The ‘blessings’ of empire? Part 2

Here is the second and final instalment of my series on the American empire. It appears in the 10 November issue of Christian Courier.

Because we have come to see empire in almost wholly negative terms, we may have difficulty recalling a time when empire – and a Christian empire at that – was considered nearly an unmitigated good. Both Byzantine rulers and the heirs of Charlemagne in the west were rivals for the imperial title, which had its origins in ancient Rome. When Rome fell in 476, many of its subjects greatly regretted this event, because it spelled the end of an orderly rule of law over the Mediterranean basin and the dawn of a much more precarious political existence.

For all its faults, which were considerable, the Roman Empire provided stability for hundreds of years by keeping the peace throughout its far-flung territory. Indeed its laws, as codified by the eastern emperor Justinian in the 6th century, provided the basis for the legal systems of continental Europe and elsewhere.

When the apostle Paul and his companions were imprisoned in Macedonia, he would reveal their Roman citizenship to demonstrate that they had been illegally scourged by the civil magistrates (Acts 16:37-40). Later Paul would take the opportunity of his capture by the local authorities in Jerusalem to appeal to Caesar, which he had the right to do.

To the church in Rome Paul wrote that Christians are to be “subject to the governing authorities,” which “have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1). Similarly, Peter instructed his readers to obey the political authorities and to honour the emperor (I Peter 2:13-17). Both understood that political authority has a crucial and God-given function to play in human life and that, even when it goes wrong or miscarries justice in particular circumstances, it nevertheless continues in large measure to maintain public justice.

Whether this authority takes the form of the early Israelite tribal judges, or the later Davidic monarchy or an emperor ruling over a large land mass, God has called it “to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.” Believers are similarly called to obedience, though not uncritically. Just as the apostles obeyed God above mere human authorities (Acts 4:19; 5:29), so should we be wary of the overreaching claims of all institutions, including the state.

Is America an empire? I would give a qualified yes to this question. As the world’s most powerful state, it makes decisions that affect countless people around the globe, including Canadians. Yet this is not the whole story. Just over two centuries ago Americans originated, as a deliberate alternative to the unitary imperial state, the federal system with its constitutional division of powers. This arrangement has worked so well that it has been copied by others, including Canada, Australia and India.

Even when the United States is at less than its best, Canadians should prefer living next to it over being adjacent to, say, Russia, which is renewing its old habit of bullying its neighbours, whether militarily or by withholding its natural resources. We are often in the habit of complaining about US actions at home and abroad. But the fact is that we do so with nearly complete impunity. We can easily get away with it, unlike Georgia vis-à-vis Russia. No matter how much the American government may be annoyed with us, we know that its troops will not be spilling over our borders any time soon. For this we can rightly be thankful.

Although an empire is tempted to abuse its considerable power, the fact of one nation exercising more influence than another is not itself a violation of justice. Nevertheless, other nations are well advised to be vigilant in their dealings with it, to ensure that its power is adequately checked.

An American empire? Part 1

As promised earlier, I am posting the first of a two-part series on the American empire. This appeared as a column in the 11 August issue of Christian Courier. The second part will appear next month.

Is America an empire? The short answer to this is yes. The long answer to this is yes, but . . . .

Four decades ago, George Parkin Grant saw Canada’s local traditions being swallowed up in the homogenizing forces of technology emanating from the “American empire.” More recently, especially in response to George W. Bush’s foreign and defence policies, a number of observers have been employing the same expression. How accurate is it?

Definitions of empire vary, and the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “supreme and wide political dominion” is not terribly illuminating. Imperialism usually has connotations of expansion of territory at the expense of one’s neighbours. Economic or cultural imperialism has been used in some circles to signify the overarching influence of a single country or group of countries on especially the world’s poorer regions.


In the 19th century the United States expanded its territory westwards as its people settled beyond the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. In 1867 it acquired Alaska from Russia and, at the end of the century, annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Nevertheless, American self-perceptions contain a pronounced anti-imperial component, as indicated by former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s implausible statement that “We're not imperialistic. We never have been.”

Of course, it has been many decades since the United States was in the business of annexing territories outright. Yet no one can deny that its influence in a variety of areas is global in reach. American popular music is heard round the world. American military forces are stationed in many countries, most notably Afghanistan and Iraq. The subprime mortgage crisis in the US is inexorably having its impact elsewhere, including Canada. And English is the world’s lingua franca — the language of commerce, international relations and the academy, propelled in large measure by the phenomenal power of the US.

The negatives of empire are easy to spot. Territorial empires tend to exploit the periphery to benefit the centre. The residents of the non-metropolitan territories lack the full rights of citizens in the mother country. For example, though my father was born a British subject in colonial Cyprus, he could not vote in British elections unless he were to have moved to the United Kingdom proper. Worst of all, the western colonial empires were based on a general belief in the superiority of the colonizing races over their subject peoples.

The American empire has been subject to many of these same defects, including a naïve belief in the universal validity of American political institutions. Canadians are only too well aware that US policies are inevitably made in their own interest, often to the detriment of other countries. When harnessed to the overwhelming might of the world’s only superpower, both political realism, with its focus on power for its own sake, and idealism, with its ambition to do good, can run roughshod over the legitimate interests of less powerful nations. The principal victim is justice itself.

At the end of the Second World War, the European colonial powers, having just defeated an especially vicious form of imperialism at home, began to divest themselves of their colonies in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Britain gave up the jewel in its crown, India. France eventually let Algeria go, but only with great reluctance. The Netherlands vacated Indonesia. And the US even gave up the Philippines.

Yet empire is by no means dead. There is much to be said for the view that America is an empire, which in most contexts is not meant in a flattering way. Nevertheless, there is another, less negative side to this, which I will take up in part two.