Fall of Rome, Fall of America? I. America: An Empire to Rival Rome

    Just like the Roman Empire fell, so too are we living in an age of darkness where soon we will see the demise of the American Empire.  It's a popular belief, at least amongst non-academics, journalist, non ancient historian academics, or pretty much any liberal (and rarely conservatives) who foam at the mouth at the thought of America crumbling.  So of course, why not smear America by comparing it to an Empire which, though once renowned throughout the world, eventually crumbled to barbarians?  The biggest problem, however, is that these comparisons can not be made!  In fact, I would challenge anybody to find a single, credible, ancient historian who has written a book about the subject (an ancient historian being an academic whose job it is to study ancient Greece or Rome).  Thus I have taken up a new task: the task to examine any article I can find which tries to compare the fall of Rome to the "fall" of America, and show through historical proof why this comparison is invalid.

    The first article I found came from a special six-part series from the BBC entitled, "The Age of Empire". Part one of the series, entitled "America: An Empire to Rival Rome?"  was written by  Jonathan Marcus.  It was difficult to find out any information on Mr. Marcus, except that he is simply either a BBC News Correspondent, a Defense Correspondent, or a Diplomatic Correspondent.  His list of articles include such liberal slurticles as, "A Small Matter of Crusader History" (an attempt at, by semi-reviewing the film Kingdom of Heaven, showing how Islam is justified in its current war with the West because, of course, we started it all), "The Long Shadow of Vietnam" (an attempt to show how the Iraq War is like the Vietnam war, and thus dangerous, wrong, and impossible to win), "The Politics of Missile Defense"   (an attempt to show how the current desire by the US, Britain, and other Western nations to develop a missile defense shield is wrong), and many other articles of such a nature.  With an understanding of his point-of-view, or bias, what exactly does he say about America and Rome?

    After a quote by President Bush, Mr. Marcus states, "But despite his insistence that the US has no imperial ambitions, the word "empire" is increasingly used by academics and pundits alike when talking about America's role in the world."  What academics is he talking about?  If he is talking about Philosophers, English Professors, Sociologist, Political Scientist, or Cultural Anthropologist-of course they would say something like that.  But what about Ancient Historians?  Thus my challenge.  And the pundits, of course, are those to whom I am offering a criticism.  Notice the "weight" he places upon the rest of his article by stating that "academics and pundits" are backing him.

    He continues, "The young British historian Niall Ferguson, for example, had no doubts.'The United States,' he said, 'is an empire in every sense but one, and that one sense is that it doesn't recognise itself as such.' He called it 'an empire in denial.' "  Niall Ferguson-a historian.  Now he cites a source!  But who is Niall Ferguson?  From his own website, Niall states that his, "...research is principally focused on nineteenth- and twentieth-century subjects, with an emphasis on economic and especially financial history. He has subsidiary interests in international relations and military conflict. He continues to be interested in the use of counterfactuals in historical explanation."  Not an ancient historian.  What has he written?  His publications includes works such as "Virtual History" , a hypothetical look at "what if?" scenarios,  "Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power", a work which tries to compare the rise and fall of the British Empire with that of America, "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire", an attempt to show that America has always been an imperial power "in denial", and "The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West", an attempt to redefine the Twentieth-Century based upon ethnic conflict (The New Yorker even claims: "Unfortunately, the book as a whole is marred by sweeping judgments and jarring contradictions."). Two things are clear from this: the author has a history of trying to discredit America and the West, and he has never written about Rome. Thus Mr. Marcus conveniently wedged this "distinguished" historian in to lend some kind of "credence" to his article.  Let's completely ignore his opinion and move on.

    How could a liberal slurticle be complete without some kind of reference to the Clinton Utopia?  It's funny how Mr. Marcus's next "expert", the "dissenting" voice, still finds a way to slur America.  "Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, found the notion of the US as an empire 'grotesque, bizarre or laughable, depending upon what mood I'm in and who says it'. He said that, if anything, it was an anti-empire. 'There is no interest among American people to set themselves up as an imperial power.'"  It is possible to even gloss over this "counter-example" as well; this "authority" says nothing of value (but hey, he is being fair by offering a "different perspective"...right?).

    Mr. Marcus continues, of course, to "qualify" the authority of both himself and his position by throwing around "experts" who really don't say anything.  Mr. Marcus states, "For others, like Michael Mandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, America's current position is unique - there simply is not an adequate word to describe it. As he put it: 'Empire is not quite right but it seems to be closer than anything else we have in common usage, so we employ it.' "  Translation? "This guy works at the John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, and even though he doesn't say anything definite, the sheer weight of his authority will convince you that I know what I am talking about".

    Thus, with his "credence" established, Mr. Marcus actually begins to get to the meat of his argument.  His first topic?  Globalization. In this section he tries to prove how and why America is an empire; indeed, his arguments make sense.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, with no other superpower in the world, American Capitalism was spread to all corners of the globe.  However, this hardly qualifies America as an "Empire" in the same way that the Late Roman Empire was (we do not own or govern most of the world; the spread of McDonald's and Starbucks does not equate to the spread of Centurions, Chinese consumers are free to go to Wal-Mart or their local competitor, and French youth have a choice to watch an American or French movie).  So yes, this is a fact that everyone can agree on-American culture is spreading to the rest of the world; Zimbabwean culture is not.  Yet in true liberal fashion, Mr. Marcus takes an established fact and then creates a straw man; the evils of President Bush and the Iraq War.  He "calms" our emotions with his statement, "But it was the tragedy of 11 September which presented America's position in a stark new light.", but then totally disregards this statement by proclaiming, "Many people believe that it was from the rubble of the towers that a more assertive and ideological foreign policy emerged. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded. President Bush proclaimed a new doctrine of pre-emptive military action".  9-11 was a tragedy-destroying those responsible is pre-emptive military action?  Of course a new ideology arose.  Post 9-11, America abandoned the horrendous insanity of Clinton-era appeasement and began to defend herself against our enemies.  But I forget; to the liberals, we must sit in a corner and beg for mercy while taking as many blows as possible...to defend ourselves is "imperialism" (Interestingly enough, some modern historians cite the rise of Rome, when it was a Republic, due to the exact same means.  The only difference?  Rome kept the land of her enemies while America returned it.  Both, however, sought peace, but defended themselves against any barbarian or semi-civilized society who threatened their way of life).

    And now comes the comparison.  How exactly is America like Rome?  Continuing on from globalization, he states, "The Romans with their language, currency and the spread of Roman citizenship perhaps foreshadowed an early form of globalisation."  Of course it did.  What's wrong with that?  Rome brought peace, stability, sanitation, medicine, technology, philosophy, literature, roads, citizenship, rights, representation in government, and an overall better standard of living to people who once sat around campfires skinning deer and dancing to their mystical deities (in fact, as Thomas Sowell states in his excellent book, "Conquests and Cultures: An International History", it took well over 1000 years or more for Europe to return to the standard of living it enjoyed under Rome's form of globalization).  Similarly, areas which once were the hallowed grounds of Native American tribes who had not even approached the technology or standard of living of ancient Egypt, 5000 years before them, America transformed into highly successful, clean areas to live; in effect, transporting these areas 5000 years into the future.  Ultimately, I buy this comparison, yet still do not see any evidence for the demise of America.

   Finally, at the end of his slurticle, does the bad news appear.  What spells the doom for America?  Unilateralism.  Here he brings up another "expert", Joseph Nye of the Kennedy School of Government.  Who is Joseph Nye?  A liberal foreign policy "expert".  Wikipedia even states that he worked for both the Carter and Clinton Administrations.  His bias then, of course, is to slur and destroy America.  Mr. Marcus states, concerning Dr. Nye, "He argues that in terms of issues like countering transnational terrorism, dealing with the spread of infectious diseases, global climate change, international financial stability, none can be managed by any one country. The message for US policy-makers, he says, is simple. 'We are the strongest nation the world has seen for some two millennia and yet we can't get what we want by acting alone'".  And now we have come full circle.  America is an "empire", leader of the new globalized world, comparable to ancient Rome in her influence, yet must enslave herself to the whims of petty dictators and fading liberal powers.  Yet as any serious historian knows, it was not unilateralism which destroyed Rome, but (among many other factors) appeasement to the "others".  At the end of the Roman Empire, by not following her own best interests, Rome caved in and appeased the marauding barbarian tribes, even allowing them to live within her very borders in exchange for peace (hmm Israel...)! 

  Reaching the end, I was struck with the most bizarre feeling that Mr. Marcus did not say anything at all.  He throws around big-named "experts", briefly speaks of subjects expecting his (assumed) liberal audience to understand, and then comforts them at the end by showing that the liberal position is the only cure for our impending doom. In all fairness to him, though, this is only one article out of a six-part series comparing the demise of Rome to the "end" of America.  So far, however, a few things are clear: his bias is obviously hyper-liberal anti-Americanism, not a single one of his "authorities" are experts in Roman history, the true comparisons are good things (globalization, the spread of freedom and representative government, capitalism), and his solution(s) is a ludicrous call for self-destruction.  Indeed, if one truly were to ring the alarmist bell of comparison between Rome and America, the comparison would not lie with the current trend of American foreign policy or economics, but the self-destructive wishes of the effete liberals.  Yet even then, I have the confidence that the American people and their optimistic, benevolent sense of life, will not crumble under the leadership of the liberals, but will continue to prosper for hundreds of years to come.

Comments

[Jeff]

Nice! Keep up the good work:)

[Jason Roberts]

Thanks Jeff!

I'm waiting for another article from you ;).

[Jeff]

I'll be sure to attempt one after my finals:)

Vale, meus amicus!

[Ville]

You really quite horribly miss the mark with Ferguson, though I agree with you in other ways (I believe if you read his books, you'd actually agree with him. Or rather, he'd seem to agree with you. Just because someone uses out-of-context quotes from a brilliant historian to prove his point doesn't mean that the brilliant historian is wrong).

Also if you study Roman history very closely, you'll notice how few centurions there actually were around during the republican time - especially before the Marian reforms. Only thing that was significantly different between the US and republican Rome in this regard was the fact that Rome could levy taxes. Of course the difference between a country paying interest on a loan or taxes is pretty much semantics in this instance.