by mends » 13 Jan 2006, 08:42
imperialice: a patetice de acusar os americanos de imperialistas. Saiu um livro sobre isso, e abaixo segue a resenha da Economist:
American imperialism
Better with them than without them
Jan 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
America leads the world but does it rule it? And what should we feel about being part of the empire, if it is one?
Be careful before you wish them away
AS THE civilian death toll in Iraq continues to mount at an undiminished rate, as the prison scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay continue to undermine any claim to a moral high ground, and as America continues to be a deliberate laggard in adjusting its energy policy to take account of global warming, it has become steadily harder to find non-Americans willing to agree that on balance American leadership makes the world a better place. That doesn't make the notion wrong, however. Enter Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy expert at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. His previous, very compelling book, “The Ideas that Conquered the World” (2002), explored how peace, democracy and free markets had become the world's dominant ideals. Now, his new book argues that the country that stands most squarely behind those aspirations, the United States, also acts as a sort of surrogate government for the globe—and that we would all be a lot worse off if it didn't.
“The Case for Goliath” is somewhat less compelling than its predecessor, as it often reads like a rather ponderous textbook. But it is in a good cause and its arguments are well worth considering, especially given the recent trend of world opinion. As he argues, the right question to ask is not whether this or that act of American foreign policy could be improved upon, for many undoubtedly could be and should be. That has always been true, ever since the 1940s when America first took on a clear role as global leader. The better question is whether such American leadership—which he argues is a functional equivalent to being the world's government—is preferable to the plausible alternative. That alternative, in his view, consists of less governance not more, as neither a rival leader nor a collective solution is ready to fill the gap left by any American withdrawal. Be careful what you wish for, is in essence his message to those who go beyond criticising American actions to advocate their cessation.
Mr Mandelbaum does a fine service in showing why, in matters of peace and security, such anti-American views rest on a delusion. Without the American military to act as intervener of last resort, albeit at the head of NATO missions, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the first on the European continent since 1945, simply would not have been brought to a halt. More generally, without the American presence and strength to act as a deterrent, war between the rising powers of Asia, for example, would look a lot more likely than it does. And without American steering and encouragement, the 50-year effort to limit nuclear proliferation would not have succeeded as well as it has.
Leading, not ruling
Where, however, he sows confusion amid his otherwise clear exposition is in his desire to replace the broad notion of “leadership” with the idea that America acts, in effect, as the world's government. Even in the military sphere, where America's lead over all others is at its greatest, this analogy is questionable. For real governments do not just act as interveners of last resort, as America did in the Balkans; they steer things much more actively. But the analogy becomes especially inapt in economic affairs. For in that sphere, America's efforts since 1945 can be seen as an attempt to ensure that no one needs to act as a world government. And those efforts have been strikingly successful.
Some critics of America look back on the 1940s, when President Harry Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drove the establishment of the United Nations, its economic affiliates the IMF and the World Bank, and the separate General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as the high point of enlightened American leadership, designed to create a multilateral, rules-based world, in contrast to the brutish unilateralism of George Bush. Such claims ignore the fact that Messrs Truman and Acheson were eagerly unilateralist when they needed to be and that the initial hopes for the UN were stillborn. More important, though, they ignore the fact that in economics, finance and trade, the multilateral, rules-based world exists, and that America largely works within it.
To call the United States “the world's government” in economic affairs is plain wrong. It is more governed than governing, much to Congress's frequent discomfort. In the 20th century, to be sure, America played the decisive role in establishing all these rules, procedures and institutions. Contrary to Mr Mandelbaum's subtitle, however, in the 21st century all that can be said is that if the world's largest single economy were to withdraw from the World Trade Organisation, say, or the IMF, those institutions would collapse. It is indispensable but not in control. The same is true of the European Union. If the Doha round of WTO talks fails this year, it is as likely to be the EU's fault as America's. For in economics, the global trend since 1945, as more and more countries have adopted liberal forms of capitalism subject to common rules, has been towards greater equality both of wealth and of influence between the big countries and blocks.
The great irony of America's leadership of the world since 1945 has been that the more it succeeds in spreading its ideas—“conquering the world” with them, in Mr Mandelbaum's earlier words—the more that its economic pre-eminence becomes eroded. Among all the empires in history, if America deserves that word, it is as the first ever self-dissolving empire. Even Mr Bush, through his economic liberalism and his “freedom agenda”, would, if successful, eventually encourage multilateralism rather than challenge it.
Where Mr Mandelbaum is right is that in matters of peace and security, and in the technical work that lies behind those grand themes, the development of multilateralism is far less advanced—indeed in some ways it hasn't advanced at all. But there is only one thing worse than leadership from the White House and the Pentagon. And that is not having leadership from the White House and the Pentagon.
The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century.
By Michael Mandelbaum.
PublicAffairs; 283 pages; $26 and £15.50
"I used to be on an endless run.
Believe in miracles 'cause I'm one.
I have been blessed with the power to survive.
After all these years I'm still alive."
Joey Ramone, em uma das minhas músicas favoritas ("I Believe in Miracles")