“New” Imperialisms: the British and US Empires in Comparison* Julian Go Boston University [email protected] DRAFT submitted 6/12/09 Paper for CHS Mini-Conference “Past and Present,” Berkeley, CA, August 12, 2009* *This paper comes in part from a chapter in my book monograph-in-progress Cycles of Global Power: the US and British Imperial Formations in Comparative Perspective INTRODUCTION Charges of a “new imperialism” have proliferated amidst America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is usually meant to suggest that America is embarking upon a reinvigorated effort to dominate the globe. But in what sense, really, is this “new”? Some, like David Harvey, are more precise. While calling his book The New Imperialism, a large part of Harvey’s argument is that “…the ‘new imperialism’ appears as nothing more than a revisiting of the old, though in a different place and time.”1 Harvey argues that the US invasion of Iraq is a state strategy for dealing with the America’s crisis of overaccumulation. This is, presumably, what drove British imperialism in the late nineteenth century too. In this sense, America’s new imperialism is just a reproduction of Britain’s old imperialism. Still, if America’s so-called new imperialism can be seen as a reproduction of Britain’s old-style imperialism, we must remember that even Britain’s old-style imperialism was also referred to as a “new imperialism.” Britain’s imperial exercises in Africa and Asia beginning in the 1880s and carrying through the early 20th century was said to be a sort of “new imperialism.” So we actually have two ‘new imperialisms’: Britain’s in the late nineteenth century, and America’s today. This paper accordingly attempts to put these two ‘new’ imperialisms in comparative context. Such a comparison has often been summoned in existing discourse, as Harvey’s passing statements suggest, but less often mobilized. The point of this paper is to take one step in that direction. One thing is clear from the get-go: the so-called “new imperialism” of today is not exactly the same as Britain’s new imperialism in the late nineteenth century. Britain’s new imperialism entailed the direct seizure of foreign land for the purposes of colonial annexation. If we want to call what the US is doing in Iraq – or for that matter, in Afghanistan – “imperialism” (and I think we can), we must recognize that this imperialism is different in form. It is about military intervention and temporary military occupation; not permanent seizure and declaration of sovereignty. It is neo-colonialism rather than traditional colonialism. And today we would not expect the US, or any other power, to engage in old-style colonialism. As I have argued elsewhere, contemporary 1David Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford, 2003)., p. 182 1 conditions simply don’t allow it; the conditions of the global field tend to states – even the United States – away from it.2 Still, despite these differences, both British colonialism in the late nineteenth century and contemporary US military force can be treated analytically as imperialism. They are just different ways of exerting power over foreign territory; different tokens of the same imperial type. Therefore, in this paper I treat them as analytically equal phenomenon. I bracket the difference in form between the US and British imperialisms so that I can proceed to investigate deeper questions; specifically, questions of timing and of the causes. What are the forces that have unleashed the new imperialisms, both past and present? THE PROBLEM: NEW IMPERIALISMS? First, when we speak of “new” what exactly do we mean? Talk of new imperialisms surround both US imperialism today and British imperialism in the late nineteenth century, but in what sense? For scholars and critics of the British empire, the answer is clear: British imperialism in the late nineteenth century was “new” because, compared to previous decades, Britain had been comparably less colonialist. This is the premise of the very first theories of imperialism after all: Spencer and Hobson tired to explain British imperialism under the presumption that Britain was becoming more and more aggressive at the time. And a look at data suggests that, indeed, Britain embarked upon a rash of colonial annexations beginning in the late nineteenth century (see Fig. 1). From 1815 to the 1860s, Britain acquired comparably less colonies than it did from the 1870s onward. In quantity and rate, therefore, Britain’s imperialism was new beginning ca. 1870s. FIGURES 1 AND 2 HERE Can something similar be said of the US? Most commentators see the invasion of Iraq as “new” because, presumably, the US had not previously been so bold. It is true that it had been a long while since the US occupied a country as big and unwieldly as Iraq. And 2 Julian Go, "Global Fields and Imperial Forms: Field Theory and the British and American Empires," Sociological Theory 26 (2008). 2 probably since Vietnam, the US had not embarked upon such a major military invasion. But the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I would argue, does not capture America’s new imperialism. After all, the US had invaded Iraq in 1991. It had also conducted air raids later in the decade. The invasion in 2003 was only the tip of the iceberg. To be sure, we can consult some more data. As noted, Britain’s imperialism involved direct colonial rule, so colonial annexations is the best indicator. For the contemporary situation, though, we should use other indicators. And as suggested earlier, we can justifiably refer to instances of force abroad by the US; i.e. military deployments.3 If we go by this indicator, we can see that America’s new imperialism is indeed new; that the 2003 invasion of Iraq should be seen in this larger context (see Figure 2). Beginning in the 1980s, the US intervened abroad with higher frequency and more times than it did during the period 1946 to the 1970s. The first major intervention in the post-1970s period was the invasion of Grenada in 1983. Grenada marked the first major use of force since Vietnam. Also notable is the invasion of Panama in 1988. Panama was the largest military engagement of U.S. forces by that time since Vietnam, deploying some 24,000 troops. The 1980s saw interventions not only into Panama, Grenada, and Haiti but also small troop deployments to Chad, Sinai, Egypt, Libya, the Persian Gulf, and Lebanon. The 1990s saw a continuation. Besides the attack on Iraq in 1991 and continued strikes thereafter, the US sent troops to Somalia, Kuwait, Zaire, Bosnia, Croati, Sudan, and Nigeria. The US used military power twice in the Balkans and sent troops for an occupation mission. In 1993, President Clinton ordered US ships to embargo Haiti; in 1994 he decided to use 20,000 US troops to occupy the country. The last US troops did not leave Haiti for another six years (later, in 2004, US troops returned for yet another occupation). America has unleashed a “new” imperialism indeed, and it did not begin with Iraq in 2003. It is also notable that, in both cases, consciousness of empire rose during these periods. That is, talk of empire proliferated in both Britain and the US. This is hard to measure with exactness but major newspapers help. References to either “our empire” or 3 The use of military power, after all, is the most blatant way of exerting power over other states; hence it is a decent indicator. More specifically, it is a “last resort” type of imperialism, not unlike direct colonization. The idea is simple: more military aggression means more imperialistic aggression. It means a state has opted for a more direct type of imperialism, 3 the “British empire” exploded in The Times of London (see Figure 3). Something similar can be seen in the New York Times (see Figure 4). While, in the US, there is a peak in the 1980s and then a dip in the early 1990s, there is a sense from the data that talk of empire in the press was more prevalent, overall, in the period beginning the late 1970s through 2003 than during the previous decades. This trend mirrors the growth in military interventions. FIGURES 3 AND 4 HERE So what was driving these new imperialisms? To this question, a host of neo-Marxian explanations await: ranging from the initial theses on British imperialism by Hobson or later Lenin, to more recent arguments about US imperialism by Harvey, Arrighi, and Wallerstein. The explanations here are in fact multiple and at times divergent: is it overaccumulation and underconsumption at home that drives the state to be imperialistic? Or is it a global structural relation rather than a domestic condition: hegemonic decline and the rise of contenders force the ailing hegemon to look abroad in a vain effort to ward off its doom? Either explanation appears worthy of deeper attention considering the timing of the new imperialisms: in both cases, the new imperialism began as the hegemons were in decline and as both experienced overaccumulation. One could in fact construct a historical sequence here that would apply to both the US and England. First, hegemons at their height engage in less imperialism, as capitalists enjoy a comparative advantage over rivals and resort to market forces rather than military aggression or colonization to accumulate. But as that process of accumulation necessarily (or so the theory goes) leads to overaccumulation, financiers need fresh fields of investment and export capital overseas. At the same time, the hegemon declines because competitors emerge. The new imperialisms follow from this situation.