Posted on 10/26/2005 2:23:13 AM PDT by Eurotwit
WHAT DOES MODERN HISTORY have to teach us about the age of American empire? The final chapters of the British Empire offer lessons and parallels aplenty. Empires don't last forever, and the combination of martial victory, popular ennui, and liberal anti-patriotism is a dangerous mix for a superpower.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the British Empire was an unopposed hyperpower (much as the United States has been since 1989). As historian Colin Cross observes: "In terms of influence it was the only world power." The British people and their leaders accepted this fact. In the early 1930s, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin pronounced that "the British Empire stands firm, as a great force for good." Historian William Manchester argues that "most of the crown's subjects, abroad as well as at home, felt comfortable with imperialism."
But after the conclusion of the first World War, Britain's imperial psyche began to fracture. "After the survivors of the Western front came home," Manchester writes, "Britons wanted nothing more to do with war; most of them hoped never again to lay their eyes on an Englishman in uniform, and they were losing their taste for Empire." Winston Churchill despaired of this change. "The shadow of victory is disillusion," he noted. "The reaction from extreme effort is prostration. The aftermath even of successful war is long and bitter."
A deep desire to avoid conflict, even at the price of letting the Empire dissolve, permeated British society. In 1931, the House of Commons passed the Statute of Westminster, the
first step toward independence for Britain's dominions. In 1932, a poll found that 10.4 million Britons supported England's unilateral disarmament, while only 870,000 opposed it. Historian Alistair Horne observes that, after World War I, it took just about 10 years for the "urge for national grandeur" to be replaced by "a deep longing simply to be left in peace."
Why did it all crumble? Several interrelated reasons - among them the grisly fact that England had lost virtually an entire generation of future leaders in the trenches of Europe. But another important cause was the waning of confidence on the part of liberal British elites, whose pacifism evolved into anti-patriotism.
In 1933, the Oxford Union - a debating society and one of the strongholds of liberal elite opinion - held a debate on the resolution "this House will in no circumstances fight for king and country." The resolution passed. Margot Asquith, one of England's leading liberal lights, wrote that same year, quite sincerely: "There is only one way of preserving peace in the world, and getting rid of your enemy, and that is to come to some sort of agreement with him. . . . The greatest enemy of mankind today is hate."
Churchill disdained the new liberalism, mocking one of his opponents as part of "that band of degenerate international intellectuals who regard the greatness of Britain and the stability and prosperity of the British Empire as a fatal obstacle. . . . " So deep was this liberal loathing of empire that even as the first shots of World War II were being fired, Churchill's private secretary, Jock Colville, witnessed at a theater "a group of bespectacled intellectuals" who, to his shock, "remain[ed] firmly seated while 'God Save the King' was played."
These elites could see evil only at home. The French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir did not believe that Germany was a "threat to peace," but instead worried that the "panic that the Right was spreading" would drag France, Britain, and the rest of Europe into war. Stafford Cripps, a liberal Labor member of Parliament, feared not Hitler, but Churchill. Cripps wrote that after Churchill became prime minister he would "then introduce fascist measures and there will be no more general elections."
In an important sense, the British Empire's strength failed because its elite liberal citizens stopped believing in it.
The parallels with 21st-century America are striking. In little more than 10 years, England went from victory in World War I to serious discussions about completely disarming herself. Talk of a "peace dividend" began with the fall of the Berlin Wall and culminated 10 years later with a major draw-down of forces and the abandonment of the two-war doctrine.
Where the Great War robbed England of a generation of its best and brightest, in America the baby boom generation was lost in Vietnam or, perhaps worse, in Canada, in the Air National Guard, and in the universities, where they learned to hide and not lead. This has taken its toll. Our two baby boom presidents have been exceedingly imperfect. (As Edmund Burke once cautioned, "A great empire and little minds go ill together.")
The American left, too, eerily echoes its British counterparts. Consider the "Peace is Patriotic" bumper stickers; the howls of protest against the nomination of
John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, for fear that he might be too assertive of American values; the comparison - by Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) - of American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet gulag; the protest cries of "No blood for oil" and the left-wing fringe speculation that the endgame of George W. Bush's 9/11 fear-mongering would be to cancel elections and establish a fascist police state.
The liberal opponents of the British Empire were proved wrong, but their misplaced disillusionment was enough to sap the vitality of imperial confidence. After rising one last time to fight Nazism, the sun set on the British Empire.
Likewise, it is pleasant to believe that the crisis of confidence in today's liberal elites won't affect the outcome of our war with Islamist extremism. The greater worry concerns what happens next. Will protestations of liberal elites become mainstream diffidence about America's place in the world? Will we, too, stop believing that America stands firm, as a great force for good - and then see our place in the world diminish?
History, it turns out, can be both a comfort and a caution.
Liberals (Progressives) should make their own private peace with Castro, China and the Muslims.....and then go a live among them.
Too late. It's already done and very little hope of turning back. We are a half step behind the rest of the socialist countries and don't realize the danger.
The question will be if it is a real advantage to be a hyper-power. Those benefits have to be paid with a huge amount of blood and money. Therefore I have many doubts in the case of the British (colonial) Empire, since it existed just for selfish reasons. Even for America as a real "good" hyperpower it would be much easier if the rest of the civilized world would take over some of its burdens. Since power never should end in itself it will be a permanent question if the circumstances justify the effort of being a superpower.
This group, of course, was no more for peace than our present bedwetters and Islamosymps, rather they were (and are) against America itself.
George W. Bush's 9/11 fear-mongering
It's not fearmongering when the homeland is attacked, 3,000 are killed (in an attempt to kill 50,000 or more), the financial center left in ruins, military headquarters attacked and a shadowy enemy promising more, much more, of the same.
I disagree with a lot that W has done, but I'm with him 100% in the WOT. If that means empire, so be it.
I think hegemony is a better word than empire, at least in terms of America's ambitions.
Kinda' says it all, doesn't it . . .
"after World War I, it took just about 10 years for the 'urge for national grandeur' to be replaced by 'a deep longing simply to be left in peace.'"Yes. And Britain had neither national grandeur nor peace. Even worse, her abandonment of power left the world vulnerable to the power-hungry predators of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union.
Britain and the rest of the world paid a heavy price for the foolishness of her anti-patriotic Leftists and those foolish enough to follow them.
"another important cause was the waning of confidence on the part of liberal British elites, whose pacifism evolved into anti-patriotism."And history repeats itself in contemporary America.
The Left's misguided commitment to pacifism and internationalism, which they myopically equate to high morality, has passed the point of anti-patriotism and evolved into a hatred of America that invites even the most hideous alternatives as preference.
"Margot Asquith, one of England's leading liberal lights, wrote...'There is only one way of preserving peace in the world, and getting rid of your enemy, and that is to come to some sort of agreement with him. . . . The greatest enemy of mankind today is hate.'"And Margot's words could not have been more incorrect--or more stupid.
The British--following the stupid Neville Chamberlain--tried to come to some sort of agreement with Hitler. Note the results.
In fact, the greatest enemy of mankind is denial.
And the only way of preserving peace in the world, and getting rid of your enemy, is deterrence.
The holocaust that was World War II is a grim mocker of Margot and the stupidity of her words and of Chamberlaine and the ineptitude of his leadership.
Deterrence ended the Cold War, prevented a nuclear holocaust that would have dwarfed the horrors of World War II, and averted a global replay of the horrifying Peloponnesian War.
"These elites could see evil only at home."Just like the Leftist morons of today.
They see evil only in America.
They make excuses for the terrorists, the beheadings, murderous totalitarian regimes, the thugocracies that dominate the United Nations.
"The French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir did not believe that Germany was a 'threat to peace,' but instead worried that the 'panic that the Right was spreading' would drag France, Britain, and the rest of Europe into war."Yes. And wasn't Simone stupid--and dead wrong. However, the truly stupid were the people dumb enough to believe her.
"Stafford Cripps, a liberal Labor member of Parliament, feared not Hitler, but Churchill."And Staffor Cripps has many intellectual descendants in America and Europe today.
There will always be sociopaths and other assorted mental cases eager to mislead and exploit the world.
There will always be stupid people dumb enough to follow them.
The greatest danger to the world--contrary to Margot Asquith's idiotic pronouncement--is denial. That is what interferes with the judgment of the intelligent, reasonable, and benevolent people of the world--the vast majority--and renders them susceptible to the evil designs of predators and sociopaths and the mindlessness of the stupid.
Its an interesting idea, but just doesn't wash. The British Empire was bankrupt after WW1- that was the main reason for disarmament, and the theory that the war had been to defend the "rights of small nations" (ie, Belgium) was a major spur to nationalist movements in India, the Middle East (including Iraq), and not least Ireland, which gained independence in 1922. Moreover, it's interesting to note that the Britons most opposed to The British Empire were the socialists and communists who went to fight fascism in Spain, while the very people most committed to maintaining the Empire (Mosley's Blackshirts and the Conservative government, with the exception of Eden and Churchill)were those most favourably disposed to Hitler. Chamberlain, the Conservative Prime Minister, and Lord Halifax his Foreign Secretary negotiated the Munich agreement allowing Hitler to seize the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia - the apogee of appeasement. Halifax in particular openly admired Hitler for his anti-communism, and described the Nazi regime in 1937 as "absolutely fantastic". I'm not sure what the lessons are here for the modern USA.
Excellent post!
Bump.
There's a difference between being "for peace" and being "for doing nothing". The left has consistently, since JFK's Vietnam, been for "doing nothing".
Weakly Standard....look in the mirror.
What a poorly researched bit of gobbledygook. It's so full of post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense.
First off, there are fundamental differences between the British Empire and American 'Empire'. First off, the peoples we directly rule are in almost all cases, Americans themselves. We have no India's or South Africa's. Secondly, the population compared to those that we rule imperially, (Guam, Saipan, etc.) is massively different than what Britain was. Thirdly, the effect of religion plays an enormous role.
I can't prove it and have done no research on the subject, but I really think that Europe's religious decline began after WWI where as large parts of the USA are like one big revival tent.
Despite us both having 'liberals' but not saying British liberals in the 30s and American liberals today are same, the British and Americans are very different.
Make life miserable for at least one liberal today.
The USA has sustained and will continue to sustain more damage from its domestic traitors than from any foreign terrorists ever spawned.
I wish those Liberal Ninnies who pissed and moaned about how they wanted to move to Canada after Bush was elected had done so. The only way the US will be defeated is by its own liberal citizens taking us apart from the inside
Wow, sure sounds to me like our modern day democratic party. They have been on the wrong side of histroy for the last 50 years and have not learned anything from their pacifist ways.
FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!!!
ConsentofGoverned, your triabe sounds like the snooty intellectuals that the article discussed. Instead of being overly critical of the grammar of an off-hand remark, you should discuss the merits of his observations.
In this forum, it is acceptable to make an observation. I'm not sure if your job as a TA for an English professor has afforded you a great deal of time overseas, but for those of who have spent time in Britian, one can make observations about religion, without having hard statistics. When you are in a city of 250,000, over half of the churches have been converted into bars, and the rest have one service with forty 70-year-old attendees, it is reasonable to note the decline of religion, has been consistent with the rise of self-loathing liberals.
Remember, freeper buckhead was the first to OBSERVE that the Rathergate papers were forgeries, yet he hadn't done any research on it nor proved it. His observation was nonetheless invaluable.
Now for YOUR homework tonight, I suggest you open Webster's dictionary and read the definitions of the following words: civility, decency, affability, humility. Otherwise, good talk.
(P.S. I may have mispelled one word in this post. Can you find it?!)
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