Escrutinio No. 75

Are there any appropriate lessons from the grand strategies followed by 19^th Century Great Britain and Louis XIV’s France that the United States could learn?

 

Marianna Lara-Otaola*

 

Throughout history, there have been great powers that have ruled or have had influence on some world regions. These great powers had always sought to maintain the status quo in order to preserve their economic, military and political supremacy. However, they have faced challenges that have made them pursue grand strategies whose results may be either successful or futile for their imperial goals. Late 19^th Century Great Britain and Louis XIV’s France can provide lessons about appropriate grand strategies for contemporary United States, as its military, economic and political power scope and scale suggest it is an empire. This essay will analyze whether the lessons taught by the English and French empires are germane for contemporary United States. In order to do so, the first part of this is essay will focus on examining why the United States is considered an empire. The second part will study Great Britain’s and Louis XIV’s grand strategies in order to analyze if looking into past empires is useful for drawing an American’ grand strategy. Finally, the third part will explore the advantages and problems of using lessons from past empires.

The end of the Cold War gave the United States the title of  sole superpower, and even when other entities emerged that could be considered as powers and potential rivals, the United State has held its power and its predominance over the rest of the world. This awoke scholars’ interest in studying whether the Unites States is and empire or not. For authors like Rosen and Cohen, the United States can be seen as an empire. Rosen establishes that an “empire is the rule exercised by one nation over others both to regulate their external behavior and to ensure minimally acceptable forms of internal behavior within the subordinate states.” (Rosen, 2003, p. 51) Cohen states that “an empire is a multinational or multiethnic state that extends its influence through formal and informal control of other polities.” (Cohen, 2004, p. 50)

These authors consider that the United States’ power is analogous to past empires, especially if we consider economic, military, and political factors: United States is the largest and most productive economy (Cohen, 2004, p.52); it has no peer competitors (Rosen, 2003), dominates every sphere of warfare, controls forces around the world, provides 40 to 50% of the global defense spending (Cohen, 2004, p.52); besides having  influence over the entire international system and controlling states’ domestic affairs and providing them with security.

Although the British and French empires did not have this quantitative advantage, not even on their zenith, it is valid to compare the United States with them considering the economic, military, and political elements. Furthermore, it is suitable to do this comparison because these superpowers faced similar challenges: rising powers capable of surpassing them in the near future and challenging the status quo, and overstretching consequences such as economic decline. Therefore, it is appropriate to learn from the successful and futile grand strategies followed by 19^th Century Great Britain and Louis XIV’s France.

In the late 19^th Century, United States and Japan were emerging powers in the Pacific Ocean. In order to deal with this challenge, Great Britain implemented an offshore balancing[1] strategy. Great Britain had proved that offshore balancing was an effective strategy to avoid the rise of a regional hegemon when it avoided having direct threats of territorial integrity by continental European powers, particularly by France (Gooch, 1994). Thus, analogously, Great Britain accepted the rise of the United States as a great power and established a good and cooperative relationship with it.

      Furthermore, an offshore balancing strategy was also exercised with Japan, whose expansionism and rising naval power challenged Great Britain in the early 20^th Century. “Britain had completed a period of strategic and diplomatic reorientation symbolized by the alliance with Japan.” (Gooch, 1994, p.289) This alliance not only counterbalanced Russia, which aimed at expanding in the Pacific, but it also shielded Britain from Japan and Russia. (Gooch, 1994) By establishing an offshore balancing strategy, Britain could focus in Russia as its only threat in the Pacific, and secondly, “London extend ed)  its influence by decades.” (Zakaria, 2008)

However, the long-term results of implementing this grand strategy with the United States and Japan were different. In World War II, the United States remained an ally of Great Britain; the offshore balancing strategy proved to be triumphant. Differently, this strategy failed with Japan; in 1941, it was eminent it wanted to expand in the Pacific and become a regional hegemon.

The United States could follow this strategy with emerging China. “The debate over China, of course, is not about what China wants today but about what it may want tomorrow.” (Legro, 2005, p.174)  This emerging major power is evidently challenging United States’ superiority. Recently, the International Monetary Fund established that in the next five years China will become the world’s major economy, leaving the United States in the second place. the  Although, the nature of Great Britain’s threat -military- is different to the one faced by the United States -economic-, by sharing power, today’s hegemonic power will minimize the risk of confrontation, avoid a power transition  and more important, it will elongate its influence in the international system (Layne, 2002).   

Furthermore, “China is certainly focused on increasing its own power and balancing U.S. power in Asia;” (Legro, 2005, p.174) thus, there is a need for offshore or external balancing[2] in order to prevent the emergence of a regional or global hegemon. Maintaining a strong military structure allows the United States not only to be secure, but also to give security to other parts, which extends its influence and dominance over the world (Cohen, 2004).

Additionally, it can be suggested that the United States should learn from Great Britain’s failed grand strategy to deter Germany as a rising power. In late 19^th Century, Germany threatened Britain’s hegemony but it was until the early 20^th Century when its military capacity was superior to Britain’s. (Gooch, 1994) Maybe, Great Britain could have had deterred it by wedge balancing[3]. However, it did not do so because the imperial power internally balanced[4] to try deterring Germany. Nevertheless, currently, the United States does not need to prevent from the rise of a regional hegemon by aggregating resources to check its rival, like Great Britain did with Germany. Also, the United States does not have to build up because there is no state in the international system able to surpass its military capacity.

The United States has an overwhelming power due to its huge productive population, its large economy, its stable political system and its military capacity (Cohen, 2004). China has a large population and economy, but it still does not represent a military threat like Germany did to Great Britain. “The USA continues to be exceptional in terms of military spending. As well as being overwhelmingly the largest spender in absolute terms, with 43 per cent of the global total, six times its nearest rival China.”(SIPRI, 2011, p.3)  However, this argument could be criticized because presently, China, similar to Germany in the late 19^th Century, can be considered a rising power and may become a real threatening revisionist state in a couple of decades as Germany did in the early 20^th Century. In case it is so, then the United States must deter in advance the rising power by wedge balancing in order to maintain its hegemony.

Moreover, the United States has a myriad of interests across the globe, as Great Britain had 100 years ago. “As a great imperial and commercial power, Britain had interests everywhere.” (Gooch, 1994, p.282) In the late 19^th Century, this naval power had interests in Egypt, Sudan, the Eastern Mediterranean, Persia, India and Afghanistan. This meant that it was difficult to prioritize interest and threats that could challenge Britain’s desire of expansion and hegemony; thus, “the focal point of its strategy must continually shift.” (Gooch, 1994, p.279) This is an important lesson the United States must learn, because similarly to Great Britain, it has multifarious interests across the world and has accumulated commitments that cannot be fulfilled with limited resources, even though it has command of the commons on land, sea, air and space. (Posen, 2003) The United States must prioritize to correctly allocate political-military-economical resources to keep the status quo and deter threats. If not, the United States’ future can be the same as declining Great Britain in the early 20th Century.

Although the balancing strategies followed by Great Britain to avoid a power transition were successful, they had a negative effect in their imperialistic goal. Internal balancing led Great Britain to an economic decline. (Gooch, 1994) This is not a lesson to be considered oblivious by the United States, as its military was a “source of rising governmental expenditure in the Bush era,” (Morgan, 2008, p.94) and that “the Defense Department's budget has risen now for 13 consecutive years […] In the last decade, overall defense spending has risen to about $700 billion, which is a 70 percent increase. If you include the spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, we now spend $250 billion more than average defense budgets during the Cold War.” (Zakaria, 2011, NA). This is a lesson that the United States must learn about balancing strategies, mainly because imperial overstretch involves large amounts of resources causing economic exhaustion that eventually can cause the empire's demise, as it happened to the British and French Empire.

Louis XIV wanted to expand the French empire, so he recurred to offensive strategies that led to wars with other European powers. These wars economically weakened the state. “The king raised funds by taxation and credit; his inability to finance Bourbon military ventures efficiently ultimately led to frustration and defeat. Perhaps the greatest legacy of the wars of Louis XIV was fiscal exhaustion and debt so profound that the monarchy never really recovered.” (Lynn, 1994, p.188) Moreover, the offensive grand strategy failed because counterbalance coalitions emerged. The attempt to conquer more territories made enemies bandwagon with European powers in order to fight back the French rising power; the Dutch allied the English and the Swedes. (Lynn, 1994)

French expansionism can provide two lessons for the United States: wars lead to economic decline and to the emergence of counterbalance coalitions. United States must avoid both of these imperial overstretching consequences.  However, this advice may be too late; since October 2008, the United States faces an economic downturn, and it needs investment of Asian countries to sustain its economy and its military expenditure (Morgan, 2008). Nevertheless, these lessons can be jettisoned because the United States can be considered a consolidated hegemon, while Louis’ France was a rising power. Moreover, counterbalance coalitions did not only emerge because of Louis’ territorial expansionist desires, but also because the king wanted to preserve his dynasty. (Lynn, 1994) Today, there are no succession wars as there were in the early 18^th Century that could materialize into a counterbalancing alliance.

Louis XIV did not only implement futile grand strategies that weakened the French state as his defensive strategy had a positive outcome; it contributed to the maintenance of its territories.  The Sun King established a defensive frontier to protect the French empire from invasions and avoid territorial loss. With la défense aggressive¸ although Spain and Great Britain perceived France as a threat, Louis fortresses provided security and demonstrated power (Lynn, 1994). Also, “gaining security through expansion is rarely effective because […it can] undermine their power and security by provoking overwhelming coalitions of opposing states […and costs can] begin to outstrip benefits.” (Snyder, 1991, p.6)  This strategy cannot be emulated by the United States because it is not threatened by his neighbors as France was.

The lessons provided by historical empires can be a double-edge sword. On the one hand, learning from the successful 19^th Century Great Britain and Louis XIV’s strategies can bolster the United States’ hegemonic position or extend its influence and authority for several decades, because these empires faced similar challenges as the ones the United States currently has: the rising power capable of challenging the hegemonic status in the future (China) and the overstretching consequences (mainly economic decline).

On the other hand, comparing the United States with the two cases analyzed in this essay may be questionable because of three reasons. First, the United States scope and scale of power is different from the two empires analyzed. Second, comparing these two empires with the Unites States may be methodologically wrong, because scholars debate whether the United States should be considered a formal or an informal empire. If it is considered a formal empire, then there should be standardized independent variables that would help comparing them. If there is consensus that the United States is an informal empire, then it should only be compared with one of its kind.

Indeed, today it is hard to consider a state an empire because of the structure of the international system; “there are nearly two hundred states and not a single confessed empire,” (Cohen, 2004, p. 50) and international institutions can hamper states’ actions. The United States is clearly the hegemonic power, but it is difficult to determine if it is an empire because of its nature and its lack of territorial ambitions. United States’ nature represents the idea of liberal democracy, which is contradictory with that of an empire, so the only way in which Americans would accept the expression is if it is used as “benevolent empire”. Although, the United States has control over other territories, direct occupation (except in the latest cases like Iraq) has not been a strategy (Nexon, 200*, p.300).

Third, these grand strategies per se may not be useful because they were implemented under a particular context from which the United States might not be able to draw any lesson. There are differences between the international context in which the British and French and American empires developed; currently, there are non-state actors, there are nuclear weapons in hands of states and non-states actors, and global norms that restrain international actors’ conduct. Furthermore, globalization is a phenomenon that is bringing to the table new issues, such as organized crime, terrorism or migration, which should be kept in mind when doing a comparison with past empires. Therefore, if the lessons are used to design an American Grand Strategy they should be used carefully (Nexon, 200*) and considering them as general guidelines.

As a conclusion, the United States has some military, economic and political elements that make it appear to be an empire, but in our days, it is hard to think of an empire in the terms of historical ones. The United States faces similar challenges as those posed to Great Britain and France; thus, learning from past empires can appear to be useful, but it is important to keep in mind that circumstances are different, and that the international context and order have changed. It might be even possible to say that we are in a period of reconfiguration of the international system. The Cold War concluded two decades ago, so the American hegemony might only be passing through an international system’s reconstruction phase. Therefore, the United States needs to define a grand strategy not only considering some mistakes of past empires but also bearing in mind that taking into consideration some the lessons will not grant them their eternal survival as the hegemon. Americans also need to consider the current conditions of the international system in order to design a grand strategy that is not restrained by the past, although this ultimately serves as a reference and a guideline for what can be successful or futile in the future.

 

References:

 

Cohen, Eliot A. "History and the Hyperpower," Foreign Affairs 83,4 (2004): 49-63.

Gooch, John. “The Weary Titan: Strategy and Policy in Great Britain, 1890-1918,” pp. 278-306 in The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and Wars by Murray, Williamson and Mark Grimsley, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.The Making of Strategy.

Ikenberry, G. John. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 21-49.

Khanna, Parag. "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony," The New York Times Magazine, January 27, 2008. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Layne, Christopher. “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” Washington Quarterly 25,2 (Summer 2002): 233-248.

Legro, Jeffrey. “The Next Century,” Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order, Ithaca, NY and London, England: Cornell University Press, 2005, Chapter 6, (pp.161-188).

Lynn, John A. “A Quest for Glory: The Formation of Strategy Under Louis XIV, 1661-1715,” pp. 178-204 in The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and Wars by Murray, Williamson and Mark Grimsley, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Morgan, Ian. “The Indebted Empire: America’s Current-Account Deficit Problem,” International Politics 45 (2008): 92-112.

Nexon, Daniel. “What’s this, then? ‘Romanes Eunt Domus’?” International Studies Perspectives, forthcoming (200*): 300-308.

Posen, Barry. “Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of U.S. Hegemony,” International Security 28,1 (Summer 2003): 5-46.

Rosen, Stephen Peter. “An Empire, If You Can Keep It.” The National Interest, (Spring 2003):51-61.

SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute).  “Background paper on SIPRI military expenditure data 2010.” SIPRI Yearbook 2011 (11 April 2011). Available at: http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/factsheet2010

Snyder, Jack. Myths of Empire, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-20).

Zakaria, Fareed. “The Future of American Power: How American Can Survive the Rise of the Rest,” Foreign Affairs (May-June 2008). Available at:http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080501facomment87303/fareed-zakaria/the-future-of-american-power.html

Zakaria, Fareed. “Cut defense spending, ” CNN (9 August 2011). Available at: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/09/cut-defense-spending/