Is the United States of America an empire?
One could have a lot of fun and spend a considerable amount of time debating, researching, learning or whatever one might fancy in an effort to determine an answer to that question. Even then, ultimately, an answer could be lacking.
Author Robert D. Kaplan, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, raises this question which keeps popping up from time-to-time in our American discourse, in his book “Imperial Grunts.” But probably more important Kaplan writes in his book that today’s irregular U.S. military forces — the Marines and special forces — are an extremely capable and amazing instrument of a foreign policy whether intentionally or not crowns the American Empire.
Kaplan travels to global spots such as Mongolia, the Philippines, Colombia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq where he looks at how the nation-building that U.S. special military forces are doing is as central to empire-building as military might. For those who thought “winning the hearts and minds” of a people ended after U.S. troops tried it in Vietnam, Kaplan delivers a more modern view of how this is being done as routine military fare.
Empire and nation-building, foreign policy and the George W. Bush-era version of military usage, however, are not as important and as aptly portrayed in this book than the author’s insightful exposition of the mostly young men who are at the heart of the new American military.
Kaplan draws the distinction between the “Big Army,” in which tons of regulations and layers of bureaucracy rule their world and the small teams and ease of operation which is the hallmark or the U.S. Army special operations. At the very heart of the latter is a society of soldiers ranging in rank from major down to senior non-commissioned officers — traditionally from the religious South or U.S. Heartland — whose most important attributes are their ability to adapt and adjust than strictly their use of M-4s or explosives. The special operators’ penetrating knowledge of local peoples who they must both teach and sometimes fight is also an important aspect of the American arsenal. As one special forces soldier in Afghanistan said of the Afghans: “These people like guns and fighting. Give them beer and a mobile home and they’d be just like us.”
Also very different in books about today’s military, Kaplan presents an almost uncensored view not seen in most media of the U.S. national guard troops who also serve as special operators. These citizen-soldiers are more open about their view of the military world because it is not their full-time job. One guardsman, for instance, said his civilian job was just a way he could pay for his special forces habit.
There are a number of Kaplan’s conclusions of which I am either unsure of or with which I disagree. But this is one of the best books I have read about today’s soldiers. I suppose my reason for saying so has to do with my past experience covering the Army as a reporter. Kaplan had the luxury — not a very apt word if you read about some of his lodging in the book — of accessing high-ranking SF types who helped him into some otherwise difficult places to report on these soldiers. Once he got to these places he was on his own and had to win the trust of the operators. But he also was able to stay with the soldiers for extended periods and build trust.
Thus, Kaplan had a more honest and open view of what was going on. This in sharp contrast to my having interacted with soldiers who were usually under the watchful eye of some public information officer types. I did my best but you can guess what makes much better reading.
If you are looking for their opinions of what the soldiers of the empire-or-not do, this is the book. If you want to know about their feelings for things other than work, then you should look elsewhere.