Empire as a Gated Community: Politics of an American Strategic Metaphor

Abstract

The United States, Jefferson's Empire of Good or just plain empire, claims to be the defender and guardian of world order and freedom. But America is also a destabilising force because its activism and military interventionism in the world undermine other societies and their sovereignty. America, rather than politically seeking good-neighbourly relations with sovereign countries, prefers to respond to its vulnerabilities by endlessly building up its military capacities, expanding its security perimeter by garrisoning the world with a global network of bases. Analysing a metaphor used by former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (2001–2006) paralleling America to a besieged house in a rowdy neighbourhood, J.C. Barry reconstructs, behind the post-Cold War paradigm shift in American defence policy, from threat-based to capacity-based, the underlying historical continuity of America's identity and strategic culture. Behind its security-driven discourse lies the structure and values of liberal society. Violent political conflict, i.e. war, is criminalised, overshadowed by economic rationality on the one hand and morality on the other. From an insular power projecting its forces beyond its homeland borders to ensure its safety and its interests, America's mission is also that of a Chosen People with a Manifest Destiny to lead the world, by example or by force of arms. In the beginning was the fence. Jost Trier quoted by Carl Schmitt in The Nomos of the Earth Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion. Theodore Roosevelt, 1899 Our frontiers today are on every continent. John F. Kennedy, 1960