Street roots
Jan. 7, 2011
Illi
Expectation proves again the mother of all disappointments
BY THOMAS VINCENT
neoconservative and right wing officials he
appointed ... drove the country as close to
s a child, when I’d come home with a
the precipice as was humanly possible.”
report card full of C’s, my father, who
But Johnson doesn’t lay the blame for
was possessed of a plethora of
America’s foreign policy follies solely at the
platitudes, would invariably trot out a gem feet of any one administration. Rather he
like: “He who expecteth nothing is seldom
sees our current dilemma as the result of
disappointed.” Thus, if I express
years of post-Cold War hubris combined
disappointment with “Dismantling the
with a military-industrial bureaucracy that
Empire,” it is largely because I expected
has grown to leviathanic proportions, the
something the book didn’t deliver. I don’t
result of which has been nothing short of
take issue with anything the author says. I
disastrous. “The combination of huge
simply wish he had said more.
standing armies, almost continuous wars, an
Chalmers Johnson has had a long,
ever growing economic dependence on the
distinguished career as a historian and
military-industrial complex and the making
foreign policy analyst. He has written
of weaponry, and ruinous military expenses
numerous books on history and political
as well as a vast, bloated “defense” budget
science including most recently, three
... has been destroying our republican
examinations of the consequences of
structure of governing in favor of an
American empire: “Blowback,” “The
imperial presidency.”
Sorrows of Empire,” and “Nemesis: The
As I said at the start, I*do not take issue
Last Days of the American Republic.”
either with Johnson’s historical analysis or
Johnson’s thesis is that America’s current
his extrapolations of what our recent actions
foreign policy of attempting to maintain an
mean for our future. What is disappointing,
“empire of military bases” around the world
however, is that he is not saying anything
is not only ill-advised from a legal and moral
new. Most of the topics in “Empire” have
standpoint, but in terms of sheer economics
already been covered in his previous trilogy.
it is quite simply unsustainable: “Until we
Indeed, as he notes at the end of the book,
decide (or are forced) to dismantle our
most of the essays in “Empire” have been
empire, sell off most of our military bases in previously published on the website
other people’s countries, and bring our
“TomDispatch.com.” (He doesn’t even
military expenditures into line with those of
include footnotes, preferring to steer
the rest of the world, we are destined to go
readers to the web site for a list of URLs.)
bankrupt in the name of national defense.”
Aside from these minor annoyances, my
In short, as the author says, continuing
biggest complaint with the book is that
down the militaristic path we are on is
Johnson leaves the reader hanging. After
nothing short of a “suicide option.”
repeating over and over what a disaster
As in his earlier works Johnson lives up
America’s foreign policy is, the author waifs
to his reputation for being plainspoken and
until the last two pages of the book to
direct: “During his eight reckless years as
present a brief bullet point list entitled:
President, (George W.) Bush, his Vice
“Ten steps Toward Liquidating the Empire.”
President Dick Cheney, his Secretary of
Not only are most of the things on the list
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the other
obvious — “We m ust give up our
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A
DISMANTLING
THE EMPIRE
Book Review:
Dismantling the
Empire: America's
Last Best Hope
By Chalmers
Johnson,
Metropolitan Books,
Hardcover, 2010,
212 Pages, $25
inappropriate reliance on military force as
the chief means of attempting to achieve
foreign policy objectives” - but the book is
frustrating in that nowhere does Johnson
advance any clue as to how he thinks
America should go about achieving his “ten
step” program. He’s like a doctor who says,
“If you don’t quit smoking, you’re going to
die,” and then leaves the room without
telling us how we are supposed to quit To
put it another way: I don’t need any more
convincing that America is on a disastrous,
suicidal path. I’m well aware we are hurtling
down the “devil’s canyon” rapids on the
river Styx. What I want to know is how
exactly we’re supposed to get out of this
God-forsaken handbasket.
A codicil to the saying at the beginning of
this piece might be: “Expectation is the
mother of all disappointments.” If so,
perhaps I am being unfair. However,
“Dismantling the Empire” was advertised as
a coda to the “Blowback” trilogy in which he
was to give - according to the book jacket —
“a prescription for a remedy” to our
misguided foreign policies. Sadly, on this
score, the book doesn’t deliver. By failing to
even address the question implied in the
title, as readers we are left with a feeling
that hope is a train that left the station a
long time ago. Nowhere is this more
apparent that in Johnson’s last words of
warning which come off sounding
suspiciously like a proclamation of inevitable
doom: “Unfortunately, few empires of the
past voluntarily gave up th eir dominions in
order to remain independent, self-governing
polities ... if we do not learn from their
examples, our decline and fall is
foreordained.”
Originally published by Real Change,
Seattle, Wash.
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