America's Opium War
By Dmitry Shlapentokh
After the US congressional election last November, President George W Bush gave the impression that nothing had really changed in Iraq and "there is no alternative but victory". This might be said by the leader of any country engaged in war; he or she would proclaim that "there is no alternative but victory" and that "there is a steady improvement in the military situation".
Americans who are old enough can remember that the same statements were made during the Vietnam War. Even when all those at the top in Washington were quite sure that the war was lost, they proclaimed that there was "light at the end of the tunnel".
Democrats, who this month became the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, hate to be seen as defeatists. And they proclaim that they also wish that victory could be achieved. The war just needs a new strategy, a "fresh look" and new people. But they do hold that the troops should be withdrawn in the foreseeable future, regardless of the situation on the ground.
Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld's departure, as well as the departure of John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations (who regards the UN as an outdated, corrupt bunch of cronies who live at the expense of American taxpayers), and the ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad (who recently again assured Congress that victory was at hand), indicates for any observer not bamboozled by propaganda that the "patient", meaning the war, is terminally ill.
No one can predict its departure for the other world, and of course the "doctors" proclaim that death is just a new form of life, that is, defeat is just a peculiar form of victory. Still, regardless of political/linguistic equilibrists, the signs of defeat are clear.
The end of the war certainly will inspire historians and political analysts to find analogous events. In fact, there are already quite a few who have engaged in comparisons between the present and the past. Europeans, especially the German left, compare Bush to Adolf Hitler and recently launched legal action against Rumsfeld as a war criminal. In their view, US defeat could be compared to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
This assumption is, of course, pure nonsense. A national-socialist United States would have followed the road of Nazi "socialism", with strict state control over the major industries and banks bordering on nationalization, the practical end of the stock market, and socialized medicine and a wide protective net. And, of course, such a state would have reinstated the draft, which would have dispatched the feminist left, a dedicated fighter against "hegemonic discourse", and the prosperous conservative bankers to the same foxholes in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Others - actually quite a few others - see the situation as analogous to the Vietnam or Korean War. This analogy also seems not to work. In Vietnam, the US faced not just the Vietcong but hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese regulars; in Korea, it faced not just a huge North Korean army but millions of Chinese "volunteers".
In Iraq, by contrast, the US is faced with at most a few thousand active fighters. This puny force has confronted almost 150,000 Americans and allies and, at least nominally, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops, paramilitary and police and held them to a standoff. And for every dollar spent by insurgents, literally billions have been spent by US taxpayers.
Whereas these historical comparisons have not worked, the Opium War at the beginning of the 19th century between China and Britain does provide an apt analogy.
Imperial China as the modern US
To understand this comparison, we can take a quick look at imperial China before the Opium War. It was an enormous state that exercised the most profound influence over Southeast Asia. From the 17th century until almost the middle of the 19th, the Qing Dynasty had experienced no serious military setback.
On the contrary, the empire expanded in all directions and became one of the biggest empires in history, in both numbers of people and area. The Chinese state had huge resources, so the defeat in the Opium War, in which it confronted just a few British ships, was a great surprise. The defeat exposed not just China's military weakness but the weakness of the entire Qing social/economic machinery. Why did this happen?
The reason for defeat
Those who elaborate on the debacle point out that the major reason was self-centeredness. The elite regarded any outsider as a barbarian who could hardly teach the Chinese anything. The entire Chinese society, the mandarins and the populace, believed that its organization was the best of all possible arrangements.
It was not the Chinese who should embrace the foreigners' way of life but the foreign barbarians who should follow the Chinese. The reason for such a stubborn refusal to study anything new was simple: radical innovations would endanger the privileges of the ruling bureaucracy - the mandarins.
And even the Opium War did not lead to much change in this system. The attempt to change it in 1898 failed, and the mandarins and the Dowager Empress Cixi decided instead to incite the mobs against foreigners, blaming them for the increasingly painful problems of Chinese society. The pogrom-type violence against foreigners known as the Boxer Rebellion led to China's defeat and humiliation, and the 1911-12 revolution led to collapse and disintegration.
One might assume that Oriental mandarins have nothing to do with the US, which projects an image to the outside world of an extremely dynamic society. But a close look easily reveals many similarities with mandarin-run China.
Americans as Qing Chinese
Similarly to the Chinese of that era, most Americans believe that the US is the most efficient society and has the best of everything: economy, education, health service and military. This new "Middle Kingdom" is the best of all possible societies, surrounded by "barbarian" Europeans, who have a bastardized, low-quality version of US culture and need to work hard to achieve the US level of perfection.
According to this view, Orientals such as the Chinese are truly barbarians, for they do not have democracy or human rights, use slave labor, and are totally unconcerned with "multiculturalism" and "sexism". Nothing good could come from this society, and if "barbarians" produce better and cheaper goods than do residents of the "Middle Kingdom", it is only because of "unfair practices".
The fish would be the last creature to mention the existence of water. The same could be said about most average Americans: they would be the last to see the profound inefficiency of US society. But a fresh look would show how much inefficiency permeates US society. One might say that the inefficiency of America's mandarins is an attribute only of the public sector (eg, universities and state/local bureaucracies), and that the rest of US society is working under strict market rules, which punish bureaucratic sloth. But if one takes a close look at US business, one can see that the market does not operate here.
An example is the US airlines, which periodically lapse into bankruptcy. In a capitalist economy, owners of such companies should, if not go to prison, at least lose their property. Today's management may increase their salaries and benefits and emerge from bankruptcy richer than before. A market economy implies open competition, but drug companies do their best to close the US market to foreign drugs, on the grounds that these drugs are "unsafe".
And workers do the same to prevent the emergence of foreign workers as competitors. Since in many cases the market neither punishes nor rewards, the major "marketable" trait in any big institution/company, either private or public, has became not productivity but "good citizenship" - to be a nice, sociable fellow who faithfully follows bureaucratic procedures.
The army is part of US society, and has followed the same model of existence. The Iraq war soon revealed that there is nothing more important than to have numerous soldiers on the ground and a constant stream of willing recruits. Recruits should join the army not because they have no other option - as is the case with the majority of present-day soldiers - but because it is one of the best-paid jobs with the most enviable benefits.
Yet even the petty brokers on Wall Street make far more money than soldiers on the battlefield, who are sometimes even compelled to buy their own body armor. At the same time, trillions of dollars are spent on expensive military gadgets that are absolutely useless in the present war but enrich the companies that produce them.
These arrangements could be compared to the actions of the Dowager Empress Cixi, who requested money supposedly for building a Chinese navy but actually spent it on a marble pleasure boat for herself and her court. The Qing state had an extremely inefficient military machinery that was intimately connected with the entire arrangements of the state, a fact that explains why a few British vessels defeated what seemed to be a huge empire with enormous resources. And the same model can also explain why a few guerrillas are defeating what seems to be the biggest military machine in the world.
The post-Opium War future
Republicans defeated in the recent US election have often stated that the victorious Democrats have no viable program for the Iraq war. And they are right. The Democrats have focused almost entirely on the "tyrannical" properties of the president and the war in Iraq - as if these and not the economy, health care, and education are what actually bother the majority of voters.
The implication is that a departure from Iraq would change US society for the better or, at least, not have major repercussions. This, of course, is an illusion, held not just by Democrats but by the majority of the electorate who have pushed them into positions of power.
A victory in Iraq would secure US access to oil and, even more important, reaffirm its position as the global imperial power. Defeat would be similar to the Qing defeat in the Opium War. Far from being a minor episode, it became a crucial turning point in modern China's history, leading to the speedy decline of the Chinese state. The same could be expected from America's geopolitical default, or at least from a strong "correction" of the United States' geopolitical values, which would be immediately be taken into account from Tehran to Beijing.
It could not only alter (possibly radically) present geopolitical arrangements, but also have an adverse effect on America's economic position. And, of course, it would be a great illusion shared by the majority - Democrats and Republicans - that not only America's geopolitical role (still abstract stuff for most Americans) but its living standards and economic conditions in general could be preserved without radical change. Simply arguing that present US social/economic arrangements cannot work indefinitely, and that there should be changes, will have no effect.
Arguments do not work; for each argument there is a counter-argument. It is pain that teaches. It is the horrific reality of the last hundred years of Chinese history that followed the Opium War that convinced the Chinese, including the elite, that they should turn to the West to find the answer to the country's pressing problems. The same could be said about the present "Opium War".
It will take a long time and much pain for Americans, and possibly for the rest of humanity, before the residents of the "Forbidden City" in Washington and, of course, the electorate can understand that dramatic changes should be implemented in society, especially if these changes imply altering centuries-old traditions of looking to the West, not to the authoritarian/totalitarian East, to find the answers.
Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate professor of history, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend. He is author of East Against West: The First Encounter - The Life of Themistocles. |
