Pax Americana

From The American Spectator:

TO WIN THIS BATTLE, Americans (and preferably Europeans too) need to recapture a bit of civilizational confidence. We might begin by reminding ourselves that we have every right to act freely in the world, that we are Britain's heirs of empire, and that that's nothing new. The Founders knew that.

One need only open Federalist One to see Alexander Hamilton refer to America as "an empire, in many respects, the most interesting in the world," and one that he later hoped to extend to the Southern Hemisphere. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and George Washington likewise thought of America as an empire -- an empire that would surpass Britain's in size and power. King George III himself recognized that "The rebellious war... is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire." Thomas Jefferson, of course, envisioned America as an "empire of liberty." James Polk considered that the Mexican War had delivered "to the United States an immense empire." And American empire builders like Andrew Jackson (annexing Florida) or the filibusters who brought us Hawaii or America's acceptance of the White Man's Burden in the Philippines (where we set up the first democratic government in Asia), spread America's Manifest Destiny from the Atlantic Coast, to the Gulf of Mexico, to the far reaches of the Pacific. All of which is not to mention our taking on the imperial responsibility of setting things aright for the world in two world wars and the Cold War and creating a global system of free trade and international institutions like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. The world has enjoyed a Pax Americana for at least the last half century, and it takes an imperial power to deliver a global peace.

Whenever the liberal myth that America is inherently anti-imperialist has guided our foreign policy, the result has been disaster, whether that myth was held by FDR who was far more insistent on getting the British out of Hong Kong and India than on protecting Eastern Europe from Stalin ("Of one thing I am certain, Stalin is not an imperialist"); or by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Dwight David Eisenhower standing side-by-side with the Soviets and Gamal Abdel Nasser and against Britain, France, and Israel at Suez in 1956; or by Jimmy Carter, refusing to support the Shah of Iran (whose very position was a shameful reminder of the sin of Anglo-American imperialism) against the people's choice, and obviously a man we could do business with, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

That anti-imperialism is a harmful idea should be obvious from our own history. Should we not have annexed the American southwest from Mexico? Should we have prevented Andrew Jackson from seizing Florida from Spain? Should we have accepted the British-drawn proclamation line of 1763 and left the interior of America to the Indians? Should we regret the British Empire's original sin of planting us here at all?

The left beats the anti-colonial, anti-imperial drum because it serves the liberal interest of accommodating the West to retreat, to moral relativism, and to multiculturalism.

BUT IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS, though apparently it isn't, that if America is to win the so-called war on terror we will need to revert to our imperial heritage as a people whose regnant spirit has always been Don't Tread on Me, who would not willingly accept any restrictions on our trade, our travel, or our speech, and who had no doubt that where Americans went, there went liberty, and that Indians and Mexicans and Spaniards and Frenchmen, had better make way because a superior civilization was plowing through. We need a similar confidence if we are to tame militant Islam.

The Pax Britannica was a tremendous civilizing force. We now need a renewal of a Pax Americana that likewise thinks of our own institutions, our own ideas of justice, and our own civilization -- including, even most especially, our religion -- as worth spreading, as a benefit to the world, and to be denied nowhere.

Imperialism is an outward sign of such confidence and vigor. Today, it is something of an imperative as well. If we are going to win the clash of civilizations, if Europe is to be saved, if America's spirit of Don't Tread on Me is to be perpetuated, it will be because we will once again have convinced our enemies -- and ourselves -- that the West is best.

I have said similar things before and I will say them again. No nation is perfect. The British Empire wasn't and America isn't, however Western nations as they have spread their influence across the globe have been an enormous force for good.

We need to remember that there words like good and evil, better and worse, have real meanings. Our civilization is better than those which came before. Our morals and values are superior to those of our enemies. We are more deserving of survival than we have fought, Nazis, communists and now Islamists.

We have enormous advantages. Our economic system generates vast wealth and unleashes vast amount of human potential (and will continue to do so as long as we keep the left out of power so that they can't gut it in the name of "social justice"). We can out produce, out innovate and out fight (if it comes to that) any other nation or combination of nations on earth. The ONLY thing that can deny us victory in the current clash of civilizations is our own failure of will.

The upcoming elections are going to be a tangible test of our will. If we hand over control of the House of Representatives, and perhaps the Senate, to the party of "cut, run, appease and surrender" it will be a sign that we lack the will to survive.