OCTOBER 23rd, 1983: THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

US Empire RIP 1983

The minimum requirement for any empire is simple. It is power projection with "boots on the ground" a long way from home. If you can do that, you are an imperial power - or at least capable of being an empire - and if you can't, you are NOT an empire. You are simply a nation, or at best a regional power. 

The key phrase here is "boots on the ground."

After WWII America was able to put boots on the ground both in Germany and Japan, but those cases are deceptive and prove nothing. In neither case did the US forces in Germany or Japan face opposition or death in battle.

To be significant, the phrase "boots on the ground" also means "bodies in the ground." The US empire was able to do this in both Korea and Vietnam. In those major conflicts it was undoubtedly an empire, even though it decided to bale out of the last of those for sensible reasons. 

Leaving a conflict zone for sensible reasons does not negate an empire. The Roman Empire, after some consideration decided that Germany beyond the Rhine and Britain beyond Hadrian's Wall was not worth the effort, whereas Dacia beyond the Danube was. Hundreds of years later, the Roman Empire was also "projecting power" and invading overseas territories, even if it was simply to reclaim its own original homeland.

So, despite it's withdrawal in 1973, the US was still an empire when it left Vietnam. But how did it do in subsequent years? 

Post-Vietnam, the defining conflict for the US was its intervention in Lebanon in 1983, when 800 US marines were posted to Lebanon following a massacre of Palestinian refugees by a Christian militia. The Iranians apparently did not like this and arranged a suicide attack. 

On October 23, a terrorist drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut killing 241 U.S. military personnel. The President at the time, Ronald Raegan, made a show of sticking to his guns, but just 4 months later the US was gone.

At this point, America became a country that could be defeated by inflicting a few hundred casualties. Its ability to truly put boots on the ground was thus gone, or at least deeply compromised. 

The collapse of its main rival, the Soviet Union, disguised this fact, as did the subsequent Gulf Wars, where it was able to intervene at relatively little cost. In the first one (1990-91), less than 200 US servicemen died, while in the second one (2003-12) around 4,000 US servicemen were killed over nine years.

In order to fight these wars, the US needed to have not just weak opponents inside Iraq, but also the support, or at least a lack of opposition, from other powers.

Even Iran, which was America's strongest opponent in this area at the time, had to downplay its opposition, and was happy to do so, as America was unwittingly serving its interests by liberating the Shiite majority.

Another factor necessary to fight the Second Gulf War was the gaslighting of the US populace in the wake of the 9-11 attack. Somehow, nine years of war at the limit of the US capacity to take casualties was piggybacked onto a largely unconnected terrorist attack on the USA by a different group of Muslims. 

In those years, it could be claimed that the US was still an empire, able to project power with boots on the ground a long way from home, but it was clearly stretching it. 

Now, it seems obvious that America is totally incapable of doing anything like Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq ever again. As soon as a few hundred Americans get killed a long way from home, you can be sure the US will fold. For this reason, Lebanon 1983 seems to mark the point at which the USA lost its imperialistic mojo.

The USA can and will bomb almost anywhere in the world (at great expense in munitions), and it can support allies and even proxies with weapons and money, but the actual placing of US boots on the ground a long way from home looks an increasingly dim and distant possibility.

Even a Pearl-Harbour-like attack on American territory, such as that launched by Japan in 1941, which arguably started the "American Empire," might not provoke America to do more that retaliate with a bit of bombing of its own. In fact, I'm almost sure that this is all that would happen. 

The period of the "US Empire" is dead and gone. Even the apparent "Caesarism" of a charismatic figure like Trump is unlikely to revive it.

The next empires will be those states that fulfil the basic requirement of all empires: power projection with boots on the ground (and bodies in the ground) a long way from home. This is not America.