Empires, final thoughts

Empires. Are. Awesome. Plainly put, I think Empires are the culmination of human possibility. As a group of people working towards common goals of technological social and military advancement, Empires represent the positive potential of mankind. Sure plenty of negative things have come from empires, but such is the problem of man. No one thing can be purely good or bad, every aspect of life and every human existence comes with bad and good affects. Parsons had a negative view of empires. He believes they always end badly and cause more harm than good. I think this view is a bit limiting and possibly neglectful. By choosing to focus on the wrongs and potential wrongs of an empire, wrongs like slavery in the British Empire, Piracy in the French, Exclusivity in the Japanese and religious persecution in the early Roman Empire, Parsons is ignoring the mass accumulation of positive ways Empires have affected the world. The British Empire spawned the industrial revolution and helped end the African slave trade in Europe. The Mongolian empire modeled an inclusive society where people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds could live in relative peace. The American Empire though at first more of an overgrown colony grew into one of the most powerful nations in the world and today continues to be at the forefront of technological and military discovery. Empires have their faults, as do the people that run them. Should we really blame a political group of people, for acting as people do, and sometimes making mistakes? The Parsons is correct, bad things have happened as a result of empires, but seeing as there is a positive for every negative, I think perhaps we can see another side and appreciate empires, both past and present, for the good they did, not just the bad. 

Galatic Empires

For a long time Empires have stood, shaping the world they live in. It is hard to imagine a world where there would be rid of an empire or at least an empire like country. It seems as though evolving worlds need a large standing government that is a leader and enemy.  Even in a galaxy far far away there stands an Empire ready for imperial action. It seems that the ways of an Empire will just be part of human existence. Maybe in some way shape or form we need empires just as much as empires need us.

Empires: An Inconclusive End

Empires had a history of shaping the world.  Not only as we know it, but the possible outcomes that could have been.  Parsons ends his chapter on the Iraq War conflict, while Burbank and Cooper ends their discussion on empires as inconclusive.

Parsons seems to paint this worst case scenario in his conclusion on the Iraq War.  He suggests the United States attempted to build an empire in Iraq because of the petroleum reserves found in Iraq.  Parsons suggests that the liberation operations against Saddam Hussein serves as a front so the United States can steal oil from Iraq.  All the evidence points further with Parsons attempt to dissuade this notion when he made the "while no factual evidence" argument to balance the bias.  Antiwar demonstrators made this same claim as they chanted that the war on terror 'was a war on error'.  

Burbank and Cooper suggest that empires drove human history, and practically guided humanity in the direction of civil behavior.  This speaks from a broad perspective from reading the accomplishments, contributions, history, and observations made by Burbank and Cooper.

Development to Disastrous Decolonization

 

            `           As the century began to reach the mid-way point and World War II ended, empire and what that meant was changing around the globe. “The mid-nineteenth century was no a self-propelled movement from empire to nation state. Ideas and practices of layered sovereignty and of varying dreams of self-rule within overreaching structures were still in play” (413). Britain and France began to look at their territories in Africa to safe and refine their colonial lifeline after World War II. Hitler had caused European racism to be recognized not only in Europe but globally and the Africans would no longer willingly subject themselves to unjust imperialism. Britain and Frances first proposal to African leaders was reform. Before they had established a controlling form of indirect rule but they were fully aware that things had to change.

            They began by changing governance and assured them that they would start the process of moving towards self-governance. Development became their new keyword. They renounced the old colonial doctrine of colonies paying them for their own development. They then proposed to spend their own money on communications, transportation, housing, schools and health facilities, industrial and agricultural products. How did these proposals become the decolonization process that we now know occurred in Africa?

            Despite all the changes and improvements that were promised to the Africans following World War II they were still seen as “children and “immature” societies. These societies were maturing faster intellectually than the Europeans would have liked. I do not mean that to discredit their innate intellectual abilities but as to say they began to learn the rules of the game. Following their use in World War II many Africans began to demand more; they felt as if they could fight next to and for the Europeans they deserved a more formal education and a more complete role in the economy. They simply were no longer satisfied with the remedial sense of independence, the nations wanted more and were willing to do whatever it took to get more. Many European settlers began to flee the African states therefore leaving many Africans with the sense of independence and decolonization process was usually violence free in these areas. In area where colonial presence was still there the process involved much more violence and conflict between the Africans and Europeans. This all occurred because the Europeans and Africans had two different ideas of what development should look like. The Africans wanted to begin moving towards independence immediately, while Europeans wanted to slowly move towards that process. They waved money and further aid in order to maintain economic control; the Africans were no longer going to allow themselves to be used by the Europeans.

"Home By Christmas"

It seems that all empires have some sort of diluted idea as to what the cost of war is and how difficult foreign occupation is. In talking about the American invasion of Iraq, and wether or not America should be considered an empire, Parsons mentions "As a result, the price of operation Iraqi Freedom, which Rumsfeld and his planners assumed would last only a few months and cost forty to fifty billion dollars, reached approximately 3 trillion dollars by 2008." (P. 445) Now this is not the first time that we have seem military planners severely underestimate the length that war would last. The most famous of which would be from World War One, in which the slogan "home by Christmas" was the belief of the day. There are other instances as well, both Hitler and Napoleon believed that they could nock out Russia before winter set in. Why is it that empires always seem to grossly underestimate how long a campaign is going to take? Is it underestimating the strength of their enemy? This would make sense, but it seems to be something else. It seems to be that empires do not realize how costly an occupation is until they are actually in the act of doing. Occupation is something that happens on such a large scale and requires hundreds of thousands of men. It seems that most Empires forget about this, and they forget about the resistance that they will receive once the country appears to be "occupied". All of this then runs up the price tag that the invading army will then have to pay to such obscene numbers and causes the way to drag on and on that it will be nowhere near the original time plan that they had set in place for themselves. Empires when occupying need to remember that once that battle is over, if they plan to occupy it will not be a few month process, this is a much longer process that is extremely expensive. Yet, history has shown us that empires have and will continue to invade on a premise that they will be "home by Christmas" or some other slogan that they can develop to convince both their soldiers and civilians that the war will only last a few months.

Unconvinced

Despite the consistent negativity towards empires from Timothy Parsons, I don't think all too badly of the empires in our world's history. As he opens his conclusion, he talks at length about the United States' involvement in the war in Iraq. Parsons references the Bush Doctrine, labeling it a "classic excuse" for empire. But we have discussed in class several times that America is not (at least not yet) an empire. Parsons even writes "...it was true that the United States did not seek a formal empire in the Middle East."
So was the argument convincing? Clearly, there is still debate over whether the United States was/is an empire, but what about the others we have studied? Certainly there have been imperial powers in the past, and America seems to be part of that category, but they don't seem to be as destructive as Parsons would argue.
The British Empire, which we spoke about last week, had many positive points about it. Although it may not 'erase' the wrongdoings of the empire--namely slavery, it does shed some positive light on the empire's actions.
I do agree with Parsons that there is a "current romanticization of the British and French empires of the last century as stable, omnipotent, and benevolent", and that empires cannot be classified as "humane", but I am unconvinced that they were all bad. Britain influenced many of their colonized nations with a better government and economy; the Mongolians and Islamic peoples demonstrated a new, unique method of tolerance for their subjects; and the United States has worked to help many in dictatorial situations.
Yes, there are obvious problems with empire, and the colonization aspect is obviously inhumane. But to say they will always end badly and are completely wrong, seems to be an overstatement on Parsons' part.

Good or Bad

In Niall Ferguson's introduction he raises the question of if the British Empire was a good or bad thing. He states that nowadays the British Empire would be considered a bad thing. One reason being the involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.
This being that in 2001 during the United Nations Conference, slavery and the slave trade had been deemed as "a crime against humanity". Colonization had been considered to be part of slavery.
This seems like a statement Parson would have agreed with. Parson, being not a fan of Empires and Colonization would have readily supported this statement. But the decision of an Empire being good or bad shouldn't lay solely on the fact that they had slavery and partook in slave trades. It should factor in how they acted with other nations, wars, and most importantly how they treated their citizens.