrial power in the late nineteenth century, it sought profit and power overseas, especially new economic opportunities. The United States experimented with colonialism but settled on creating stable but subservient regimes in peripheral countries as the main mechanism of control. Benefits to the United States included gains in trade, opportunities for foreign investments, and profitable loans. Countries under US influence, including the Philippines, Cuba, and Nicaragua, experienced some economic growth but became commodity exporters with sharp inequalities and poor-quality governments.

The East India Company

The motives, mechanisms, and the impact of the East India Company’s rule over India (from the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century) are analyzed. The key motive behind East India Company operations in India was the extraction of economic resources. The central mechanism of establishing rule was coercion used to defeat resistance by the traditional Indian elite. As for the impact, the evidence is overwhelming that the activities of the East India Company in India benefited Britain at India’s expense. The British gained from the East India Company via the transfer of Indian resources for private and public uses. The East India Company also helped establish a colonial pattern of trade during the first half of the nineteenth century. The negative impact on India was transmitted especially via the misuse of Indian savings—savings that may have been invested more productively within India—and via the destruction of indigenous manufacturing.

Introduction

WHEN THE UNITED States invaded Iraq in 2003, American decision-makers expected to depose Saddam Hussein quickly, install a friendly regime, and leave. The Iraq War did not follow that script. Instead, the United States confronted Iraqi nationalism. A prolonged occupation followed. Although most of the US troops left in 2011, American efforts to shape Iraq continue. During the occupation, American critics of US intervention in Iraq compared it to Vietnam. Senator Edward Kennedy suggested that Iraq was another “quagmire,” a term often used during the American war in Vietnam. While these were serious comparisons, they ignored deeper historical parallels. Great Britain created Iraq after World War I by piecing together the outlying provinces of the former Ottoman Empire. British efforts to turn Iraq into an India-style colony then met swift resistance from Arab nationalists, nearly a century ago. London had to order the bombing of Iraq in 1920 to defeat this indigenous opposition. Instead of turning Iraq into a formal colony, Britain installed a pliable Arab monarch, who allowed British troops and advisers to stay and who pursued pro-British policies. Britain’s informal empire in Iraq lasted well into the 1950s. The parallels between the US and British experiences in Iraq run even deeper: both expected to be welcomed as liberators to Iraq, but were not; both denied that they had any interest in Iraqi oil, but that was a lie; and, while promising to bring progress, both wreaked havoc on Iraq....

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the study concerning the motives that drove British and American imperialism, their respective mechanisms of rule, and the impact of their global expansion, especially on the global periphery. The main motive that drove both the hegemonic powers of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries to expand overseas was to enhance their respective national prosperity. While Britain pursued both formal and informal empire, the United States settled mainly for the latter. Britain and the United States pursued formal empire when they could but accepted informal control when they met resistance. The impact of colonialism was more pernicious than that of informal empire. Colonies were exploited by metropolitan countries for their own advantage and seldom experienced economic growth. Countries under informal sway did experience more growth but failed to create diversified economies. Whether emerging China is also developing an informal empire is explored at the end.

Fighting Third World Nationalism

This chapter analyzes American interventions in the developing world during the Cold War. While a struggle against communism provided the context of the interventions in Iran, Vietnam, and Chile, the deeper motive was to dislodge nationalists who challenged American design to create a worldwide open economy order. The mechanisms varied, from covert coups in Iran and Chile to hard militarism in Vietnam. The benefits to the United States also varied; it experienced nominal success in Chile but a costly defeat in Vietnam. Democracy in both Iran and Chile was derailed, and both countries remained commodity exporters under American tutelage. By contrast, a repressive communist regime came to control Vietnam that has successfully pursued an economic program of industrialization and poverty alleviation.

Britain’s Informal Empire

This chapter analyzes Britain’s informal empire in Argentina, Egypt, and China during the nineteenth century. The evidence is overwhelming that Britain’s primary concern in these regions was economic gain, without force if possible, but with force if necessary. The main mechanism of influence was to create and sustain stable-but-subservient governments in the peripheral countries. Once such regimes were established in client states, informal empire was sustained via a degree of cooperation between the metropolitan and the peripheral elite. The British gained handsomely from such arrangements, especially because they facilitated profitable trade, investments, and loans. Peripheral countries in turn experienced some economic growth but the pattern of development was lop-sided; these countries became commodity exporters without undergoing much industrialization.