77 Comments

As an American who studies and writes about America and its 20th Century wars, I think Graham Greene came up with the best description of America and Americans, in terms of their influence on the world, in his novel of the First Indochina War, "The Quiet American." The novel’s protagonist, cynical British journalist Thomas Fowler - a stand-in for Greene - describes the title character, Alden Pyle: “I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused... impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.”

Expand full comment

American leadership, at this point, consists of a series of spoiling actions to prevent links among a massive would-be group of nations who would prefer non alignment. And to slow the rise of China for as long as possible. Seen from that lens, everything makes perfect sense. Climate change being case in point.

US of course will be among the last to walk away from a hydrocarbon driven energy system. Because who makes most of the world's renewables, by overwhelming margin? The rest of the world will eventually adopt the Chinese green tech, probably having to break sanctions to do it.

Expand full comment

"American leadership, at this point, consists of a series of spoiling actions to prevent links among a massive would-be group of nations who would prefer non alignment."

If only this were true.

It is actually worse to think that the present international scene is the outcome of "spoiling actions" - the virtual integration of Russia, China and Iran plus the cleavage of the rest of the world minus the West is literally the worst possible outcome from an American standpoint.

In contrast, the above occurring due to simple incompetence and arrogance is at least understandable. Hence my vote for incompetence and arrogance as the primary driver of American policy - especially under the present administration. That is why it continues to jar when blame is assigned to Trump for his supposedly bumbling international policy - who was it that got North Korea talking? Who was it that did not start a new conflict as POTUS? The faults of Trump are many, but they contributed very little to the abject failure that is US foreign policy for the last multiple decades.

Expand full comment

I have to admit that I'm completely mystified about how you can see Russia's and China's alliance as the fault of the US? Russia had designs on Ukraine for a very long time, which we oppose; China has had designs on Taiwan for a very long time, which we oppose. This was inevitable, was it not?

Expand full comment

US policy in at least the past 2 generations was to ensure Russia and China were never allied. It is why Nixon started the rapprochement with China by visiting in 1972. It is the literal execution of Halford MacKinder's ideas.

US policy since 2016 - started by Trump as a mostly economic disagreement - has since morphed under Biden to having China as the "biggest threat to the US" even as US policy did not change towards Russia.

And it isn't just Russia and China. Dubya Bush's Axis of Evil consisting of Iraq, Iran and North Korea has now morphed into Russia, China, Iran and North Korea - the difference being that Russia and China are both nuclear powers and also dominate the respective regions.

Inevitable? Only with morons in charge.

As for Taiwan: It has always been China's policy that Taiwan should be part of China - but note that it was Taiwan saying this as well, in reverse, from 1949 to well into the 1970s.

Note that Taiwan held the UN Security Council seat despite having 1.7% of China's population - something that did not change until 1971, a full 22 years after mainland China was unified under the Chinese Communist Party.

Expand full comment
Oct 25, 2023·edited Oct 26, 2023

You completely dodged my point. Russia has wanted to conquer Ukraine for a long time; that goes against our values and our interests. China has wanted to conquer Taiwan for a long time; that goes against our values and our interests. We were always going to oppose them both, as both of those projects are horrible from the US's point of view. Hence an alliance was always likely, since China doesn't care if Russia conquers Ukraine and Russia doesn't care if China conquers Taiwan.

Expand full comment

Russia has not desired to conquer Ukraine for a long time.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the elected president of Ukraine that was color regime changed in 2014 was slightly pro-Russian; pro-Russian in the sense that he chose a better Russian economic offer for Ukraine than the one offered by the West/EU. Prior to this elected president, there was a pro-Western one.

Nor is your description of China and Taiwan the least bit accurate.

China considers Taiwan a wayward province but is in no particular hurry for it to rejoin. China had no problem waiting for Hong Kong's 99 year lease to expire; Chinese leadership has longed believed Taiwan was more likely to rejoin China on its own once the mainland surpassed Taiwan's economic plateau - which it has to an enormous degree.

As for Russia and China working together: yet more demonstration of your lack of understanding of even relatively recent history.

Russia has desired to be part of the Europe for centuries. A common security architecture to go along with already significant economic integration was all they wanted; instead what Russia got was massive NATO expansion and continual rejection of common security goals.

The $5 billion to promote Ukrainian regime change, boasted on video by a senior US official (Victoria Nuland); self-admitted Western duplicity in not even trying to get Ukraine to adhere to the Minsk accords; the ensuing economic sanctions; the ongoing civilian deaths due to indiscriminate shelling and the installation of US dual use missile installations in Romania and Poland - none of these are any kind of example of peaceful and friendly US action.

Clearly you are not aware that the Cuban missile crisis arose because of US nuclear missile installations in Turkey and Italy; the resolution of said crisis was the mutual withdrawal of both US installations in Europe as well as cessation of Russian nuclear capable missile installations in Cuba.

The situation today did not arise from any form of intrinsic tendencies between Russia and China - they were shooting at each other on the Russia/China border back in the 1970s; furthermore there were very strong doctrinal differences between Russian Marxist-Leninism and Chinese Communism.

Expand full comment
Oct 26, 2023·edited Oct 26, 2023

It's hard to reply to any of this at all because it's all so irrelevant, even the parts that aren't outright bizarre ("color regime changed", come on). Surely even you don't think you've provided any evidence at all that Russia has not long wanted to conquer Ukraine nor that China has not long wanted to conquer Taiwan. Absent that evidence, which you need because of the manifest facts of the invasions of 2014 and 2022 in Russia's case and the unending military threats and buildup near Taiwan, your response is just bluster. Your insults confirm that: "yet more demonstration of your lack of understanding" is totally unnecessary obfuscation.

Expand full comment

China brokering peace and reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran blew up the lie that only American hegemony can keep the peace.

And China did not need to fire a single shot or, as far as anyone can tell, bribe anyone.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I am not sure if you could recognize "democracy" if it were to see it.

"The contemporary US is a plutocracy – the term is not intended polemically, but as a statement substantiated by the facts and accepted by most informed commentators. It simply describes a country in which networks of corporate interests set the policy agenda via lobbying and political donation, and where hard data show that, over decades, in literally every translation of advocacy into legislative acts, the interests of the wealthy prevail. Plutocracy in fact is the form that rule typically takes in the US; most states, says Turchin, have a form of rule to which they revert over centuries after crisis periods, and ‘culture is persistent’ here. The US is reverting to type after the crisis of the Great Depression spurred elites, in their own self-interest, to turn off the wealth pump; this new co-operative instinct was consolidated by the experience of World War II, so that the decades from the early 1930s saw ‘the Great Compression’, with the gap between the wealthiest in society and ordinary citizens narrowing. Reversal of this trend is a reversion to type."

https://drb.ie/articles/there-will-be-blood-2/

Sheldon Wolin described the US as an "inverted totalitarianism"

"While the classical totalitarian regimes aimed at the constant political mobilization of the populace, inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the populace to be in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an indication that the bulk of the populace has given up hope that the government will ever significantly help them"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism

Expand full comment

Iran is quite democratic. That said, tell us some more about how American hegemony brought peace to these countries and democracy to Saudi Arabia.

Expand full comment

I think you misrepresent the nature of American power, which is and has been to stimulate cooperation in which all participating parties benefit, and to bear much of the organizing costs of establishing structures that facilitate that cooperation. When that power has not been exercised, as it largely was not between 1920 and 1939, parties who would have benefitted by it suffer by its absence. When other parties do not wish to cooperate, no shared benefit occurs. Aspects are myriad, but consider the internet, invented in America, shared broadly, whose governance has been given away for free, but which has some countries unwilling to open themselves to sharing. America's power is here, as elsewhere, fundamentally limited to stimulating cooperation among willing partners.

Expand full comment

Reality points to a different direction, the "cooperation" you mention is only as long it happens on the US terms.

As soon as the Russians kicked out the oligarchs associated with Wall Street, and resicnded all the disastruous contracts entered during Yeltsin era with US oil majors, Putin became a villan for not allowing Russia and Russians to be robbed blind. As soon as Xi Jinping started its anti-corruption campaign, which ultimately favored western banks and business, as the service providers for all the corrupt officials, he became an authoritarian.

Some countries were smart to not let themselves open to the tendrils of US corporate techno feudalism, with absolutely no regards for privacy.

Expand full comment

Those are some good points Mr. Rose, but that America wasn’t involved in the world 1920 -1939 is a myth. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 was the greatest disarmament treaty in History.

The Dawes Plan for WW1 reparations greatly eased the overall tensions and Germany’s misery for a time.

We could mention Kellogg-Briand Treaty outlawing war, foolish but well intentioned.

We just weren’t bombing or warring in the world, that’s true.

Nor trapped in alliances with dozens of countries, an alliance system turned dangerous as they often do...

I think you’ll consider for instance that the American system of mutual cooperation and benefit 1941 to present day wasn’t and isn’t based on voluntary cooperation. It’s based on Force and money.

Nor does it benefit we Americans, it benefits our elites and their self image, of course they don’t do the killing or the dying.

Expand full comment

I disagree mightily with your assertion that America "eased overall tensions and Germany's misery for a time".

It was the US policy of forcing its allies to repay their WW1 debt which led to the punitive terms of the Versailles treaty. This treaty in turn is most directly responsible for the economic chaos in Germany which led to the rise of the Mustached One. Nor was the debt repayment necessarily out of some sense of fiscal prudence; the debt load was explicitly used to terminate the British Commonwealth and accelerate the end of the British Empire.

In a real sense - the Marshall plan after WW2 was an attempt to not repeat the mistakes of WW1 while the rest of US policy was still to empoverish US allies and complete the severance of European and British colonial assets.

Expand full comment

See below, you are wrong and a tech should check facts first.

However you are correct on this matter; after WW2 the US policy was absolutely although unspoken to leash the Europeans including the English so we didn’t have to come back to Europe in war every generation *you 💩heads*.

Our version of NATO;

We Americans are stuck in.

We’ll keep the Europeans especially the British Down.

So the Russians can stay out.

Who can blame us? 🇺🇸

Expand full comment

1919 -JP Morgan offers to forgive the debt. Wilson refuses- not from money or greed but because he’s angry at Italy over some motion at Versailles.

Yes, JP Morgan the main banker to the Allies. (“Deluge” - Adam Tooze).

Dawes plan 1924 - America recycles money through Germany back to allies back to America and restructures debt a mini economic boom happens.

Young plan 1930 same thing essentially.

In no way were we 🇺🇸 in it for the money. We almost weren’t in it for the money until the crash of 2008. Then reality struck- but then AGAIN the US Federal Reserve created $29 Trillion USD from thin air and half went overseas to overseas banks

Expand full comment

Jack Morgan, not JP. Jack is JP's son. JP died 1913. There IS a book "American Reparations to Germany" and I have it somewhere; yes I've read it. Reparations are a Bad Idea and often the Reason/Excuse for the Next War and other Bad Consequences. The Idea of Reparations Should Be Dropped--Period!

Expand full comment

Yes, reparations are a bad thing.

In particular for a country just defeated.

Vae Victas is unwise policy.

Hubris. Gloating.

Unwise and insults are remembered longer than injury.

Wounds heal , insults fester.

The same thing transfer of wealth can be accomplished via “loans” and “trade agreements” that pinch the defeated notables of any land without embarrassing them.

The same may be said of disarmament, above all of war crimes trials. Gloating with moral pretentiousness, sneering with moral preening. Folly, and always the actions of they who don’t fight - the fighters know better.

Expand full comment

The why you are arguing is actually irrelevant.

I never said anything about greed or any other motivation - what I stated is that America did not follow normal sovereign custom to that point of forgiving ally war debts.

Thus the detail you offer is irrelevant since the outcome is the same.

But I would say your assertion is not well backed up since the US also did not forgive war debt after WW2...

As for the specifics of motivation: again, it really doesn't matter. What matters is effect.

Expand full comment

C1ue- please tell me this normal sovereign war debt forgiveness thingie; what are you talking about? There were German cities paying off Thirty Years War debts in the 19th century.

Perhaps you mean 1870 Franco Prussian war? Nope.

I need to see this normal war debt forgiveness thingie. Especially from Europeans, or English.

Now you’re being annoyingly anti American. That’s it. A real case can be made, that we did it for $$ can’t. WW2 damn near bankrupted us as well.

Now frankly Europe WW1 and WW2 acutely cost America The Republic and Constitutional government- and you weren’t worth it then, you certainly aren’t now, and Commander Long Warred would wipe you off the earth as a hygienic measure tomorrow.

I hope this clears things up.

I and my country 🇺🇸 even our banks would forgive any amount of debt, we’ll never forgive losing the Republic.

Expand full comment

I have zero responsibility to inform your obviously a-historical understanding of debt, but here's a few pointers:

1) David Graeber's "Debt: The First 5000 years"

2) Dr. Michael Hudson - he references this pretty much in every other publication

3) History: Catholicism literally prohibited the practice of usury until the Reformation (roughly 1700)

4) The behavior of the US itself: Germany's debt was half forgiven in 1953 - the UK's debt was never forgiven either in WW1 or WW2 or afterwards.

As such, your assertion that there was never any cases of sovereign debt forgiveness is nonsense directly contradicted by a host of people who specialize in the study of economic history.

In fact, a study of the European objections to US insistence on debt collection after WW1 is instructive: much as most of the aid spent on Ukraine is really spent in the US, so too were most of the proceeds of debts incurred by European allies of the US spent in the US for the benefit of the US government, US corporations and the US people.

As for your assertion about debt forgiveness somehow equating to losing the Republic: nonsense. The US has done debt forgiveness before and will do it in the future. The issue has nothing to do with anything except banksterism vs. sovereign interests.

Expand full comment

Yet bullies countries like my South Africa.

Expand full comment

Joe Biden is basically a used car salesman. Was a failure as a lawyer so became a politician. Very sad. And Blinken is totally incompetent

Expand full comment

None of this is true.

The reality is that a US administration can only do so much. It depends on Congress to pass legislation.

The US Congress has become increasingly dysfunctional as our politics have become increasingly politicized. The GOP House caucus is so broken that it's unable to elect a Speaker. The GOP Senate is blocking military promotions and refusing to confirm vital presidential appointees.

Biden started with a broad environmental agenda, but only a portion passed through Congress. The US president is not a king and he can only set the agenda. The war in Ukraine also threw a wrench into ambitious climate objectives as the US began exports to the EU.

I have no issues with valid critiques of a US administration, but failing to provide the context of wars on 2 continents, and massive Congressional dysfunction is both shallow and naive.

Expand full comment

USA has been in decline since the 1970s. This is the fault of the elite.

Hopefully after the baby boomers die off will be changed

Expand full comment

The only thing worse than the baby boomers are the Millenial Morons.

Expand full comment

Add the in between, and it's a threesome that will end in disaster when one gets pregnant.

Expand full comment

Yeah, let's compare both to the ultimate used bullshit salesman, Donald Trump, and whichever clunk stupid enough to join in with him and ultimately be thrown under the bus as Trump circles the drain, as secretary of state. At least his first SecState had the knowledge and the courage to call him what he was and is: "a fucking moron."

Expand full comment

Most of the world is experiencing "American leadership" through the maelstrom of that nation's own disorder and dysfunction. A feral distrust of "others", allies and non-allies alike, defines at least one (and not the least one) of America's core identities/values. This distrust has hollowed out its "public" polity and, in terms of foreign policy, animates a de facto unilateralism- "exceptionalism"-- that conditions the wider endorsement of its current claim of being the world's last best bulwark against "chaos".

Expand full comment

If this clown show looks the way it looks from within the US, just imagine what it looks like from outside. A monkey with a handgrenade is not a strong enough simile, since nuclear weapons and the largest "defense" budget in the world amount to a lot more than a handgrenade.

Expand full comment

I think this is one of the best and most inciscive articles of Mister Tooze. Hanging out with Carla Mattei and the like seems to open new horizons... Kudos.

Expand full comment

Not the national but the dollar holds the world together to various degrees depending on the nations involved. Distant second is to whatever extent Pentagon-supported arms sales hold the world together.

As for that shining beacon of democracy thing, I’d like to think that shipped sealed long ago what with our democracy-stopping efforts since WWII in Greece, Germany, Italy, Iran, Iraq, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua and the Congo as well as a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Of course, the BS that was our boasting about spreading democracy was much easier to push without exposure before the web and the shining of light on the subject.

Too, maybe it’s time for the US to hold the world less tightly...

Expand full comment

I don't want China or Russia or any combo thereof being the planetary hegemon. Ditto Chevron. Ditto the Koch family. I speak as a member of the ruling class elite deep state democrat babyeating jewish laser conspiracy.

Expand full comment

Even a combo thereof doesn’t have the oomph to become hegemon. US after ww2 was absolutely dominant, 50-75 % of world output on different metrics. China simply has parity and no path to dominance. This is an empty worry really

Expand full comment

Seriously? Every empire says that. The British said that, the Greeks, the Danish, the Roman's, etc. The fact is American leadership has given us a lot of heartburn....financial crises after financial crises, wars after wars. Has anyone fought as many wars as the Americans have in trying to gather wealth?

Expand full comment

I think America's character, at home and in the world, is shaped by two things. One, the US is a democracy built by a rebellion against a colonial power, where the rebels had the good sense to ground their actions in an Enlightenment framework of first principles. Though the country doesn't always live by those principles, and doesn't always try, they can't be erased from our history and still magnetize our politics.

Second, the US is not the richest or biggest country in the world, but it's the richest of the big countries, and the biggest of the rich countries. In this sense, Biden is totally right: a world system where the US ignores that fact and leaves a vacuum, will devolve into instability and chaos that is (a) bad for most people on earth and (b) quite bad for Americans. Maybe a future multipolar world will emerge where more countries prosper from better governance, and American centrality will become less of a necessary stabilizer. Maybe America should do more to hasten that process.

Expand full comment

If the USA were more moral than arrogant, it would have been great.

Expand full comment

“If you want a global loss and damages fund,”...

Mr. Tooze, the only people who want a global loss and damages fund for weather patterns of the past are political criminals and the delusional, the delusional are usually well heeled and can toss their Trust funds on the altar of Gaia Guilt. This sort of Grift for imaginary sins is what has completely discredited the entire environmental movement, the only Green they are interested in is other people’s money. As for these countries demanding $$, let them follow the example of Sri Lanka and show us the way.

Thank God the reign of madness dies with our Old Buddha, Joe Biden. He’s the last you know, there’s no feasible or even improbable successor.

Expand full comment

All that's fine as far as it goes. I see you focusing on Biden's quote "either some other country tries to take our place, ....or no one does, and then you get chaos." Seems like a simple rephrasing of Kindleberger's thesis. Do you think Kindleberger was wrong?

If so, no need to be concerned about a Kindleberger moment as all will be fine (unlike the 1930s)?

https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/kindleberger-moment

Expand full comment

I must admit, I was so flummoxed by how quickly and shortly you dismissed the American Example as self-deluded nonsense that it took me a few tries to organize my thoughts.

As another reader posted, America's character is built on enlightenment first principles. We are living in a time where the global emphasis of these principles is waning, as rightward nativist and authoritarian trends grown worldwide and leas to more conflict and a return to great powers.

It's fair to criticize America's ability to organize the world to solve big problems. But I interpreted Biden's speech as being about leading through the power of our example, of enlightenment first principles, by pushing back against the aggression of forces that are non-aligned. I don't think that's self-deluded, and I do think that things like freedom of speech and right to assembly are just as important to the nature of a country's influence as is their ability to solve collective problems like climate change. And we should all want for the promotion of our first principles, whether it's the US or someone else.

Expand full comment

Just reflect on the difference between thoughts, words, and actions, and apply it to the US behaviour in international relations.

Expand full comment

The bulk of the world is increasingly unable to hear what Americans claim about themselves over their actions in the world over the past 75 years, let alone the last decade.

A little self-reflection and fewer lectures, please.

Expand full comment

The bulk of the world is allowed to have their opinion. And I am not suggesting that their criticism of our ability to execute on our ideals is invalid. But I do think that there's a difference between possessing static foundational principles, and executing on them (which changes).

It's clear that many states are using the failure of our example to justify being more brazenly authoritarian in domestic affairs, and are happy to collaborate with other nations that outwardly promote the idea that it's not the world's business what sovereign entities do or don't do at home.

So if perception of our system trends negative, and nations in turn tend more authoritarian, the conclusion we're to draw is the idea of the American example is ridiculous? Instead of "do better", which is what the speech is about?

But I guess what's important is what the global people think of America, as on average they turn more nationalist, revanchist, and willing to use the levers of state unmoored from enlightenment principles to crush dissent and repress minorities. This is a great recipe for long-term success in global cooperation.

A little first-principles analysis, a little less popularity contest, please.

Expand full comment

"A little first-principles analysis, a little less popularity contest, please."

That just sounds like more "do as I say, not as I do" talk, and I don't mean to insult you personally but that's just nonsense. "Talk more about our idealism, not reality" is what it sounds like you are saying. And that's supposed to make other countries act better, are you kidding? It sounds like your attitude is exactly what Tooze is criticizing above.

I'd even go so far as to say if the US lived up to ideals in reality (even if just a little) then there wouldn't be as much room for "rightward nativist and authoritarian trends." These days, however, we can only live up to our principles if either we can weaponize it against somebody or another, or make a buck off it.

Expand full comment

Mr. Tooze writes:

"As a metaphysical proposition it is silly and self-deluding. It is bizarre to imagine that the world needs America to “hold it together”."

Metaphysical proposition Mr. Tooze? Read up on Pax Romana, the 200-year period that saw unprecedented peace and economic prosperity throughout the Roman Empire.

This substack is swinging more and more leftward with each passing day.

Expand full comment

Oh yeah, that Pax Romana. "They make a desert and call it peace." If Pax Romana is looking good to you then this substack doesn't have to go very far to be on your left.

Expand full comment

I’m not sure what the seating arrangement in the old Estates-General has to do with the relationship between empires and “peace and prosperity.”

What a useless, muddled comment.

Expand full comment