Conservatives and American Empire

Via Rebellion

American conservatives who claim to value liberty and limited government but continue to take pride in the country’s bloated military establishment would do well to remember Randolph Bourne’s pithy declaration “war is the health of the state.”

Conservatives will argue that the basic function of the state is to defend the country against foreign invasion or attack; therefore, allowing the government to make provisions for such exigent circumstances is necessary in a hostile world.

The problem with this argument is that not since the War of 1812 has the U.S. military been deployed to defend the country from foreign attack. The U.S. military, rather than being an instrument of national defense, has been used as an offensive weapon in an imperial project that goes back more than a century.

Now, many conservatives will dismiss the charge that the United States is an empire as left-wing rhetoric, but they must contend with the fact that many within their own ranks have openly boasted of the American Empire.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said in 2002, “People are coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire.’” Krauthammer even boasted that America is “no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.” Robert Kagan has written of “The Benevolent Empire.” Dinesh D’Souza, after writing in 2002 that “America has become an empire,” approvingly added that it is “the most magnanimous imperial power ever.”

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