BOOK REPORT: IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER, BY ALFRED W. MCCOY

IN HIS CHAPTER ON AMERICA and its dwindling roster of allies in the world, Alfred McCoy writes:

     “Absent a global war to sweep away an empire, the decline of a great power often proves to be a fitful, painful, drawn-out process. To Washington’s never-ending wars in the Middle East, its crippling partisan deadlock, [in congress] the economy’s slow slide toward second place globally, and some of its longtime allies, including the Philippines, now forging economic ties with rival hegemon China, must now be added the loss of loyal surrogates across the Middle East… accompanied by a decline in US influence….

For more than fifty years, this system of global power has served Washington well, allowing it to extend its influence worldwide with surprising efficiency and economy of force. So there can be little question that the weakening of this network of subordinate elites and the ending of ties to a range of loyal allies—and they are indeed ending—is a major blow to American global power.” (78-9)

Charrge!

McCoy's 2017 examination of the American project provides the reader with a detailed analysis of the rise and impending decline of the United States as the world’s sole superpower, showing how it came to acquire this status, and how today it is losing it. He reminds us that the United States’ first taste of empire and conquest (if we ignore the westward expropriation of Mexican and native peoples’ lands, of course) came with the conquest of Cuba, wherein Teddy Roosevelt’s “charge!” up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War of 1898, was about all I remember learning in school concerning the conflict.

McCoy notes that the United States declared war against Spain on the dubious premise that the USS Maine was blown up by Spanish forces in Havana Harbour. Prior to that, jingoistic newspaper articles drumming for war—the “fake news” of the day--promoted by the Hearst newspaper chain, convinced many that the Cuban people needed liberation from their corrupt Spanish overlords. Within months, Spanish forces were routed in the Caribbean, and Cuba and other Spanish colonies and territories were ceded to America, including the Philippines.

Battle of Manila Bay

McCoy has a special interest in America’s colonial rule over this distant island nation, having written Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, in 2009. One thing is significant, he notes, and that is how with each step along the road, as America’s global influence increased during the Twentieth Century (particularly after WWII), American political elites and policy makers learned lessons on how to grow a modern empire*. For example, its decades-long rule in the Philippines gave American military analysts an understanding of the power and efficiency of a comprehensive surveillance network, as well as the importance of creating systems of information gathering, and data retrieval and storage for targeting and monitoring sectors of the population. The “Red Scare” controversies prior to America’s entrance to WWI, the 1917 Espionage Act** that saw numerous anti-war protestors and activists jailed, and which spawned, in mutated form, the infamous McCarthy Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, were the children and grandchildren of  surveillance systems first developed by the US in the Philippines. Today, America’s vast security and surveillance network—McCoy calls it the “information infrastructure” (57)—with its plethora of agencies and bloated budgets, can be traced back to those first developed in the Philippines over a century ago.

Halford Mackinder

McCoy has a fascinating section on geopolitics, discussing the ‘father’ of the discipline, Halford Mackinder, and his 1904 treatise on the “World Island” and the “natural seats of power”. In a bare-bones explanation, Mackinder’s theory posits that the Eurasian landmass, from Valdivostok to Berlin basically, is the essential geography, the "heartland" that must be controlled. McCoy reviews the wars and machinations—the “Great Game”—of several centuries to illustrate the validity of Mackinder’s argument, and shows how it is still relevant today. China is the latest contender to the throne with its staggeringly ambitious “Silk Roads” initiative—a decades-long building project designed to link the Eurasian super-continent via rail, road, pipeline, and political and commercial ties. Instead of containing and controlling the "World Island" via blockades at its eastern and western ‘gates’ (as America, with its of ring military bases and missile and air defenses following WWII and during the Cold War succeeded in doing), China will link it from within, and then push outwards, as they are beginning to do today in the South China Sea. And they may well succeed. China's humanitarian and development schemes, and growing military presence in Africa and elsewhere are examples of Chinese imperial designs, and whether these initiatives will benefit China's long-term strategic plans is uncertain. That this rapidly rising nation is making such bold moves at this time is significant. As America's hegemonic dominion fades, other powers begin jockeying for position to see who will win the race. 

McCoy details the tools of commerce, diplomacy, cultural ties and the “hard power” of military force used by America to hold sway over much of the globe during the past fifty years. He outlines the course of American influence in setting the agenda for global trade, commerce and finance following WWII, when America was arguably at its height. He makes the interesting comment that all empires need to have a certain level of ‘buy-in’ from their subject peoples and “subordinate elites” in the various countries under their control. Britain, in its century of empire offered “fair trade”, a “liberal empire”, as well as the "ideal of dominion as trusteeship" to help maintain the loyalty of its subordinate elites in India and other far-off colonies. (256). Post-WWII America offered the world the rule of law, the "creation of viable international institutions, global economic integration...the advance of human rights" (256), and its promotion of democracy—all attractive elements for many peoples around the globe. Additionally, American culture with its music, movies, fashions, etc., proved addictive across the globe, helping to further establish American hegemony.  American diplomats in the decades following the war were adept at forming multi-polar partnerships with nations, and America was seen as a force for uniting the world in creating an equitable and prosperous future.

Click me!

In his discussion of American “hard power”, besides discussing the changing roles of modern military forces, military doctrine, strategic planning and so on, McCoy gives some fascinating details about the use of drone technology, for example, something first tried out in the jungles of Vietnam, as well as the first use of satellites to give greater control over military operations there. He gives sobering statistics on the growing use and importance of drones to US military today, as well as their increasing deadliness and questionable overall effectiveness. He discusses in great detail the rise of “covert” operations, arguably the "fifth pillar" of American imperial control, whereby an outwardly benign global power such as the United States that, on the one hand, promotes democracy and fair play, but on the other, secretly promotes regime change and undemocratic practices in other countries it wishes to control. McCoy details the rise of the CIA and how this agency operated for decades to destabilize and manipulate dozens of countries, covertly. He gives statistics which provide a sharp and ironic counterpoint to today’s “RussiaGate” brouhaha:

“According to a compilation at Carnegie Mellon University, between 1946 and 2000 the rival superpowers intervened in 117 elections, or 11 percent of all the competitive national-level contests held worldwide, via campaign cash and media disinformation. Significantly, the United States was responsible for eighty-one of these attempts (70 percent of the total)—including eight instances in Italy, five in Japan, and several in Chile and Nicaragua stiffened by CIA paramilitary action.” (55)   

Waterboarding c. 1898

His chapter, “Torture and the Eclipse of Empires”, was one I found particularly disturbing. He details the use and growing acceptance of torture within America’s “covert” security establishment, and here McCoy’s criticisms are pointed and direct:

“Yet if torture expresses a will to dominance for an empire on the rise, it also reveals a more complex pathology amid imperial retreat or defeat, involving as it does an unsettling mixture of arrogance and  insecurity, a sense of superiority and savagery, as well as a legalistic mentality and an inescapable criminality. The repeated use of torture, despite the legal complications involved, seems more comprehensible when understood as an artifact of empire” (136)

His section on psychological torture, its etiology, use and refinement over the decades is difficult to read. The deliberate attack on someone’s sense of self and personhood, using techniques that can only be described as inhuman, is beyond reproach. He states:

     “In 1963, the CIA distilled this decade of research into the ‘KUBARK’ Counterintelligence Interrogation” manual, which stated that sensory deprivation was effective because it made ‘the regressed subject view the interrogator as a father figure…strengthening…the subject’s tendencies toward compliance.’ Refined through years of practice on human beings, the CIA’s psychological paradigm came to rely on a mix of sensory overload and sensory deprivation via seemingly banal procedures—heat and cold, light and dark, noise and silence, feast and famine—meant to attack six basic sensory pathways into the human mind.” (138)  

Abu Ghraib c. 2004

We think today, with horror and disgust, of places like Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and “black site” operations throughout the world in various American “client states” where such despicable acts occur. McCoy notes that previous empires such as France and Britain, “at times of crisis…moved through parallel phases” with their use of torture. He states that:

“More ominously for the future of Washington’s global hegemony, the use of torture by dying empires, and the moral damage that comes with it, seems like both a manifestation of and a casual factor for imperial decline.” [Italics mine] (136)

Military Drone

Additionally, cyberwarfare, new stages of technological conflict, and how plans of the “Grandmasters of the Great Game” gang aft agley, are examined, as well as a concluding chapter that contains scenarios suggesting how and when the American ‘end stage’ of empire will occur. But the signs of America's decline are there: it's waning economy and indebtedness, it's military failures and quagmires, it's loss of gravitas on the world stage of international diplomacy, its polarized political class and electorate, and other indicators are examples of an empire in decline. McCoy warns that the decline of America's economic, political and military power may not be a good thing--some great powers, like Britain for example, were relatively benign; others such as Nazi Germany were evil and destructive. Emerging potential hegemons, China or Russia, are countries with authoritarian governments, and are not seen as promoters of democracy and the rule of law. Their ascendancy to world dominance could lead to a decline in the principles of law and good governance, human rights, democratic institutions, environmental protection, and so on.  
Needless to say, I found this book an informative and stimulating read, and recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

Cheers

"If I don't think anything, maybe they'll go away."

*The word “empire” is a loaded term. When we hear the word we think of ancient Assyria, Rome, Egypt, Spain and England, among others. McCoy sees modern America as an empire, and one that is in decline. “By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Washington exercised its global sway through ententes with major powers, leadership in international organizations, and fifty formal military alliances [Including nearly 800 military bases worldwide] with nations large and small.” (231) Earlier he states: “All modern empires are alike in the fundamental facts of their dominion over others. Yet in their particular exercise of power and policy, each empire is distinct.” (44) America is an empire in all but name. 
   

**This is the same legislative Act Julian Assange is currently being charged under in the US and for which his extradition is requested from the United Kingdom to stand trial. He faces a possible sentence of 170 years in prison for speaking truth to power.