Keeping The Empire

We won’t get the America we want without it

America’s strikes on Iran inspired calls for the country to abandon the empire. It’s a popular line when foreign conflicts break out. To a number of Americans, empire seems like an unnecessary burden and a moral dilemma.

These empire skeptics view the apparatus as hostile to the America we want.

Conservative writer Josiah Lippincott was one such figure arguing for this position. “I am an American and I want the American Empire gone,” he argued. “For 130 years this country’s leaders have launched moralistic crusade after moralistic crusade, spilling rivers of American blood and squandering trillions in hard-won American wealth in every corner of the globe.”

Lippincott argues we must abandon the empire to get our country back.

He appears to trace the empire’s beginnings to the Spanish-American War. But America has always been an empire. It was the product of British imperialism and the revolution was fought, in part, to expand the boundaries of American settlements. We were never a little shire that closed itself off from the world and stuck to its boundaries. America was always involved in the world around us.

That said, Lippincott is correct to criticize imperial excesses. Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan were failures that wasted blood and treasure for little purpose. Nation building is a disaster and America should no longer be in the business of exporting liberal democracy. If Lippincott’s meaning of empire is “liberal internationalism,” then he is correct to attack it. The last 30 years have proven this to be a mistake.

But the empire is not simply liberal internationalism. It’s just one ideology competing to utilize the empire for its own interests. It’s not the empire.

Another right-winger, the X account “Titus,” argued that the empire could come at the cost of a white America. “Why does everyone just assume an American Empire with a White minority population is suddenly going to be a positive for our race?” he wrote. He argued that to preserve America’s demographic heritage, an imperial breakup is necessary.

Imperial critics of the Left and Right imagine they can achieve their dreams with the empire gone. For leftists, we can deliver free healthcare for all and abolish poverty. For libertarians, we can finally end big government and have true freedom. For right-wingers, we can finally achieve cultural homogeneity. All this can be done if we just stop being an empire.

None of this would happen. We will be poorer, weaker, and less capable of making our country great again without the empire. As I argued earlier this year:

Empire is typically seen as something that only benefits the “elites,” but it’s something all citizens are invested in. Empire keeps the sea lanes open, allowing our products to safely travel the world and for imports to reach us unmolested by pirates and terrorists. The average American depends on the dollar’s global dominance to have a good job and the opportunity to own a home. The dollar depends on America’s military might to survive. If we pulled back from our overseas bases to our hobbit holes, it would destroy our economy and ensure more Americans have no home or hearth to call their own.

One just needs to look at countries that used to have empires and see their decline. France, Britain, and Russia didn’t become more powerful after losing their empires. They became weaker and more prone to the whims of foreign powers. They were no longer capable of projecting power on the world stage and were easier to push around. An American retreat from empire would have the same results. The sea lanes would be controlled by hostile powers and we could see Chinese bases on our borders. Foreign countries would be more resistant to our demands and have greater ability to impose their will on us.

Some may scoff at this, if it still means whites lose their demographic power within the empire. What good would the empire be for them in this scenario?

This is a myopic way of looking at it. The fate of white Americans and the American Empire are intertwined. Only a sufficiently white America can maintain an empire. And only an empire is capable of preserving a white America. If one goes, the other falls.

There’s no indication an empire-less America would suddenly be much whiter. The immigrants would still be here, and it would be much harder to get rid of them. America’s global power allows us to pressure countries to take back their migrants. It’s a power Europe wishes it could have as it struggles to deport migrants. France has long fought with Algeria over this matter. Many European countries are forced to beg and bribe tinpot states to take back their people. As Algeria shows, they can simply say no and there’s little a European state can do about it. That’s not the case with America. It’s dangerous to tell us “no,” and countries are far more likely to take back their migrants. We’re capable of carrying out deportations thanks to our empire. When you don’t have that power, you can’t do remigration.

It also makes it easier to maintain a strong border and restrictive immigration policies. Other countries can’t bully us into welcoming their citizens to our country. China and India are livid at how we’ve placed limits on their people coming here. Meanwhile, Europe just signed a humiliating deal with India to take in more South Asians against the wishes of their own people. When you lack global power, you’re more at the mercy of states with global power.

You’re not going to get a white country by ending the empire. What you will get is a weak, multiracial state at the mercy of foreign empires. We will be even less capable of restricting immigration if China and India can impose migrant quotas on us. Latin America would be less inclined to take back deportees if we lack the empire.

The only way to check demographic change is by keeping imperial power.

Empire does not require stupid wars in the Middle East or crusades for democracy. Far from it. These things jeopardize our ability to maintain global power and waste resources. Realism, rather than liberal internationalism, should inform our foreign policy.

It’s nice to dream of an isolationist America that acts as a Shire amid a chaotic world, but that’s not how it would be. We would be worse off in nearly every metric without the empire.

You can now preorder Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.