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3/29/2003 07:32:00 PM | Timothy

Myths of the Right-wing Empire (In Defense of Columbia Prof. Jack Snyder)

Columbia student Matthew Continetti is either a dishonest polemicist or someone who acquieses to bad editing for the perverted pleasure of being published in the National Review Online. Continetti says in his piece: "And political scientist Jack Snyder found room in his speech to compare the Bush administration with, in chronological order, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler, and Tojo. " I have to laugh at the ridiculousness of portraying Jack Snyder as if he was Noam Chomsky. I have seen Synder criticize radical international relations theories in a graduate seminar I took with him last term and he is, for better or worse, very much a mainstream International Relations scholar. Julia Fuma (of The Filibuster, The Columbia Political Review's blog) correctly notes that "Snyder also uses Great Britain in India and pakistan and America in Vietnam. His final point is that some nations like US in Vietnam realize they are getting bogged down in this type of offensive war and retrench." Though I do not think he mentioned this in the speech, in the 1990s, Snyder wrote a book called "Myths of Empire" in which he detailed the remarkeable similarities between the ideologies in each of these cases which justified expansionist wars and wars on the periphery. Recently Snyder was asked to write an article detailing how the Bush administration national security stragedy contains some of these same myths of empire, and that is where the remarks of his speech are drawn. Julia Fuma did not take notes at the speech and based her comments on Snyder's article. Perhaps for that reason she only mildly criticizes Continetti, saying we should take his article with a grain of salt. Here is my fairly complete summary of Prof. Snyder's remarks.

Prof. Synder began his speech at the Columbia anti-war teach-in by telling how, as a youth, he was taken off-stage mid-way through an anti-war speech he was giving at his father's Rotary club. He joked that he has not since given any speeches at Rotary clubs, and that this crowd looks a lot friendlier (see below if you, like the Columbia Spectator, wrongly think professors like Snyder only give speeches to those with whom he agrees). Prof. Snyder noted that powerful countries often develop "myths of empire," which lead them to fight costly wars. His examples included Napolean, Germany before WWI, Britain in the Boer War, Japan before WWII, and the U.S. in Vietnam.
Snyder then said these past 'empires' developed a mindset that if rebellions of the periphery were not put down and pacified by force, the whole house of cards would collapse. "Security through expansion" was the only way empire could be secure. Synder noted that how an earlier speech at the teach-in by SIPA scholar Gary Sick had spoke about the National Security Doctrine paper and Snyder noted that all the myths of empire were there in the Bush administration's strategy. Here are the four myths of empire Snyder laid out:

1. The best defense is a good offense
Snyder noted this defies basic common sense, as the defender usually has a 3:1 advantage. We usually see weaker countries stay on the defense.
2. There is no balance of power
The viewpoint here is that people tend to bandwagon with the powerful state in the international system. Snyder noted that under Bush I, the administration was afraid that if Saddam got the slightest boost in status, people would bandwagon with him. In Bush II, the domino theory is reversed, in which a boost for the U.S. in this war will lead to clean sweep across the board: and Iraqi democracy will serve as a beacon, and favorable regime change will occur across the middle east.
Snyder says that supporters of the regime change act as if they believed in realist power politics, when they mean the exact opposite. They say they are looking to create a favorable balance of power, but what they mean is they are looking to create an imbalance of power.
3. Empire can achieve security by attacking rising powers before they get too strong
Snyder notes that this ignores historical reality. Bismark expanded Prussia's empire by not fighting preventative wars. Bismark was counseled by generals to attack when countries were building up, but he said to do that would result in neutrals allying against him. He wisely lured France into attacking first.
4. The enemy is a paper tiger
Snyder used the example of how Japan thought that the U.S. was bound to fight Japan, yet would so weak-willed that it would collapse after a single strike at Pearl Harbor. Snyder noted that the news of the last 48 hours suggest the idea that the enemy is a paper tiger is also looking like a myth in the case of Iraq. Snyder ended his speech by saying that democracies like the U.S. and Britain have learned to retrench when faced with disasters, and he was optimistic that this period of overstretch would end soon.

Eugene Volokh quotes a Columbia Spectator editorial saying: "Professor Jack Snyder said he felt comfortable speaking at Low last night because he knew there would be little opposition. The speakers were not out to change anyone's mind about the war; instead, they reveled in an atmosphere of intellectual conformity." As I noted, Snyder began his speech by noting how as a youth, he was forced off stage in the middle of giving an anti-war speech to his father's rotary club. It hardly seems fair to tar Snyder with not tolerating dissent because he gave an example of how his youthful dissent was not tolerated at all. But it gave the Spectator an excuse to make their statement about intellectual conformity. It is understandable how the Spectator drew that inference from Snyder's remarks, but it also a wrong inference in Snyder's case. It assumes and implies that Snyder would not make the same remarks before another audience, when he has in fact done so in the past!
A month or two ago, I attended an open event in which International Relations Professor Jack Snyder gave a presentation and answered numerous questions from the audience of Columbia students and other interested persons. Snyder is not a person afraid of a potentially hostile audience. Snyder's remarks at the rally were similar to what he said at this event, though they were longer and therefore more nuanced. Unlike at the rally, Snyder noted that it was possible the myths could be true today, and simply said the resemblance of the Bush administration's doctrines to past myths of empire should give us pause. If you want to criticize Snyder for not adding that scholarly caveat at the rally, fine. But do not pretend a mainstream, respected IR scholar like Snyder is representative of the loony left wishing to remain in their little cacoon of like-minded people or some other such nonsense.

Edit: I had said Julia Fuma was not present at Snyder's speech; she was, but since she did not take notes, she based her comments on Snyder's article.

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