Contravening Prevailing Othodoxy

From [William Appleman] Williams' efforts to understand American power, four noteworthy points survive. The first is that during the twentieth century the United States came to play a role that cannot be understood except as a variant of empire. That notion, employed in the midst of the Cold War more as an epithet than as an explanation, became by the 1990s almost a statement of the obvious. In the aftermath of the Cold War, references to an American empire or to American hegemony, which formerly came with barbs attached, were no longer fighting words. Though still avoided by government officials, such terms infiltrated the lexicon of everyday discourse about U.S. foreign policy. As even Schlesinger, Williams' particular nemesis, conceded, "who can doubt that there is an American empire?—an ’informal’ empire, not colonial in polity, but still richly equipped with imperial paraphernalia: troops, ships, planes, bases, proconsuls, local collaborators, all spread around the luckless planet."⁶⁸

A second element of Williams' legacy was to render untenable claims that this informal empire ”just grew like Topsy," coming into existence as an accident of nature or an unintended consequence of events beyond American control.⁶⁹ Williams showed that the American empire emerged out of a particular worldview and reflected a coherent strategy to which the American people gave their support.

Third, Williams identified key elements of that American strategy. Building on insights first developed by Beard, he unearthed the [31]assumptions underlying the doctrine of liberal internationalism, explained its logic, identified its purposes, and divined its implications. He showed that the essential aim of liberal internationalism was to open the world to American enterprise. He revealed the conviction, widely shared among successive generations of American statesmen, that only an open world could permit the American system of political economy to function effectively while also assuring U.S. national security.

Finally, Williams understood that in practice, the only sure way to guarantee openness was through the exercise of dominant power. Openness adapted the logic of empire to suit the needs of democratic capitalism.

Whereas Beard first identified the underlying logic of American expansionism, Williams went a step further, urging Americans to contemplate the implications of their imperium. "Assume empire is necessary," he wrote; ”what is the optimum size of the empire; and what are the proper—meaning moral as well as pragmatic—means of structuring, controlling, and defending the empire so that it will in practice produce welfare and democracy for the largest number of the imperial population?"⁷⁰

As the United States embarked upon a new century, those questions returned to the fore.
pp. 30-31[end chapter]

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⁶⁸Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston, 1986), p. 141.
⁶⁹William Appleman Williams, ”Conclusion," in From Colony to Empire, ed. Williams (New York, 1972), p. 476.
⁷⁰Williams, Empire as a Way of Life, p. 213.

Notes: p. 249

Andrew J. Bacevich, 2003