The Empire Strikes a Match in a World Full of Oil

PART 1

Thoughts on Empire

World history is littered with the bones of old empires. No region is without them and most countries have them in their closets. Fortunately, therefore, we have survived even the most exploitive and ruthless of them. But what we can forgive ex-post we do not therefore want to condone ex-ante. At the present time the end of the Cold War has left behind only one empire, which is the topic of this book. Before launching on the history and prospects of that empire, however, it is well to review some models of the genus.

Two previous empires are particularly revealing about American empire: Great Britain’s commercial empire of the nineteenth century and Athens’s commercial empire of the fifth century BC. The former is the model of choice for the planners of American empire. Although Britain and America are very different polities with remarkably different political and legal traditions, their commercial traditions are not only similar, but they could also best be described as a partnership. Thus a review of the recent history of British Empire is timely. Athens and America are, by contrast, separated by millennia and by nearly half a world. No two nations could less resemble each other than tiny Athens and continental America, but their political histories are remarkably similar. Attica really was the birthplace not only of democracy, but of the kind of egalitarian democracy that we recognize as our own. Through her philosophers and playwrights, moreover, she was the birthplace of ideas of objective natural law—of concepts of right and justice independent of the will of the sovereign or the party in power—that still ennoble our law and our courts. Athens accordingly has much to teach us about what kind of state we are and what kind of empire we desire to be. Athens also has a lot to teach us about what it takes to succeed as it informs us of the human weaknesses that frustrated her ambitions and exhausted her wealth and power.

Chapter 1

A New Empire for a New Century

The American people know in their bones that something is wrong. Something has gone wrong. What they sense is that they have lost control of their nation. Some other agenda is in charge, one that is not answerable to the public and that seems to exist below the usual radar of politics and public debate.[1] Talk shows multiply like weeds on new cable channels and on old and new radio stations. More talk, less information. More blather about John Edwards’s hair and Mitt Romney’s hunting exploits, less attention paid as to why we are so aroused about Iran and why Russia is so aroused by us. No whisper about why we can’t make automobiles any more, and why we need to level more Iraqi cities. A few years ago—early in 2008—the world was our American oyster. One could be forgiven for believing that the stock market rises every single day—let’s all say a prayer to thanksgiving to whichever god makes that happen—but only Wall Street seems to profit.

I have coined a saying to describe the state of the nation:

It is inconceivable that anyone would be tempted to think that anyone might ever imagine that anything could ever go wrong.

Hey, who wants to rock the boat? There are much worse places to live. If you’re fully invested in the stock market, hold on and be happy. It can never go down. If you’re not invested, well who cares? You just don’t get it. But we suffer from double vision, I guess, because our reason sees a very different reality. It sees this.

Imagine for a moment just how inept we Americans must be. The less we make and the less we do, the richer we become. I hope to retire someday, and I expect on that day vast outpourings of gratitude from my fellow citizens, because by the simple act of getting out of the way, I have added another generous serving of prosperity to this great land. Not only will I have taken myself to the sidelines, no longer obstructing the work of poor Chinese peasants who want to enrich me, but I will also then need a cadre of foreign-born nurse aids to wait on me hand and foot. So life isn’t strange; it’s just running in reverse.

Such is the maelstrom in our minds: a sort of euphoria at war with itself. It comes from feasting on the bittersweet fruit of empire.

But ah, what a transformation these twelve months have wrought! We thought our riches were inevitable, but now we see by grace of a deeply alarmed press that everything hangs in the balance. Act now! There’s not a moment to lose. Have your credit card ready and be prepared to enter your pin in the box on the screen so that we all can—by working together and sacrificing together—buy back our birthright. We can put this trolley back on the tracks, but it will cost. Not you! Heavens, why should it cost you? It’s just money, and the more you spend, the more you have. We just haven’t been spending enough, fools that we were.

The prosperity of the last twenty years is all attributable to one source: immigration. The cornucopia that is America has drawn in a current of hardworking and very often highly educated people from all over the globe. They are our prosperity, both in the sense that we enjoy the fruits of their labor and that they enjoy their share of those fruits too. We can reap where we did not sow and gather where we did not till as long as they keep coming. With them our resources are effectively unlimited, but to do that, we have to continually drain their home countries of the talents of their people, to continually raid their population to feed our own.

Empire Is Predictable

That is not to say that life is predictable. It isn’t. Empire is coordination and control spanning many nations and peoples, many cultures, and many degrees of economic and intellectual development. It draws on the limited specialties of all the parts and combines them to yield a power greater than they could on their own. That centralized power belongs uniquely to the capital of the empire and is used to reinforce the control that it feeds on. There is enormous strength in that combination, a strength that projects the aura of control of events and an aura of stability. Predictability, or at least the appearance of it, replaces confusion in the dealings among the subjects.

The capitol of the empire maintains a monopoly of force. It alone has the authority—confers on itself the authority—to crush opposition. Thus, for instance, America proclaims the authority to invade Iraq and Afghanistan because they pose a threat to the empire, and no rival is allowed even to question the legitimacy of these acts. Their rationale is transparent because they serve the interests of the empire. Even when the proposition that they are direct threats to the empire is rejected by all the evidence rallied to defend invasion, nothing matters because it is not the individuals, not even the citizens, who judge. It is the empire itself that alone has the right to judge its actions. It is the law.

America rules such an empire. More exactly, Washington rules such an empire. The authority to invade other nations without drawing any protest is a clear indication of that. The authority to create and destroy—in effect if not on paper—international treaty organizations is another. The confident expectation that the United Nations is nothing but an extension of American foreign policy and the claim that NATO has by right a monopoly of force in international affairs are further confirmation. The Pentagon budget is said to list more than seven hundred overseas military installations where American forces are permanently stationed.[2] Most must be small indeed, but they exist to provide the foundation of NATO deployment in nearly every corner of the world.

So we ought to examine the consequences of the empire and, in this case, to question both the consequences for America, the nation that spawned it, and for the rest of the world.

Globalization

Every action and policy that emanates from Washington points both inward to America and outward to the rest of the world. Thus globalization does not stay out there, in the rest of the world. What globalization means for a subject country is that Washington anoints a small cadre of local entrepreneurs who are given a very special grant of access to the world economy, and especially to the American economy. In the case of Japan, these privileged enterprises include most famously Toyota and Sony. The blessed few are Washington’s partners in spreading and maintaining imperial control in their local countries. On the one hand, they are enriched by the business opportunities conferred on them, but these riches are not only for them to enjoy. They are there to buy control of the local government so that it is will be submissive to the empire and its demands.

The historical origins of the empire are highly visible in the pecking order of globalization. Standing at the top of the list are Japan and Germany, because it was the conquering of those two dangerous rivals that opened the door to globalization and empire. So Toyota and Sony, Mercedes and Volkswagen hold pride of place. Whoever owns the Japanese industrials—including not only Toyota and Sony but also Honda, Mitsubishi, and Mitsui and a few others—effectively owns Japan.

By a happy coincidence, the comparative advantage of Germany and Japan needs fuel to make it go. The Persian Gulf states, along with Venezuela and some others, enter on demand. Their rulers, especially those in the gulf, are both petroleum entrepreneurs and absolute rulers of their countries. Globalization never had it so good. The global commercial elite are the government in those places. But putting the automobiles and the motor fuel together is only half the game. The American people have to buy the cars and burn the fuel. It has to be us that are enriching them. So the national policy is directed to encourage driving. Lay more highways. Build towns ever farther from places of work. No matter if the existing cities are left in the dust or, more accurately, are left to become hollowed out suburbs of themselves. Build more, build farther, and get us into our cars to drive farther. The overseas empire of oil and steel cooperates with the domestic abundance of land to create a new economics paradigm: the suburban consumer economy.

These are the big pieces, but there are many more. And then there is China. All those suburban homes need to be filled with stuff. This round of the globalization game plays out differently, though. There are no Chinese tycoons whom the wand of empire will touch. Instead, it is the American industry that moves in, bringing in globalization with it. Widgets and squidgets by the ton pour out of China and into Wal-Mart. Will China become addicted to the cash that flows the other way, or will they let the American settlers subvert their government? These are questions that will not be answered for a long time. The leaders of China think not, and indeed they think that they can build their own world order in competition with ours. Notwithstanding the pretensions of the Chinese rulers, Washington is not ready to give up on globalization, even of China. In the meantime a nervous truce presides over the Western Pacific.

Globalization means, at this point in time, American empire. The two are synonyms. When Koreans or Venezuelans or whoever protest globalization, they are protesting having us buy their government and buy it with the goods that they make and export to us.

The Project for a New American Century

All of this has been summed up by its proponents as a pledge called the Program for a New American Century, which is posted on their Web site. The Pledge reads as follows:

June 3, 1997[3]

American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America’s role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.

We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital—both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements—built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation’s ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration’s success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.

Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

•    we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

•    we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

•    we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

•    we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next. (Signed)

Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis

Libby Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

Tentative Summary

The reality of the American empire is too clear to ignore. Our bases around the world, our freedom to launch invasions without explanation, the riches of entrepreneurs who work with us, and above all the buyer-of-last-resort policy under which we Americans buy anything that anyone makes rather than to make it ourselves. Our trade deficit is a massive income transfer from the American middle class to foreign business elites, who are wise enough to share the bonanza with our Wall Street elite. There are other tools used to spread our influence, and I will discuss them presently, but the military and trade paths are for our purposes sufficient evidence of the empire.

At the recently concluded Munich Security Conference,[4] the new American vice president Joseph Biden addressed the assembly by in essence reiterating the statement of principles of the New American Century, including rather unambiguous saber rattling presented in terms of an inaccurate short summary of American history as filled with examples of America’s heroic military defense of her freedom and independence in the face of hostile powers. To put it bluntly, there is at most one example of America under attack from any kind of foreign powers. Even the British invasion in the War of 1812 was a reprisal for our invasion of Canada, which started the war. In any case, no one thinks the vice president was attempting to underscore our long-term rivalry with a hostile United Kingdom. The Mexican invasion of Texas in 1836 came long before Texas joined the United States, and in fact at the time Texas was recognized as a province of Mexico. It is true that an overconfident Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 and that for a time the Pacific War was very tough going, but it was not fought to defend our domestic freedom. It was a war to defend our interests in the Far East. At the same time, the other significant Axis power, Germany, did not attack or threaten us, and the erratic alliance of Germany and Japan was so shaky that it did not stop Japan from selling out Germany by making peace with the USSR in time to permit Russia to marshal all its forces against Germany. If Japan had attacked the USSR instead of making peace, Germany would almost surely have won the Second World War. Japan needed peace on her Asiatic front because of her war with America, so in effect we lured Japan into defeating Germany by inducing her to attack us rather than the Soviet Union.

As clever as Americans are, we cannot claim credit for this plan for empire. It originates with Great Britain, starting in the period of consolidation of the British Raj in India in the 1830s. By dint of starting earlier, Britain has already experienced more of the evolution of this kind of empire; its costs and benefits are already largely evident. The story of the British Empire thus provides a valuable window on the strengths and weaknesses of our program for empire.

Chapter 2

On the Absurdity of

Spreading Democracy by the Sword

Poor Mexico. So far from God and

so near the United States.

—Attributed to President Porfirio Diaz of Mexico

Democracy is the best form of government in peacetime. The case is mixed when war comes, because democracy is truly the very best leadership in battle, but it is the worst of all governments in war. The contradictions that are cleverly woven through the statement of purpose cited above are as deep as they are transparent, and by that I mean transparent not only to us but even more readily visible to those whose misfortune it is to become the objects of our foreign policy surgery.

Nothing is easier for a rich and single-minded power than to subvert democracies, and history is littered with examples of how it is done. In democracy, ambitious men, and sometimes women, freely and openly vie for high office and for the right to wield authority in public affairs. In every country there are an abundance of ambitious persons; they are available regardless of the form of government. In a democracy, however, they can proceed openly to forge alliances, and expound proposed policies of government, and to hold forth on the pressing issues of the day. Not only are they free to do so, but they are also encouraged to do so. Any attempt to silence them is met with a roar of protest from many sides because nearly everyone sees his own prospects being threatened by action against ambitious contenders for public support.

It is always easy to find men who either through genuine principles or through love of easy money will take the part of a foreign power that wishes to direct the government from outside. That is especially true when the outside power is rich enough to afford a program of subversion whose cost is a small part of their resources but large in relation to the democracy. When one of the goals of the intruding party is to carry out some gainful exploitation, by redirecting the democracy’s trade or by snatching the country’s natural resources, the affair can almost pay for itself. It is not enough, of course, to capture one ambitious politician. That is only the first move. He needs to build a party around himself, and that is going to be expensive. The intruder had better not delude itself into thinking that it can turn a profit while it gains influence on the democracy; there are always more mouths to feed than there are profits to secure directly. The single greatest impediment to pulling off such a scheme, however, has been removed by democratic politics: no one can question why the accommodating politician wants to lead or why he thinks he is the right person for the job. Every citizen is entitled to believe that of himself.

One weakness in such a scheme is that if the public senses that some politician has sold out to the rival power, his career is probably done for, but there are simple ways to avoid suspicion. One of the most obvious is to buy perhaps two rival politicians, with the spare held in reserve to play the sacrificial lamb. The preferred candidate can, if necessary, turn on the other and win the innocent gratitude of the public by helping to clean the government of unreliable foreign agents. The British government was surely not alone in employing a yet simpler method to deal with situations where their intervention was at risk. They simply had local opponents assassinated. The surviving local politicians were sure to be frustratingly hampered when it came to solving the crime, and with luck it might be possible to so confuse the trail that the exact cause of death would remain forever a mystery.

It is actually quite clear that no nation can afford a very open democratic government when it is faced with a large, determined, and well-financed opponent. It is hardly surprising that America’s two principal rivals at this time, China and Russia, are at best what one could call tightly disciplined republics. Less-sensitive persons would simply call them autocratic. Russia made the mistake of flirting with actual democracy, and all it got them was a much smaller country and a flock of former subjects who are to various degrees pulled farther away from them and closer to their enemy, America. However one feels about Russia or about the fruits of democracy, it would be unreasonable in the extreme to blame Russia for foregoing those blessing, in the interests of survival.[5] China feels the same centrifugal forces, though they are much more controlled.

For a large country to adopt truly open democratic government at this time would be flirting with disaster, but for any smaller state it would be a formula for submission. The realities of power politics have made democracy a forbidden fruit for the stubborn nationalists of the world.

As implausible as it is therefore that America could promote democracy in countries that desire to remain somewhat independent, the proposition that we can impose democracy on the unwilling is orders of magnitude more absurd. Democracy for country X mean that the Xites choose the government and directly or indirectly also prescribe their laws and policies. When the marines roll over the capital city and hang the old administration, that means that America chooses the government and the laws and policies. The Xites could not possibly fail to recognize the rather drastic difference. If they oppose the regime we have installed, we declare them to be terrorists and bomb their villages. All this is just as true no matter what the previous regime was like. Even if we are replacing Genghis Khan, our puppet regime is not democratic. The message we send is submitted to the government of our choosing or kiss your family, friends, and property good-bye.

We ask if by the passage of time and hopefully the spread of peace and order, the new government might acquire legitimacy, even to the point of risking real democratic openness. The answer is, Not likely, and the reason is that even if the new regime should in time become democratic, it would be in the rather abject position of any democracy that is always open to our manipulation. Nationalistic Xites know that our proximity to them makes democracy a very poor choice of government. They need—Venezuela seems to present a very compelling example—an autocratic regime that can stand up to outside influence and confirm the nation’s independence. Whether it will be a good autocracy (very unlikely) or a corrupt and wasteful one (quite possible) is of secondary importance. At least it will be their autocracy. It is not impossible that the autocrat will be a beneficent ruler who actually promotes the general welfare. He would be a fool or an incompetent if he didn’t at least intend for that to happen, and he has pretty widespread support from factions who prefer their own autocrat to the autocrat of our choosing.

This logic is complete in itself, but it doesn’t encompass all the implications of imposed democracy. The nation which is imposing its version of democracy is not credible, for the reasons enumerated, but worse than that, it is inherently and systematically corrupt. Leaving aside for the moment question about the legitimacy of the new government, we need to ask who it is that will be chosen to lead it. Will the imposing nation choose the best, the most honorable, the most honest, the wisest puppets to install in the seats of power? Not likely. Those persons do not need the support of the foreign master; they have their own legitimacy. But the nation that chooses the new administration must above all choose weak characters who could not survive without its constant support. That is the only kind of puppet they can trust: the one who needs them. Thus the simple logic of the puppet government is that the more unpopular the candidate, the more unappealing he is to the Xites; the more hated and despised he is, the more venal and corrupt, and the better he serves the needs of the imperial power. The empire doesn’t want candidates who are capable of learning wise government; it wants candidates who instinctively understand gratitude and where their next meal will come from. Generations of Central American despots answerable to Washington are testimony to this rule, but in the present day their evidence is confirmed by petty tyrants like Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili and Viktor Yuschenko of the Ukraine. Their nations are caught up in a whirlwind of competing powers that make the simple needs and desires of their own publics distinctly unimportant: if Russia gets to pick their successors, we should not expect any dawn of beneficent and wise government for either country. Our needs and desires are not particularly inimical to the interest of the Ukraine and Georgia; it is very arguable that all things considered these puppet governors are the least-bad option for their respective countries. The truth remains however that at the moment their leaders answer to us, and in so doing they are forced to sacrifice the best interests of Georgia and the Ukraine. If moreover it should happen that our interests and those of the republics should happen to coincide, we would probably continue to support them but with an increasing sense of nervousness because we would have lost our hold over them. They prove their worth by acting in our best interests and against the interests of their own countries.

The startling fact about this recitation is that the logic is almost painfully obvious. I almost want to apologize for repeating it when nearly everyone must already have anticipated it. Only the bald statement of the Program for a New American Century seems to demand that the obvious be made explicit as well. Even more explicit than the promise to maintain a Pentagon that spends as much money as the rest of the world’s defense agencies combined, and all the quasi-military functions of the Department of Homeland Security too.

Neo-colonialism and Iraq

A recent article by Michael Schwartz[6] highlights the tenacity of imperialism in American foreign policy, with Iraq being the case in point. The article was written at about the time of the troops’ withdrawal from the streets of Iraqi cities and the declaration of Sovereignty Day by the Al-Maliki government: An anonymous senior State Department official described this new ‘dark of night’ policy recently to Christian Science Monitor reporter Jane Arraf this way: ‘One of the challenges of that new relationship is how the U.S. can continue to wield influence on key decisions without being seen to do so.’ The dark of night method he refers to is our practice of removing the troops in the dead of night so that the assets we leave behind for later are not easily noticed by the beleaguered citizens.

Promoting Repressive Societies

Since for a small or developing nation democracy is so easily manipulated from outside, democracy is itself a ticking time bomb of external manipulation. Thus for the United States to announce a program to democratize everyone else, democracy itself becomes a fatal weakness for any nation that values its independence.

Chapter 3

Thoughts on the New World Order

The first president Bush coined the felicitous phrase a New World Order, and it stuck. It is so right, so true. Mr. Bush did more than merely invent a phrase, but he also seemed to understand it; he almost seemed to own it. By way of introducing my thoughts on current events, I want to delve more deeply into that phrase, pausing for a moment to consider what it is that makes for a new world order.

Geometry and World Order

It is only natural, even if still somewhat puzzling, that a mathematician would envisage the world order in terms of geometry. While geometry reveals only a small corner of human affairs, what little it does reveal is unquestionably true because geometry is unquestionably true. What then is the difference between the Old World Order and the New World Order? What is it about the world that has changed?

The Old World was two dimensional but

the New World has three dimensions.

The world that was given to man and woman to inhabit was a flat world, a world of two dimensions. Not the flat, straight world of Euclid. From ancient times man has been aware that his two-dimensional world is curved like the surface of a ball, which has important implications for how to get from here to there. The round Earth has back ways. To go from Paris to Moscow, you take the direct route across Germany. Now back up from Paris to New York and push Moscow to Tashkent. Still, you want to cross Germany. Any good German would say that this is logical. But now back up to Los Angeles, on the one end, and push the destination to Taipei. Ah. No more logic; no more schnitzel or beer either. You would want to fly direct across the Pacific Ocean. The round world has ambiguities that the nice straight Euclidean world lacks.

What the round, flat world has in common with the straight, flat world is separability. The sea truly separates an island from the rest of the dry world. It acts like a moat. So our world, even though round and sneaky in some ways, is divided into pieces by obstacles. Now this is of course only a metaphor. The physical, geographical divisions of the world have been important in human history, but it is only a metaphor for other kinds of separability.[7] Adam and Eve descended into a chopped-up world. True to their human calling, they started to build. And we have kept on building.

Consider a prairie. All by itself it has many uses. Till the soil and reap a harvest of wheat or corn. Pick up your shotgun or small rifle and hunt prairie dogs or weasels. Unfurl your lawn chair and view the sun rise over it. Those joys pale, however, in comparison with that one can build over that prairie. Cross it with a highway and railroad tracks. Place a new airport in the middle and watch a new city emerge, complete with football stadium. On the other hand, there may well be oil or coal or iron ore or—gasp—diamonds beneath the soil. Dig for them. Then the city and its stadium will soon be filled. The structures formed by human hands are interlocking pieces of a totally different kind of world: the world of three dimensions. It is not merely a wide world, but it is also a deep world in which men and women world in parallel, seemingly occupying the same physical space, without ever meeting. Space—the two dimensional space synonymous with the original world—is separable. Everything is either Here or There. Place is moreover exclusive. If I am Here, then you are Somewhere Else. In the three dimensional world those simple rules are not so simple anymore. The old Here is no longer a single point, it is a continuum with depth, so you can work upstairs from me if you want to. We don’t ever have to meet.

This is an infinitely richer world, this world of our own creation. There are so many different things to work on. We have little time left to hunt the prairie dogs because we are working on new absurdist sculptures commissioned by the city fathers, or pondering new ideas in geometry. The sculptor may be a reclusive sort who has in effect very minimal dealings with the world, but the geometrician at least inhabits a universal world of ideas in which he is closer to fellow mathematicians in Tashkent than he is to the laundryman who starches his shirts. This is the New World Order.

In the Old World Order there were only a limited number of ways that a man or woman could use their ambitions and talents and capacity for caring. The great bison hunter was a king. The indefatigable farmer was an aristocrat. The prairie dog hunter eked out a living. Anyone else was sort of out of it, or was enjoying the sunrises. In the New World Order everyone has something to offer, because the total bundle of productive activities is itself infinitely elastic. If there is a call for it, a market of some kind for it, do it. Even the bail bondsman makes a contribution and a decent living. The smart Thai girl may have by her quick wit and sharp tongue put the local boys to rout, but with luck she will meet her match in the Korean boy, or the Italian or South African boy, she meets at school. It is a world therefore in which everyone is called upon to dream and to invent, to take nothing for granted. It is a world made for the third of Jefferson’s promised rights: the freedom to pursue success however we define it.

A World of Differences

The world is today actualized in many social dimensions: dimensions of geography, profession, creed, class, and race—that amalgam of shared memories that unite us to those who share and divide us from those who don’t—culture and language as well, to name only the most obvious. On the flat globe—the world dominated by geography—a simple river or sea or moat divided us from the rest of humanity, but it no longer does. That is not, however, to say that there are no separations. On a two-dimensional surface, a one-dimensional circuit separates. In the three-dimensional world, it takes a two-dimensional closed surface to separate inside from outside. Is it possible therefore to separate? Yes, logically speaking it is no less possible in three dimensions than in two. What does it take?

In principle it would take a constellation of place, race, creed, culture, and language set apart from the rest of the world. One can imagine—it is always easier for outsider to imagine it—communities of that sort. Perhaps Mongolia should be seen in that light or the old Afrikaans state of South Africa or one of the primitive tribes that are from time to time discovered in Mindanao. The divisions among men more often, however, do not require complete separation in every dimension. The island, to use a geographical analogy, can cut across any single dimension. Thus, even while they swirl through the modern world, the gypsies are always alien, always separated.[8] Whichever place a gypsy lives, there are other people there who are not gypsies. Whichever occupation a gypsy pursues, there are always many others engaged in the same calling—even in thievery. Yet the gypsy community is cohesive and is separated from the rest of mankind. The wall that divides one community from everyone else can have many wiggles and dents in its surface; as long as the surface is intact and not punctured, the separation is complete.

Differentiation has to be defended. Gypsies have to do things that annoy the rest of the world enough to slow or even to arrest the migration of people across the border. Even in ancient times, the river that separated communities did not block every individual. For every river there were a hundred or ten thousand strong swimmers with inquisitive minds. The barrier is above all a barrier of the mind, and its preservation ultimately an act of will. But it is not simply a fantasy. It is real, and it has as astonishingly high durability. It is something people need and which therefore they are willing to—and entitled to—preserve and defend. Gypsies have a right to be gypsies, and anyone who on a whim or by sheer folly accepts as fact the old woman’s claim to see the future has forfeited his money. This is not to say that gypsies have a right to undermine their host communities, but a harmless game of cat and mouse could not be interpreted as such a threat. In reality, gypsies pass among the rest of us with raising hardly a ripple; they are tolerated. They are offensive enough that we don’t want our children to join them and threatened enough that their children don’t want to leave the safety of their community.

The Rights of Community

Communities in three dimensions arise naturally because they serve the needs of the public. We need to trust, but we cannot trust everyone. We need to affirm our worth, but the only affirmation that is meaningful is the one granted by people we admire. We need to feel at home and comfortable among friends that we believe have our interests at heart to at least a limited degree. All of these needs, and others, are served by a limited community. They are not served by the melting pot, because the pot is indifferent to our individuality and contemptuous of our uniqueness. Everyone knows persons whose attachment is to social class or profession or creed and who are therefore relatively indifferent to language and nationality. For them a certain kind of melting pot is natural, which is good, but they are not therefore less attached to their community of choice. Just as once we thought of the world only in terms of geographical nations, now, as important as they are, the geometry of cultures and ways of life is far richer and more complex. Like the nations, they have a legitimacy based on the dependence of their members on them, and they have a right to self-determination.

Imperialism

Imperialism may under certain circumstances be benign, but it is never beneficent. Empires are built by men who have clearly in mind the rewards that accrue to the successful, and those rewards are extracted from the subjects: the subject persons individually and the subject communities and cultures collectively. Imperialism, nonetheless, often makes a predictable appeal to idealism. The creed of the Project for a New American Century, quoted in full above, is a stellar example of that tendency. The pivotal passage is this:

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration’s success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully