Dilemmas of Imperial Decline
(written by Lancelot Finn, October 2003)
At some point in their lifetimes, probably in the next two decades, the generation of Americans now in their 20s will face a dilemma similar to that which Britain faced at the beginning of the 20th century.
Prosperous and powerful, admired for its constitution and its currency, mistress of a web of influence and involvement that girdled the globe, the heritage of decades of commerce and diplomacy backed by occasional application of military force, fin-de-siecle Britain nevertheless began to sense that the lofty task it had undertaken was more than it had the strength and virtue to accomplish. Its population was too small, its economic dynamism was tapering off, its moral self-conviction was faltering and succumbing to doubt. True, a long recession had just passed, and Britain was enjoying a period of high esteem and good fortune. But intelligent Britons knew that this was not a zenith, but an Indian summer.
Britain’s task was the civilizing mission of the Empire. The task for which America’s strength will not suffice is the spread of free markets and democracy around the world. We are different: but similar enough that it is worth looking to Britain’s example.
There were two powers in particular that threatened to eclipse Britain.
Across the sea to the east, a challenger to Britain had emerged. About three decades before, the union of a number of smaller states had created a major new power. The novelty of this union caused the challenger to make considerable noise about its being “one people,” and about having transcended the divisions of the past, and they looked for precedents in the medieval past. In many ways this challenger resembled and emulated Britain, in a more illiberal form, for although elections took place real power always remained in the hands of a resolute elite; but it had more social protections for its citizens than Britain had. And it sympathized with the general thrust of Britain’s imperial project, though it criticized (somewhat opportunistically) many of the details. At bottom, however, it conceived itself as a rival to Britain—this challenger wanted Britain’s power and prestige much more, indeed, than the British themselves wanted it—and although the dependence of its commerce on the protective umbrella of the British navy ensured that it generally adopted a docile and peaceful attitude towards Britain, views among the ideologists, partisans and patriots of this empire could be rabidly hostile. And while in truth they had nothing to offer the world better than what Britain offered it—rather, something worse—they were articulate enough to make it sometimes sound like they did.
Across a much wider sea to the west, there was another rising power. Britain had once had strong ties to this power, and had had great influence over the first stages of its political development; but some time before, a revolution had taken place, this power had adopted a radical, revolutionary and egalitarian ideology, and it had been chronically hostile to Britain ever since. This ideology had exerted a powerful attraction on the intellectuals and to a lesser extent the populations of Europe a generation or two before, and many had seen it then as the way of the future. But it had lost most of its luster when the attempt to realize it resulted in an extremely bloody civil war. This rising power had now become much quieter and less evangelistic about its radical political creed, and even proved willing to play, on a small scale, the same games as Britain and the other colonialists. It sometimes even seemed quite eager to be part of the club. Nevertheless, it was an uncomfortable fact that the official ideology of this rising power was anathema to Britain’s entire imperial project.
The challenger from the east was a leader in philosophy, science, music and the arts, and its universities were the equals or superiors of Britain’s own. Many Britons looked to it with admiration; they knew its history; they often traveled there; and they looked upon its people as equals. By contrast, the rising power to the west was culturally and intellectually rather barren. It was by tradition and inclination a rural country, and its cities lacked the architectural heritage and civic traditions that would have made them pleasant to visit. Its education system had a practical and technical orientation. All it had to offer was the impressive but rather ugly spectacle of massive economic growth—teeming metroplises, workers rendered fiendishly productive by manipulative management techniques, smokestacks, railroads. The challenger to the east was cosmopolitan, with an extensive network of long-standing historical ties to dozens of other countries, going back centuries. The rising power to the west was self-absorbed and isolationist, seemingly ill-suited to world leadership. While its rapid growth and large population suggested that it would far surpass both Britain and the challenger to the east eventually, for the time being it was still quite weak; the challenger to the west was already strong enough to be well worth cooperating with.
For Britain in 1900, the challenger to the east was Germany. The rising power to the west was the United States of America. For America in the coming years, the challenger to the east is the European Union. The rising power to the west is China.
What turned out to be imperial Britain’s last great task—to thwart, at all costs, the challenger to the east, while leading the rising power to the west onto the world stage and passing to it the scepter of world leadership—would have seemed quite counter-intuitive in 1900. There was always a party in Britain which favored appeasement of Germany, from the carve-up of Africa down to Neville Chamberlain and the appeasers. At many times between 1900 and 1939, Britain had the option of forming an Anglo-German Entente, in various forms, which would have allowed Britain to keep its empire while conceding to Germany a certain hegemony within Europe. Indeed, but for a single personality—Winston Churchill—they might well have done so.
I must make it clear that I am comparing contemporary Europe to Wilhelmine, and not at all to Nazi, Germany, and I expect that the dilemma will present itself to Americans in a less dramatic form than it did to Chamberlain and Churchill. Yet I think that, in broad outline, the analogy to fin-de-siecle Britain well describes the choice that America will face in the coming years. And I hope we will make the same choice that they did.
The three decades after the effective transfer of world leadership from Britain to America were a golden age of economic growth, an unprecedented and spectacular improvement in the human condition. More babies survived, causing the population to boom; people lived longer; famine retreated; science and medicine advanced; and literacy, once the preserve of the elite in most of the world, now became the condition of the majority of mankind. Yet the glory of Britain faded with such remarkable speed that we may suspect they would have been better off doing a deal with Kaiser Wilhelm or Hitler. The British Empire could probably have survived a generation or two alongside a Nazified Europe. The presence of the unappealing German alternative would indeed have increased the appeal and the solidarity of the British Empire. The proud tower of empire would have been morally compromised by the deal, but it would have stood; the anti-imperial Americans more or less demolished it brick by brick. Churchill’s choice was hardly the right one for the welfare of the British Empire; but it was the right one for humanity.