Empire in Retreat? The Future of the United States

Jacob Parakilas

[Pause] Good evening everyone and welcome to Chatham House. I’m Jacob Parakilas. I’m the Deputy Head of the US and the Americas Programme here. I will introduce our excellent panel tonight, who are here to discuss an Empire in Retreat? The Future of the United States. So, a nice, simple, straightforward topic that we should be able to dispense with in ten or 15 minutes, in a moment. But let me just say a couple of housekeeping things first. Tonight’s event is on the record and being livestreamed. Should feel free to tweet any comments or observations or reactions that you have, using the hashtag #CHEvents. We’ have a question and answer session, once the panel have finished their remarks. We encourage you to ask questions, but I expect there’ll be a few, so please keep your remarks quite pointed, and beyond that, I think that is pretty straightforward, unlike the topic, which is very complex. But luckily, we have an excellent panel tonight to delve into it a little bit, starting with Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of London and Associate Fellow of the US and the Americas Programme and latterly, Director of Chatham House from 2001 to 2006, who is speaking about his book, titled Empire in Retreat, which is also for sale after the event, just on the table over there, and I think Victor will be staying around for a few minutes to sign copies, if people are interested in that.

We’ll also have comments from Amy Pope, who is a Partner at Schillings and previously, the Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to the President of the United States, in – from 2015 to 2017 and previously, various other jobs, both in the Executive Branch and with the United States Congress. And Leslie Vinjamuri, who is finishing her second day as Head of the US and the Americas Programme, aka my boss, but previously, was an Associate Fellow of longstanding with our programme and had various affiliations with SOAS and the London School of Economics. So, I’ll turn first to Victor, then to Amy, then to Leslie, to give reflections on this topic and then we’ll open up for the Q&A. So, without further ado, please, Victor. Thank you very much.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Thank you, Jacob. I gave my valedictory lecture here when I stepped down as Director at the end of 2006, and the title I had for the talk was Living with Two Megapowers: The World in 2020. I then went to teach and research in a US university, where it gave me the opportunity to think more deeply about the ideas in that valedictory lecture and the result is this book. And basically, what this book is – says is that the United States became an empire immediately after independence, that that empire at first, was based on territory, that it then morphed into a semi-global empire after the Second World War, based primarily, on the control of global and regional and institutions, supported by key non-state actors and that it’s that semi-global empire, which, of course, never included Russia or China, hence the semi-global, it’s that semi-global empire that’s now in retreat.

Now, you can’t talk about empire, especially in the context of the United States, without a definition and I’m happy with the one provided by Charles Maier, the – in his magisterial book, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors, where he said, “Empire does not mean just the accumulation of lands abroad by conquest and it does not mean just the imposition of authoritarian regimes on overseas territories. Empire is a form of political organisation, in which the social elements that rule in the dominant state create a network of allied elites in regions abroad, who accept subordination in international affairs in return for the security of their position in their own administrative unit. They intertwine their economic resources with the dominant power and they accept, and even celebrate, a set of values and tastes that privilege or defer to the culture of the Metropole.”

Now, of course, there are plenty of empire deniers, not just in the US, but also, outside, but they tend to use other words or phrases, which, in my view really mean the same thing: ‘global hegemon’, ‘indispensable nation’, ‘leader of the free world’, ‘exceptional country’, ‘force for good’, ‘paramount power’, which was the one that Brzezinski used, until he himself used the word ‘empire’ just before he died.

Now, the territorial empire came about because of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. That ceded to the independent United States a vast area, West of the Appalachians and East of the Mississippi, which the British had not controlled or occupied. So, the question was what to do with this land, which became known as the North West Territory in 1787 and the administrative arrangement set up for the North West Territory will be very familiar to European imperial powers at the time.

The President of the United States got to choose the Governor, the Secretary, the Judges, the members of a Legislative Council, from a list presented by a House of Representatives and the right in the territory for the territory to apply for statehood when the white male population reached more than 60,000. Of course, the majority of people in this territory were Native Americans, they were not white settlers, and so, immediately, there were colonial wars against these Native Americans, which again, would’ve been very familiar to European imperial powers. And it took a total of 71 years before all of the North West Territory joined the union as states, Minnesota being the last, in 1858. This process was then repeated in the old South-Western territories, such as Mississippi and Alabama, that had been acquired by treaty in 1783, in the French territories, such as Louisiana, acquired by purchase in 1803, in the Spanish territories, such as Florida and Oregon, acquired by treaty in 1819 and last but not least, the Mexican territories, such as New Mexico and Arizona, acquired by war in 1848 and by purchase in 1853.

The length of time that these territories spent as territories, on average, was 50 years. 50 years is two generations. That’s a long time to be colonial subjects, as opposed to citizens of a nation state and inevitably, there were many complaints from these colonial subjects. I’ll give you one example, the Representative, McGuinness, in Montana in 1884, wrote, “The present territorial system is the most infamous system of Colonial Government that was ever seen on the face of the globe. The territories are the colonies of your republic, situated 3,000 miles away from Washington by land, as the 13 colonies were situation 3,000 miles away from London by water and it a strange thing that the fathers of our republic established a Colonial Government as much worse than that which they revolted against.” The Empire went offshore long before the Spanish-American War in 1898 and then, it acquired colonies and protectorates in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America. So, the imperial mindset, which is the key to all this, developed very early in the United States and the – it’s – that’s why it’s so hard for Americans to shake it off, because they’ve acquired it such a long time ago.

The territorial dimension, of course, then shrunk significantly as territories entered the union. But even by – although it’s never entirely disappeared. However, even before the First World War, US administrations were looking to build an empire that depended less on territory and more on institutions. The Americas provided the opportunity and an inter-American system started to take shape from 1889. This gave a hegemonic position to the United States, partly because of the location of the institutions in Washington DC and also, because the budget was dominated by the United States. US Judges got to a point in – US Judges were appointed to inter-American courts in the US capital to resolve disputes between Latin American states.

And in the 1930s, a great coup, if you like, was achieved with the multilateralization of the unilateral Monroe Doctrine, which had first been pronounced in 1823 and remember, the 1930s is often thought of as the era of isolationism in the United States. No such thing, of course, and what Sumner Welles, a very distinguished Diplomat, said in 1939, encapsulates this transition of an empire from a territorial to something much more complex. He said, “It would not be correct to say that the Monroe Doctrine had been replaced or superseded by the group of inter-American agreements that has grown up in recent years. The Monroe Doctrine was promulgated, in the first place, as a unilateral declaration on the part of the United States. It still stands as such as a declaration. It could still be invoked if there were occasion, unilaterally, by the United States. But what has happened is this, the purposes that it sought to accomplish have become the recognised concern of all the American nations and they have declared, multilaterally, their support of its objectives.”

The aftermath of the Second World War then provided the opportunity for a much more ambitious system that I call the semi-global empire. At its core has been the United Nations system, located, of course, in New York, where the US had a veto in the Security Council and, just as important, initially, the ability to control the, at least the two thirds majority in the General Assembly, needed to override the veto of other countries. It controlled the access of new members and was quick to delay the access of members who we thought – well, which they thought would not be sympathetic. As a result, there was no use of the US veto until 1970.

Then the US model of free market capitalism was used to develop a set of economic institutions, supported by the US dollar as the international reserve currency. The key institutions, again, were located in Washington. Weighted votes in the IMF and the World Bank gave the United States an effective veto and still does. Whereas in the trade organisations, first GATT and then the WTO, the US was happy to operate by consensus, knowing that it would be able to dominate the trade agenda and that was exactly the case up to, and including, the end of the Uruguay round. The economic institutions were then buttressed by a set of Cold War institutions, starting with the Rio Treaty for the Americas, in 1947, with its infamous Article VI, which effectively gave the United States the right to intervene wherever and whenever it wanted. Then by NATO, in 1949, with its asymmetric Article V, and by a Central Treaty Organisation and a South East Asia Treaty Organisation, for the Middle East and South East Asia respectively.

This imperial project would not have been possible without the support of a wide range of non-state actors. The first, and most important, had been the multinational companies. But the non-governmental organisations, including think tanks and international grant-making bodies, such as the Ford Foundation, have been absolutely crucial. As well as the media, the mainstream media and religious groups and Congress provided, for a long time, the partisan support, the bipartisan support that was needed to sign and ratify the treaties, conventions and trade agreements that the imperial project needed.

The semi-global empire served US interests well. The privileged position of the United States put America first, but a high price was paid, in terms of blood and treasure. American citizens then became increasingly uneasy about the cost, in every sense, of providing global public goods, without which there was no reason for the rest of the world to show loyalty to the US Empire. This unease is partly due to the tradition of anti-imperialism in the United States itself, something I say a lot about in the book. It actually began with the anti-expansionists, going back to the war of 1812. It then continued with the isolationists, notably the Anti-Imperialist League, note the title, of 1898, and the America First Committee of 1940. Then came the anti-militarists, who didn’t start with the Vietnam War, but clearly, they were very strong during the Vietnam War, and last, but not least, we have the anti-exceptionalists, those people who deny that the United States is an exceptional country, and of whom a majority of Millennials are in this category.

Then the performance of the economy has been a matter of serious concern for – leading to imperial retreat. First, has been the relative decline of the economy when measured by GDP at purchasing power parity exchange rates. Using IMF projections, not mine, IMF projections, by 2020, the US will have 14% of the world economy, on this basis, and China had already overtaken the United States in 2014 and PPP comparisons are the relevant one, not official exchange rates, when you look at – when you want to look at the resources available for military spending by a country. There’s also been a relative decline of international trade on the part of the United States, which by 2020, will probably be less than 10% of the world total, with China being the biggest, and the United States has moved from being a creditor to a debtor country. And in the United States, there’s a simple accounting identity that when private investment and private savings are roughly equal, then the fiscal deficit determines the size of the balance of payments deficit. And as long as the United States is addicted to large fiscal deficits, it will continue to have large balance of payments deficits and that means it has to borrow capital from the rest of the world and that is not a position that an imperial power is comfortable with and it’s the same for the United States.

Uncoupled then, with the increase in inequality, perhaps the largest increase, the largest shift, in income distribution that has taken place in the United States, compared with any other country that has comparable statistics, when you think of that increase in inequality and the stagnation of wages associated with it, you can see that many citizens have reason to grumble about the performance of the imperial project.

There has also been a decline of leadership and that’s manifested itself in the institutions that played such a key role in the formation of the US Empire in the first place, and if you look at the most recent National Security Strategy, the one published in December last year, there’s an extraordinary quote and it says, “Authoritarian actors have long recognised the power of multilateral bodies. If the United States cedes leadership of these bodies to adversaries opportunities,” sorry, “If the United States cedes leadership of these bodies to adversaries, opportunities to shape developments that are positive for the United States will be lost. All institutions are not equal, however. The United States will prioritise its efforts in those organisations that serve American interests, to ensure that they are strengthened and supportive of the United States.”

There’s also been a lack of support from the same non-state actors that played such a key role in the formation of then semi-global empire and one of the most interesting ones is the lack of complementarity, now, between the Federal Government and multinational companies, who basically, have become global at a time when the US Empire itself is retreating. So, they no longer can look only to the interests of the United States. They have to then look to the interests of China and other countries in formatting their strategies and that has created tensions at the very highest level of the imperial project. Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional, as any specialist on US politics will know, and has lead – led – that has led to an increasing number of unratified treaties or unsigned agreements and so on. And that has forced the Presidency to rely increasingly, on sole Executive orders, such as what was used for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. So, the US is shifting from multilateralism to unilateralism, relying more and more on things like sanctions and wars of choice.

Now, Trump didn’t – the imperial retreat didn’t begin with President Trump, but there’s no doubt that it’s accelerating under President Trump. Exhibit one, I suppose, is walking away from those trade negotiations and trade agreements that have formed such a key part after the Second World War, in underpinning empire. Secondly, is the withdrawal from the Climate Change Agreement, thirdly, from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and finally, tearing up the two-state solution for the Middle East. It looks increasingly like tactics without strategy and it reminds me of the saying of Sun Tzu in The Art of War 2,500 years ago, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

So, in conclusion, I would say both internal and external factors have been present in this US imperial retreat, but the internal factors initially, were probably more important, but external factors are now growing in significance. Of these, the most crucial is clearly, the rise of China since 1980, not just in terms of its economic performance, but also, in terms of its trades and it, things like its Belt and Road Initiative. China is also forging – forming new institutions in just the same way as the United States did after the Second World War and China is now becoming very successful at marketing itself as a new normative power, what it calls a community of common destiny, based on friendship, faithfulness, benefits and tolerance.

In this New World Order, some elements are clear, some are not yet clear, it’s too early. The ones that are clear, I think, is that China is slowly, but surely, becoming the regional hegemon in the Asia-Pacific area. The second is that China and Russia have formed a strategic partnership, which is really important and which we utterly ignore in this country. The third is that Europe, reluctantly, of course, is being forced to become more independent of the United States and fourthly, there’s a shrinking number of client states that the United States can rely on.

Finally, imperial retreat is not the same as the decline of the nation state. That’s why I never talk about US decline. I talk about imperial retreat. It’s a big, big mistake to assume imperial retreat means that the US itself is in decline. It may be, but not necessarily. In fact, imperial retreat, as the British found out, can actually strengthen the nation state, if it happens primarily for internal reasons. That is why who Americans choose as their first post-imperial President is crucial. I wrote an article about this for the website Zócalo Public Square, today. Get it right, and I believe in the next ten to 20 years, Americans will get it right, the end of US Empire could be a liberating experience. Thank you [applause]. Thank you very much.

Jacob Parakilas

Thank you. Amy?

Amy Pope

That’s a tough act to follow. A Welshman, who opines on my country’s imperial status is something I’m a little bit afraid to take on, to be perfectly honest with you. I’m going to be a little bit cheeky and set aside the question of whether the US is an empire? I think that’s a question for conversation later. But I’m going to take on what I see as the justification for what is imperial retreat, and that is President Trump’s argument that it is America first and that we preserve American interests by stepping back from the world stage.

And my experience, I served as President Obama’s Deputy Homeland Security Advisor. My primary role was to make sure that we were protecting the United States, the homeland and US interests from whatever threat might be out there, from pandemics, from cyber attacks, terrorism, migration pressures, etc. And so, my view is very US centric and I think maybe there’s a little bit of commonality, and I’m loathed to say that, but a little bit of commonality, in terms of what President Trump is articulating. But in terms of what is the right way to get there, I think the answer is not for the US to retreat. I think the way to protect US interests and very specifically, the homeland interest, is to continue to push out American influence with our allies and with our neighbours and so, for that reason, I disagree. I think, with the conclusion that it’s – this is being driven by what Americans want to see happen. I think it’s more of a question of what Americans understand is happening and the reason I see our position today as different from what it might’ve been in the 1930s, is that today’s world is increasingly global in a way the world was not in the 1930s.

The concept of borders no longer exists in the way that it did at that time. Within moments, a push of a keystroke on a keyboard, on a computer, you can create an attack that will take down infrastructure within a country, right? There is no way to protect US citizens from pandemics that are going across the globe and increasingly, there is no way to define the nation state by geographic borders, in terms of the threats that we’re living with today. And I’ve come to this conclusion, because of very specific examples that I’ve lived through, while working within the White House. I’ll just go for a couple, ‘cause I think that it helps to highlight why it’s in the US interests to continue to build out our presence and influence.

The first is Ebola. I worked on Ebola, first from the perspective of protecting US borders and US citizens from Ebola and what we very, very quickly learned is that when the infection is raging throughout West Africa, there is no way to protect American citizens and there is – the very easy, sort of, Trumpian reaction to that would’ve been to shutdown all travel between West Africa and the United States. And frankly, that was something we considered, was that the right answer in order to protect American interests? In the end, the rate at which the infection was growing within West Africa, we had seen projections that were going to hit a million cases and the possibility of that infection going into Nigeria and then travelling across the world meant that we couldn’t stand back and just let that playout, even though that was the easiest, most accessible solution and arguably, the solution that may be advocated today.

The result was by American leadership, by having the US send resources into West Africa, sending Doctors, sending our military. We built the partnership with France, we built the partnership with the UK and with surrounding partners, to work with the Regional Governments there to end the epidemic and that was ultimately, in US self-interest.

Likewise, when I look at the – when I hear the conversation about building the wall, right, we’ve all heard it, and that’s the way to protect American interests and that’s probably the most visual representation of the retreat of the Empire. What I saw playout when working on migration, was that there’s no way that building a wall could actually protect Americans from all of the threats to our US homeland interests. In fact, what we found was, partnering with Mexico was the most effective way to build up the defences for the United States. It was making the investment in the Mexican capacity, in their rule of law, in their border controls, in their identification procedures, etc., and likewise, investing in Central America and getting to what were the root causes of the migration pressures, whether it’s climate, the drug trade, economic opportunities, the youth bulge, you name it. All of those pressures were causing a migration trend that the US acting simply within its own borders would never be able to control.

Finally, we’re all, of course, following closely what’s happened with Russia and the attack on the US democratic process and the democratic process around the world and it’s increasingly clear that there is no US solution to protecting our fundamental pieces of our democracy. There’s not – we can’t prosecute or investigate bad guys in the United States for influencing the US elections. We have to have solutions that involve our partners and build a cross-nat – a cross-border reach. Ultimately, I think the question comes down to, what is in the US interest and what will the US people see as in their interest? And ultimately, I think when we’re living in a world where we can no longer control what’s coming across our borders, it’s physically impossible, that the question of what the U – what US policies will be in the long run cannot be simply to retreat and cannot be simply to do what’s in our, sort of, first level of self-interest.

Jacob Parakilas

Thank you, Amy. Leslie, over to you.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Thank you. So, I had said, in our prior conversation, that I wasn’t going to talk about the question of empire, but I can’t resist, because it is – it’s no longer the elephant in the room. I find both sets of remarks fantastic, terrific, but of course, I probably found myself more in agreement with you, Amy. But I think this question of empire, given that you’ve put it on the table so robustly and so eloquently in the book, which I would highly recommend to all of you, is, I think, one that needs to be grappled with. And in some ways, the beauty of a book like this is that it gives us a way to think very seriously and very carefully, both historically and in the present, very rigorously, about whether or not this idea of empire illuminates, or gets in the way of trying to understand, both what’s happened historically in the US, and what’s happening in the contemporary period. And I think, in that sense, regardless of what I’m about to say, which is that I disagree, I think it’s actually phenomenally useful, not only the book, obviously, but as a – as flushing out the concept and giving it empirical graft.

So, I think that it’s a term that doesn’t capture the US in the post-Second World War period or in the contemporary period and I’ll say, very briefly, why I think that’s the case. I think the reason that I – I think that there is something very important about the formal definition of empire, which is linked to territory and has – is wrapped up in concepts of sovereignty, and informal concepts of governance and alternative governance strategy. So, I think that the thing that’s distinctive about the US and which is not to deny the US as a hegemonic power, certainly in the post-War period, which is not to deny strategies of institutionalisation, which were aimed at control and domination and asserting and advancing the long-term interests in the United States. But in taking empire and, sort of, imposing it on that form of governance that the US pursued, which was to set up multilateral institutions unlike the world had ever seen before, you, sort of, you lose what was unique about that period and also, why we’re so worried today. Because why – the reason that we’re worried today is because there was something unique there, that clearly, a number of countries thought, even though they were submitting on any particular instances, short-term or long-term, they were also gaining something from participating in a multilateral structure of governance across a range of different sectors. Because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be so worried that the US is retreating from multilateralism today. It would be a relief that the US was letting them be sovereign, because that was the game at the end of, you know, the empires that we more often talk about and accept as of have – so, having been formally designated that status.

So, I think there is something incredibly important about sovereignty as a concept. We all know that it’s violated on a regular basis, that it frequently operates at the level of hypocrisy. Nonetheless, I think that there’s something about sovereignty that matters and I think the most obvious evidence of that is that there are a lot of non-state actors, whether they be rebel groups, whether they be all – various forms of separatist actors, that desperately want a state and they don’t just want to own the territory. They want legal recognition that they are sovereign states in the international system, regardless of the role of a US power. So, I think we need to very clearly differentiate the US strategy of rule, both in its post-Second World War rendition and also, to understand what’s happening today.

And I guess as a, sort of, caveat to that, I thought it was – and, you know, I’m – I’ve been at SOAS for a long time, before yesterday when I joined Chatham House in this capacity, and my colleagues at SOAS love to talk about empire and certainly about US Empire and so, I’m familiar with the arguments that, you know, multinational corporations, human rights NGOs, think tanks coming out of the US, were really the long arm of American power and I think there’s a lot to be said for that on – in many instances. But I think, again, it’s a claim that we have to really be careful about and I would give you – and in some ways I might align with your argument about when US Empire, although I wouldn’t call it that, begins to decline. And the obvious evidence that the – that civil society in the United States and American NGOs based in the US that were working abroad, were not simply captured and an extension of US power is that in the post-9/11 period, the first thing that Human Rights Watch did was to push very hard on setting up a US chapter, so that they could do what they hadn’t historically done before, which was to devote money and resources and staff to looking at the abuses of civil liberties and human rights within the United States, to be an effective check on US power. And trust me, there were many people that didn’t want this to happen and they won that battle and there are lots of instances of organisations, like the American Civil Liberties Union, and multiple others, checking American power. So, I think, while we know some of the obvious examples where they served as, you know, the CIA’s cover, there are also multiple examples where this has simply not been the case. So, I think we need to tell a much more nuanced story and again, especially to understand what’s going on today.

And then I – the second part of my remarks I’ll say very briefly, ‘cause I’ve talked about empire longer than I ever intended to, which is this question of America in retreat and I guess I would argue that I do see America as retreating from that very unique strategy of governance, which was distinctive for any hegemonic power, but was very distinctive to that post-Second World War period and this is, you know, where the conversation is today. But I don’t see the United States as retreating and here I would be in line with those people who really emphasise the fact that, you know, Donald Trump is not an isolationist. He’s using hard power. He’s taking a very different approach. He’s working frequently bilaterally outside of the conventions that we’ve become accustomed to, that we’ve grown to like, even when we’re dissatisfied or want to renegotiate them. He’s working outside those parameters, but he’s certainly not retreating. In some ways, in some quarters, he’s pushing the issue. He’s pushing the issue on Iran. He’s pushing the issue on North Korea. China is not something that he’s retreating from thinking about. We have multiple critiques about whether this is strategic, whether this is collaborative. But when we say retreat, I think what we really mean is he’s retreating from doing things the way that we, kind of, like that America tried to do them, which was to work with Europe and to work collectively and to work, even at times, with the rest of the world. That’s what retreat actually means, I think, for us.

And then finally, just a word on, you know, is it inevitable, ‘cause this is, I think, the other big debate, right? Is it inevitable, is it driven by what’s going on within the US economically? Is it driven by changes in America’s relative economic position on the world stage? Is it driven by the rise of China? Yes, all of these things are true. But is it inevitable? And I would argue no, that there is – you know, while there are structural changes domestically and internationally, economically and militarily, and on a number of dimensions, there’s certainly scope for choice and in my view, the big question really out there is, what comes next? And I think what comes next has a lot to do with what the reaction is in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East, to this period when America’s behaving differently than what much of the world is used to, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, depending on who you are and what your interests are. But what the reactions are tactically, strategically, institutionally, and in terms of forming other partnerships, in what way does the world move on in this period of a different kind of American leadership, I think will tell us a lot about what happens and what the long-term implications are of US rule in the world under – and in this particular period.

Jacob Parakilas

Thank you, Leslie. So, we have some slightly different views on what American power is, what it will be, what it has been. In the interests of time, as we have 25 minutes left and I’m sure there are more than a few questions in the audience, I’m going to turn to the audience for a Q&A now. Again, please, if you could keep – if you could identify yourself and keep your question quite pointed. Also, if you could – if you have a question for an individual member of the panel, if you could direct to them, otherwise, I’ll throw it open to the panel, and let me start right here. There’s a microphone coming, so…

Helia Nanchez

Thank you very much. Helia Nanchez, global politics student. My question is open to the entire panel. I’d like to ask, in the context of recent events and the recent actions of the US withdrawing from the Iran deal, what do you think will be the implications for international security in the long-term, and do you think that this is actually a retreat, or more of another, sort of, Trump attempt to go back to the negotiating table? Thank you.

Jacob Parakilas

Victor, shall we start with you?

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Well, it’s clearly a gamble and you’d expect no less from a casino owner. Essentially, he’s gambling on a very high-risk strategy, which is that the use of sanctions, against US companies, can be extended to other companies round the world, to the point where Iran becomes so isolated that it will either force regime change or a change of attitude towards renegotiating the original agreement. And frankly, I think the odds of that happening are extremely low, so, as a gambler, I wouldn’t put money on it. To me, it looks like, as I said before, tactics without strategy.

Amy Pope

Yeah, I wouldn’t say it’s a retreat, certainly not a retreat from the world stage. It’s more aggressive than that. But I do agree with Victor that it’s not clear what the long-term strategy is. There’s no Plan B that’s been articulated and looking at it from the outside, it’s not clear that there’s any one strategy. I mean, whether there’s any strategy being discussed, or certainly nothing has emerged and that’s the real danger. But I don’t see it as retreating from the world stage. I think it’s, sort of, pushing it really hard out there and taking a stance that’s separate and apart from the allies.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And I would emphasise that last part, that it’s retreating from working with America’s European partners on something that was very much a collective effort in the last – under the last administration. And I – and exactly, the gamble is that this will – that the economy was doing bad, in Iran was doing poorly anyway, that it didn’t improve, actually, very much, under the deal and when sanctions were lifted and that what Obama – this is, you know, the hope, the Trump hope, the Trump strategy is that, you know, Obama should’ve applied those sanctions even harder. He should’ve continued to negotiate. He should’ve gotten much more and that that’s what – you know, if there is a strategy, it’s to apply the pressure and assume that the economics within Iran are so negative that we will see Iran return to the table and reform and change. But I don’t think there’s a broader strategy with respect to how to deal with Iran’s ambitions in the region, in Syria, or with respect to missile defence, absent just, you know, just turning the screws on sanctions.

Jacob Parakilas

Another question, and I’ll just take this gentleman right up here.

John Preston

Good evening. My name is John Preston, European Programme, Chatham House. I’ll try to keep my question simple, which is, can the panel discuss the relationship of the United States over the years with the word ‘democracy’? Because my observation is that they used democracy to destroy where the British had colonies, but if you were in South America and you looked as though you were going democratic, then the military would take over.

Jacob Parakilas

Democracy, South America, Victor, I – you’re…?

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Well, I think there’s always been a difference between a democracy in the United States and democracy promotion outside. Democracy in the United States is a very exciting project. It’s got – it’s very rough and tumble, it’s – the rules can be a bit fuzzy at times, but it’s a very interesting exercise and worth following for the last 250 years. But when it comes to promotion of democracy outside the United States, it tends to be hypocritical, inconsistent and frankly, one shouldn’t take it too seriously.

Amy Pope

Ouch, and wait a minute.

Jacob Parakilas

Yeah, I think you can respond to…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Would you like to go first?

Amy Pope

Whoa, okay. I do think we need to separate, sort of, where the United States was perhaps in the 1980s from where it is in the present day and what the commitment is to promoting democracy around the world. I don’t agree that it’s, I’m not sure what word you used, and so I blocked it out, it was so dramatic.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

I said not to be taken too seriously.

Amy Pope

Alright, yeah, and I don’t believe that it is – I don’t believe that it’s democracy in its purest form in every place around the world, but I do believe that there are many, many good examples of where the United States has promoted democracy to – promoted the growth of civic institutions, pushed on Heads of State to hold them accountable to their people, pushed on Heads of State to increase transparency in governance and I think that’s an incredibly important role for the US and its allies to play. I think if no-one is playing that role, there’s very little incentive for anyone – for many countries to change and so, I would not be – I would not throw this all out and say well, the US is hypocritical, etc. I actually think there are tremendous examples out there where the US has been successful in pushing forward democratic values.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

So, I mean, I would challenge you to identify any major power that, when it’s faced with a trade-off between promoting liberal democracy or promoting liberalism or promoting democracy, and investing in a state partner that it deems to be critical to its natural security, given the context of how it thinks about national security regionally and globally, makes the choice to promote democracy, if it sees that it’s not in its strategic interests. So, I think that American democ – promotion of democracy, historically, has always been with respect to broader strategic goals and so, of course, that’s where it becomes very easy to criticise.

However, the US is a very complex place, as we all know, there are multiple interests. Sometimes the democracy agenda is captured by people who are not genuine. Sometimes it’s about, you know, trading off interests, as I’ve just mentioned. But there are, as Amy mentioned, multiple invested interests in the bureaucracy, in civil society, who are deeply engaged in below the radar, long-term institution in civil society building, that are deeply genuine and have long-term positive effects and have had long-term positive effects and have stayed in the game, even when it’s not an easy or a happy place to be, and have created the basis for when there’s an opening, knowing that there are people to help push the state that they live in towards that opening. So, I think it’s too easy to, sort of, throw it all up, to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Amy Pope

Say the Americans.

Jacob Parakilas

Over in this corner, here.

Alex Folkes

Thank you. My name’s Alex Folkes. I work as an Election Observer for the Carter Centre and for OSCE. So, following on from the point that’s just been made, there are a number of states and I think that Montenegro is just one of them, where there is a genuine battle between westward looking, principally led by the United States, but not exclusively so, and eastward looking, principally led by the – by Russia, but not exclusively so, ad that battle is still happening. Now, in the good old days, where everybody was understanding how that battle worked, if you declared for the West, you became under the protection of the United States. I wonder if there is a growing sense of unease amongst those countries, who are still facing that battle that maybe their interests will be sacrificed to the short-term tactical interests of a United States President who looks to the short-term and to America first?

Jacob Parakilas

Leslie, do you want to start this?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

No, and what – I mean, I think that undoubtedly, there are multiple non-state and states – non-state actors states that are deeply con – and legitimately concerned. I mean, this is very significant and very apparent, I think. So, I think you point to a trend that many people are worried about and that – and I think, I guess what’s it – the question is whether that layered – you know, those layers of actors within the US, which is a very complex society and state, can stay in the game. And some of what we’re seeing is that, actually, some of what we’re told about what, you know, Donald Trump is going to do, never mind foreign policy, but in terms of the cuts to many of those programmes, haven’t actually materialised, even though we were told that they were. But if you then follow the story through, Congress goes ahead and approves budgets and actually, the numbers remain where they were. So, the long-term, I think, is, you know, we don’t know yet, in the long-term and there is some reason to be – you know, if that’s – for those actors who rely on that longer-term agenda, I think there’s some hope.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

I’m going to pass on that.

Amy Pope

I mean, look, I think that this is an issue for everyone, whether you are an Advisor to the President, whether you are an investor, whether – I mean, in every sector of society in the US and abroad is that we do not know what the President’s strategy is and we do not know where he’s going to land on any given day and people on the inside don’t seem to know either. And I think that’s dangerous, ultimately, in terms of protecting US interests, because you need people, the US needs people to align in its interests and they’re unlikely to do so if they’re concerned that the bottom is going to drop out from underneath. So, yes, that’s a worry and I think it’s not – it’s certainly not helpful. Is that an understatement of the year? I don’t – not helpful.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

I mean, I won’t talk about the case of Montenegro, but I’ll just make two points about the implications of imperial retreat. The first is that, of course, the United States will still carry on trying to find the partner that it’s most comfortable with in these different countries. It’s just that it’s less successful at it as a result of imperial retreat, and the second thing is, that as we move into a different New World Order, other countries will be doing the same, so it’s going to be more and more complicated for the United States to get the outcome that it wants.

Jacob Parakilas

Right here.

Lisa ten Brinke

Hi, I’m Lisa ten Brinke, Dahrendorf Forum, LSE Ideas. I was just wondering what you were all thinking about the argument that maybe this shift in global order and maybe this move towards multi-polarity is not such a bad thing at all? Some would argue, especially maybe from a European perspective, that not having an American hegemon deciding, kind of, what happens on an international stage, having more voices in the room, I’m not necessarily saying I agree with this, but I’m interested in the argument and I was just wondering what you think of this, or whether you’re sceptical about what this actually will bring to the world? Thank you.

Amy Pope

Look, I think in an ideal world it is a good thing, but I think you then need other leaders to step up and we haven’t seen that, right? And in the absence of other leaders step up, you see increasing influence of places like China and Russia and I think that’s the problem and I, sort of, fall back on what I know, but I think about how we responded to Ebola. I promise you, nobody else wanted to get into the middle of that. N0-one saw – no other state that we were working with saw any upside to going into West Africa and…

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Well, the Cubans were there before you, Amy.

Amy Pope

Well, fair, okay.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

So, come on.

Amy Pope

There you go, fixing the problem. But the result of American leadership was that we were able to build support and provide cover to bring people along. It doesn’t have to be the US, it can be someone else, but you need to see the countries, the leaders and their people, step up.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

I would just, I guess, add that I don’t think we’re necess – we’re not moving towards multi-polarity on the military side of the equation, bipolarity, maybe, but certainly, you know, in terms of – there’s a big gap and even economically, really, the US and China, if you take Europe as a collective, that’s one thing, but that’s – you know. So, it – so, I guess the premise of your question, I’m not entirely certain about, and if it’s not multi-polarity and the US isn’t, kind of, stepping up, then that creates a lot of problems. But clearly – and it goes back to what I was trying to say a little bit about, you know, the post-World War Two order. The benefit of the post-World War Two order was that, even with that disparity of power, there were more voices in the room. So, how do you keep that institutional structure and those voices in the room as you manage a shift? But the shift isn’t – you know, there aren’t a lot of equal players out there still. We shouldn’t pretend that there are.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

The problem, of course, is that the – what I call the semi-global empire was built at the end of the Second World War for a world in which there were only 50 independent states. That’s a very different world to the one we have today. I think the problem for the United States and the beginning of imperial retreat, in a sense, can be dated to the 1970s, when you get this explosion in the number of independent countries. That meant that the United States could no longer look to the United Nations to serve its interests in the way that it had done before. But the United States is having trouble in changing the way it does things. It’s understandable, it’s – it developed a way of, you know, of extending its will across the globe for a world that no longer exists. It is, of course, possible that what emerges out of this New World Order will be so awful an anarchic that we’ll look back to US hegemony as a wonderful thing by comparison. Personally, I don’t think so, but it is possible. We just don’t know at this stage.

Trisha de Borchgrave

[Pause] Thanks very much. My name’s Trisha de Borchgrave and I’m a Writer. I just wanted to ask you, with this retreat, whether it’s a retreat or not, I mean, I think partly, Trump is realising how much he can retreat and how much he can’t. He’s just connected in ways that he never thought possible. But is there going to be, with whatever this retreat is, or at least with Trump politics for the moment, is there going to be an interesting different power dynamic, bec – through the fact that what’s happened with the Iran deal? So, you now have, on one side you’ve got pretty much Europe, Russia and China, and then on the other side, you’ve got Saudi, Israel and America. Is this going to play in some – what are your thoughts on that, in some weird way?

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Well, my thought is that Trump is offering two completely contradictory messages to the American people. America First plays to the idea of an imperial retreat, forgetting about this supply of global public goods, concentrating on the immediate needs of the nation state and that goes down very well with a lot of people in the United States, not just his base, but some people outside his base as well. But he also offers ‘Make America Great Again’ and that is a message of imperial power and that doesn’t resonate so well and he, of course, he can’t deliver it, because neither he, nor the American people, want to engage in the kind of expense and, you know, loss of life that would be involved in making America great again, if that’s taken literally. So, I think the – Trump will have to, eventually, find some way of reconciling these two inconsistent things and it seems to me the one he will focus on is America First and that is a message of imperial retreat.

Now, there are going to be, in this situation, particular issues of serious conflict, but if you’re not willing to commit the resources to resolve those, if you’re not willing to put troops on the ground, if you’re not willing to spend vast sums of money in areas of conflict and so on, then it’s pretty clear that the United States will not be able to control the outcome in the way that it has in the past.

Jacob Parakilas

Let me take – as we’ve only got about six minutes left, let me just take a couple of questions, starting right here and…

Domenic Carratu

[Pause] Domenic Carratu, work for Rabobank, so very much into food and agriculture globally. So, if you accept the premise of America First, so the American retreat, empire or not, almost the Americans to go from the British Empire, in terms of keeping sea lanes open and trying to keep global trade going, so America does retreat, it doesn’t commit to spending their dollars and project power. You don’t have checkpoints. You know, America’s now got energy security, they’ve got some food security, but Brazil becomes the frontline state. Do you see conflict for key resource again? So, you’ve got the – again, I’ve got the benefit of the map behind you, the Russian/Chinese developing thing. Is resource conflict the way forward?

Jacob Parakilas

And you’ve got one question right behind you, if you can just pass the…

Angus Edwards

Hi, my name’s Angus Edwards. I’m with The Next Century Foundation. I just wanted to ask the panel about America’s Empire, and we can avoid the word, but the idea seems to have been about corporation and the idea of following America’s model of free trade and democracy and that worked off a reputation that it gained, as it was a more moral actor than the USSR. Since then, we’ve found out about the things it was doing in Latin America and what it’s done in the Middle East, the kind of debacle that was the Iraq War and now we have what’s happened in Israel and America’s response to that being very different to the rest of the world. Has America’s reputation been tarnished to a point where it can no longer be the moral guideline for the world and therefore, its ability to gain co-operation has been weakened?

Jacob Parakilas

And let’s do one more, ah, right back there. Lady in the middle there.

Chloe Thomas

Hi, my name’s Chloe Thomas. I’m a History Major at the University of Virginia. To what extent do you think events such as the Vietnam War and the Iraq War led to the US deciding to retreat on the world stage?

Jacob Parakilas

So, checkpoints, co-operation, free trade and Vietnam and Iraq leading to a retreat.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Whoa, that’s a…

Jacob Parakilas

You know, four minutes, no pressure. Amy, do you want to start?

Amy Pope

Yeah, you know, I’m going to start with the question of – about reputation, the second question, and that I think, actually, on this, the United States can be more resilient. I think we amassed a tremendous amount of goodwill and I’m saying this from a very self-interested point of view, so just to be – put my bias on the table, over the past eight years in building support with key allies and advancing, sort of, a model that was generally focused prim – on issues such as democracy, etc. But before that, the – in the eight years before that, you would’ve heard from anybody in this room, or elsewhere, that the US had squandered all of that goodwill. Again, that’s what – and we, sort of, flip-flop back and forth and so, I don’t believe that the reputational hit is permanent. It depends on what follows. It depends how long this lasts. It depends how much damage we do, right?

Jacob Parakilas

Leslie?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, so I will respond to that one as well, but also, I guess on this, I have to respond to the – your comments, Victor, to Trish on retreat. So, on the moral question of – I mean, I – just to remind ourselves and many people have, sort of, indicated this in the room, the – not – we haven’t – you know, America hasn’t always been, even historically been seen as this wonderful, moral actor. Many countries and many people, even before the recent period that you allude to, saw America as, you know, deeply maligned. So, it’s always been complicated. It will continue to be complicated, which isn’t to say that it’s all the same, and as a side note, I do think that the distinction of Empire, or whatever we call it, is actually a meaningful distinction, so I wouldn’t, kind of, you know, dismiss that.

In the same way that this question of, you know, who see – whoever saw that America’s a moral actor matters and so – but is it possible to rea – for those who did see America as a force for good, is it possible to regain that, who now possible don’t is it possible to regain that? I would argue yes, and that has a lot to do with these longer-term institution building initiatives, coalitions of actors within the US, transnational networks, that haven’t gone away and won’t go away and so, a lot depends on, you know, what comes next. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a turn in certain constituencies and there are multiple that were never going to see it that way, regardless.

But on this question of, you know, you were, sort of – America – Trump can’t deliver on both messages. Well, I actually do believe that Trump can’t deliver on both messages. However, I do think that you can, in principle, make America great again, without putting boots on the ground and make it – and making America great again does not – is not necessarily the same thing as America being deployed militarily across the world in the way that perhaps it has been at different points and times. If you, you know, buy into arguments about renegotiating globalisation and, you know, the liberal international order, there are multiple ways for America to lead and to engage collectively that make America great again, without them being about, you know, deploying troops. So, I think that’s a false dichotomy and one that we should very much be wary of and avoid.

Jacob Parakilas

Victor, last word.

Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas

Well, that last point is that is true, although, you’d need a Congress that wasn’t quite so dysfunctional if you wanted to make America great again, without using – with troops on the ground. But let’s take the three questions that were put to us. First, I don’t see this leading to conflict over resources. I mean, China is overtaking the United States, not just in terms of GDP, but also, in terms of international trade. It has a huge interest in keeping the sea lanes open. It’s building a Navy, which explicitly, is designed to be more powerful than that of the United States and it will probably achieve it, in another ten or 20 years, and that Navy will be used to keep the sea lanes open. So, I don’t see that being a particular issue. I’m sure there’ll be individual conflicts and so on, but no, not in general.

The second, on the reputational damage, I think what matters here, in a way, is not so much outside the United States, where it’s – it very much depends on the country or the topic that you’re talking about, it very much depends on the United States people itself. I think young people no longer believe that the United States – young people in the United States no longer believe that the country has operated as a force for good in the way that its elders like to believe. That’s a huge change. You can see it in the Pew attitude surveys, year-after-year-after-year, this difference between Millennials, who, of course, have suffered from this problem of underperformance of the economy, and their elders, who have done remarkably well and I don’t see that changing very quickly. So, I think the key there is what happens in the US, in terms of attitude, is not what happens outside.

And on this last point, I think that Vietnam was important. It wasn’t the only thing that led to the beginning of imperial retreat, but it was a very important moment, because it was the moment when the United States people, the people, accepted that they were no longer prepared to see such human sacrifice in the pursuit of the imperial project. That’s one reason why, in Iraq, although many, many Americans died, of course, it’s nothing like the numbers that died in the Vietnam War and it was done without conscription. So, we are looking, yes, I think at the beginning of a process, in the 1970s, which is still unravelling.

Jacob Parakilas

That, unfortunately, is all we have time for this evening. But, as you can probably tell from the questions and from the debate on the stage, these are ongoing issues and we’ll continue to engage with them in public formats and with our research at Chatham House. I hope you’ll all join me in thanking very much Victor, Amy and Leslie for their fantastic points [applause].