Some ideas given to me by a friend, who is reading a French translation of “Extremely loud and incredibly close” by Jonathan Safran Foer:

“I am almost through it, and I am thinking about the odd fact that the US is the world’s first covert, unofficial, empire. We may call it a “soft” empire, or a quasi-empire. I think the author is aware of it, because , having read three quarters of it, I notice that he describes the suffering of those who lost someone on September 11 2001, but also mentions the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, by American bombers.

Empires are light and shadow. The Roman Empire was great, to the point that some people in Eastern Germany and in Ireland bemoan the fact that it did not reach their parts. Yet every day was not party day under its yoke, ask Jesus Christ for details when you go up. The construction of an Empire comes at an immense human cost. Qin Shi Huang Di, the First Chinese Emperor standardised the Chinese script, thus giving it an advantage over, say, India, which persists to this day. Yet when he ordered that the bits and pieces of fortification which existed against Central Asian invaders be fused into one Great Wall, this gave rise to a immense tragedy, as millions of peasants lost their lives in building the wall stone by stone. On a lesser scale, Bismarck said that the German Empire would be forged by “iron and blood”. The great colonial empires of the 19th century spread themselves with great suffering for both the conquered and the Irish, Indian and other soldiery who were the “conquerors” ( these were Empires good at using the just colonised to invade the yet-to-colonise).

The imperialist, obviously, has an edge over those he conquers. Once the terrible job of conquest is done, many of his new subjects find benefit in his rule, for he opens new trade routes, brings in a rich culture and an efficient administrative system. What would India have been, if not for the British ? A hodge-podge of Nepals, probably.

The American quasi Empire is a new model. Its Navy , linked together by a network of bases across the Earth, is incomparable. Even at the peak of its power, the Soviet Union could not build anything which could match with such an awesome fleet. When China fired missiles at Taiwan in 1999, trying to frighten its people out of voting for a party which Beijing considered to be pro-independence, the apparition of two US Navy task forces ( the modest name given to the group consisting of a US aircraft carrier, escorted by gunships and submarines) in Taiwanese waters silenced its guns.

The US fulfills one of the essential functions of Empire in that its existence ensures relative stability in the world. Were a giant moth to swallow it at this very moment, North Korea would immediately send its famished troops in human waves to feed themselves in the McDonalds of Seoul. China would first lurch over Taiwan then would look askance at Japan, which would by that time have blown off a few atomic bombs in the Pacific to steel its nerves. Libya would discover a new hunger for Chad. Syria would gobble up Lebanon, if Israel had not already blown the whole Middle East to nuclear ashes, just to feel safe. Russia’s voice when talking to the rest of Europe, especially the tiny Balts, would acquire a steely edge. India would feel its arms itching for a good once-over with Pakistan. Sudan would make a short meal out of its Darfur rebels and unearth some old grudges against Ethiopia and Uganda, America’s blue-eyed boys in that part of Africa. The Muslims in Bosnia, the Albanians in Kossovo would join the Pithecantropus in science museums.

The Pax Americana exists. It is not benevolent. Empires are like Lovecraft’s cold monsters, beyond good and evil. The war in Iraq, if one can make sense of that tenebrous affair, probably has as its aim the establishment of a pro-American regime that will guarantee a stable supply of oil from the Middle East, given that Saudi Arabia is not a reliable source in the long term ( the terrorists of September 11 were Saudis, and in the course of their investigations after the attacks, the Americans have probably discovered enough deep cracks in that strange kingdom to give them cause to pitch their war tents elsewhere).

America also fulfils the criterion of cosmopolitanism which marked older Empires. We may jeer at the shallowness of much of American culture, but the Babylonians probably did the same at the Medes, the old inhabitants of Constantinople at the Seljuk Turks, the Chinese at the Manchurians, the Greeks at the Romans. When American tourists ask the watchman at the Acropolis how much it costs, and wonder whether it will fit in between the swimming pool and the tennis court, they are probably walking in the footsteps of their Roman and Turkish predecessors.

What matters is a generosity of spirit, a willingness to take off the leather armour and learn the ways of the harem, that perfumed place where ( what were you thinking ?) many pleasant hours are spent in chess and witty conversation. Such breadth of mind, America has in ample store. It is as cosmopolitan a place as any Empire ever was. In Bill Clinton, if we are to believe Toni Morrison ( whom I have not read, unfortunately), it has had its first black President. Will then, his wife be the first Black woman president ? A question to be asked ( but not to Barack Obama).

Yet America shies from being a full-blown empire. Probably because that would be difficult. The world is a big place, after all. I am skating on thin ice here, but I feel that many ancient Empires had a certain instability in them, in that their very existence caused outlying states to rally against them, to provoke border squirmishes to which, by pride, they would answer, thus causing endless bloodshed at the edges. Not that it was a bad thing in itself , because it kept the troops busy instead of loafing around dangerously in the capital’s caserns. Yet, overall, there is great advantage, in modern times, in not proclaiming oneself an Empire. One avoids unnecessary provocation. The world economic system is subtle enough that one may manipulate it under the cover of a level-playing field.

A real world Empire would be unattainable. Even America’s allies are difficult to keep in check. France leaps to the mind in this respect. It has spoiled the mind of other European nations, to the point that China has a field day playing off Airbus against Boeing, American steel, cars and trains against European ones…but France is not the only culprit. Think of Saudi Arabia, whose citizens finance lunatic madrassahs in Pakistan, to the point where that country has become a battlefield between fanatical sunnism and shiism.

And think of India. I really wonder why America has rushed so fast to become India’s ally in the past few years. China and India will one day become the big powers of Asia. There’s a “one day” in that sentence. Does it make sense to commit oneself to one side so early in the game ? Wouldn’t it have been wiser to keep oneself at a safe, stern distance from these two hulks ?

In the course of this century, I believe that many of America’s troubles, once the wave of Wahabism which is sweeping through the Islamic world will have subsided ( and it shall subside, for moderate Muslims around the world are already fed up with the misery it is heaping on them, they who have to face not only its bombs, as other passengers in buses have to, but the retaliation from the crowd afterwards) shall come from India, that big, young country ( it does not have an ageing population , like China). The Indian character is restless, excitable, emotional. It likes guns and uniforms the way a child does. India is one of the rare countries in the world which holds a full-blown military parade on its national day. The other country which comes to mind in this respect, interestingly, is France.

Al Qaida was born from the mujjahedin training camps on the 80’s in Pakistan which were managed by a dynamic CIA operative called Osama Bin Laden. America shall yet again sow the seeds of woe by arming an enthusiastic India against China. The latter, for all its sins against Taiwan and its occasional hisses against Japan, is a pragmatic nation by nature. Even in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, it was wise enough to edge closer to the United States when the Russian bear growled at its door in 1972. America, in the end, is charmingly weak at judging character. It is an idealistic nation, which cannot stand having a Nixon at its head, when other nations would crave to have such a statesman. It prefers the homespun nonsense of a Reagan or a Bush junior to the boring, standoffish likes of a Gore or a Kelly. It wants style at the top. But style is something that belongs to the boudoir, the smart neighbourhoods, the silver screen. The corridors of power are the domain of the likes of Mitterand, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, Bismarck, Richelieu, Frederick the Great and other insufferable bores. Even Napoleon was a workalholic and a cuckold. The devil may wear Prada, but nobody bothers what Atlas has to cover his loins”.

Interesting stuff, isn’t it ?