What do you think?
Rate this book
The Imperial Republic - The United States and the World, 1945-1973
The Imperial Republic based as it is on Raymond Aron's realist philosophy, is involved only indirectly or by implication in the disputes about moralism, revisionism, and even imperialism. Its main aim is to account for the diplomacy of the United States as it was in a special time period. Like all diplomacy, it can be explained only within the system of inter-state relations to which the protagonist belongs.
United States diplomacy during the twenty- eight year period of 1945-73 is examined from strategic, political, and moral stand points were in diplomats openly declared their aim, and did they achieve it? Does the result justify accusations either of incompetence or of imperialism? Does not the reaction within the United States to a policy which had been a striking success now induce second thoughts about both the policy and its results? The imperial republic is trying to throw off its burden; once a missionary, it has lost the sense of mission; it is still capitalist, but its spoiled children no longer believe in money; it was puritan, but its cities abound in sex shops; it regards itself as scientific, yet mystical and nudist sects are common.
The reader is not asked to endorse Aron's paradoxical interpretations, but to try to discover the reasons for any disagreement he may feel regarding differences in political judgment. People who have acquired the habit of thinking of the contemporary world in Manichaean terms-in terms of the reduction of whole populations to slavery by monsters, or in terms of capitalism, imperialism, or revisionism- may be out raged by a book that is not concerned with grounds for outrage and in which there are neither villains nor heroes; but rather with mixed messages by decent policymakers. At the time of its initial publication The Times Literary Supplement called The Imperial Republic "an important book"no other author does so much." It remains so!
United States diplomacy during the twenty- eight year period of 1945-73 is examined from strategic, political, and moral stand points were in diplomats openly declared their aim, and did they achieve it? Does the result justify accusations either of incompetence or of imperialism? Does not the reaction within the United States to a policy which had been a striking success now induce second thoughts about both the policy and its results? The imperial republic is trying to throw off its burden; once a missionary, it has lost the sense of mission; it is still capitalist, but its spoiled children no longer believe in money; it was puritan, but its cities abound in sex shops; it regards itself as scientific, yet mystical and nudist sects are common.
The reader is not asked to endorse Aron's paradoxical interpretations, but to try to discover the reasons for any disagreement he may feel regarding differences in political judgment. People who have acquired the habit of thinking of the contemporary world in Manichaean terms-in terms of the reduction of whole populations to slavery by monsters, or in terms of capitalism, imperialism, or revisionism- may be out raged by a book that is not concerned with grounds for outrage and in which there are neither villains nor heroes; but rather with mixed messages by decent policymakers. At the time of its initial publication The Times Literary Supplement called The Imperial Republic "an important book"no other author does so much." It remains so!
339 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
91 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Aron
344 books175 followersRaymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron (French: [ʁɛmɔ̃ aʁɔ̃]; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist, and political scientist.
He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people – Aron argues that in post-war France, Marxism was the opium of intellectuals. In the book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of capitalism and democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities, and intolerance. Critic Roger Kimball[2] suggests that Opium is "a seminal book of the twentieth century." Aron is also known for his lifelong friendship, sometimes fractious, with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.[3]
He is also known for his 1973 book, The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World 1945-1973, which influenced Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, among others.
Aron wrote extensively on a wide range of other topics. Citing the breadth and quality of Aron's writings, historian James R. Garland[4] suggests, "Though he may be little known in America, Raymond Aron arguably stood as the preeminent example of French intellectualism for much of the twentieth century."
He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people – Aron argues that in post-war France, Marxism was the opium of intellectuals. In the book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of capitalism and democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities, and intolerance. Critic Roger Kimball[2] suggests that Opium is "a seminal book of the twentieth century." Aron is also known for his lifelong friendship, sometimes fractious, with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.[3]
He is also known for his 1973 book, The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World 1945-1973, which influenced Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, among others.
Aron wrote extensively on a wide range of other topics. Citing the breadth and quality of Aron's writings, historian James R. Garland[4] suggests, "Though he may be little known in America, Raymond Aron arguably stood as the preeminent example of French intellectualism for much of the twentieth century."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 18, 2011
Scene: Paris. 1972. An apartment in the Quartier Latin, with the College de France and the Sorbonne visible from the open balcony doors. A dark, expensive looking desk. Thick books in German, French and English line its front. Copies of Le Figaro lay discarded to one side. In front of a black typewriter, a sharp featured man with large ears and a cigar is typing on a nearly full sheet of paper, currently in the process of completing a sentence which reads, “… at the time of this writing, bombs were still falling on North Vietnam...”
With Raymond Aron, the viewpoint is all. He speaks from a very specific center-right, pro-Atlanticist perspective with very specific points to prove, and he is not hiding it or ashamed of it, and it would not occur to him that he should, merci tres beaucoup. As one might imagine, the year 1972 (and 1973, when the English translation was released with an up-to-the-last-24-hours updated forward accounting for even more recent events) gave a man with strong political opinions in favor of the United States government, and in particular its foreign policy (dark) masters, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, plenty of reasons to feel like he should explain himself. At the time, it was a commonplace to observe that the United States’ image in the world had gone from the reluctant hero on a white horse charging the beaches of Normandy for the sake of its friends to the Evil Empire itself. Aron wishes to interrogate the foreign policy of the United States over the course of the period that his change occurred (1945-1973) from the perspective of US policymakers at the time each action was taken and examine how much truth is behind this cliche.
He states at the beginning that he is interested only in “accounting for the external action of the United States as it was, not as the actors intended or thought it to be,” and tries to take the discussion out of the realm of good and evil morality and tell a story in which “there are neither villains nor heroes.” Discussion is divided into two essays on different types of external action, one discussing the United States’ actions on a diplomatic/political level, and the other mainly discussing the economic role of the United States in the world.
In the first section, he sets the scene with an initial background characterization of America’s role in the world that appears to agree with many of Schmitt’s (though he does not mention his name- the use of German scholars , particularly ex-Nazi ones, being still a sensitive political issue at the time) contentions about American foreign policy before WWI- that it goes back and forth between isolationism and a projection of power or a crusading spirit, that it is based on its history as an expansionist power on the North American continent that did not become powerful at the expense of other states (discounting the Native Americans), and that the European system died at the end of the 19th century and cannot be applied to the rest of the world.
However, from his perspective, the period 1945-1973 has been aligned into a new “world system” one run by the United States, and characterized by four major traits: 1- globalism, 2- heterogeneity (meaning acceptance of the existence of the USSR, at least eventually, rather than a focus on annihilation.), 3- revolutionary spirit (anti-colonialism, which leads to hate of American corporations, wealth gap once this period draws to a close), and 4- bipolarity (meaning US policymakers viewed their actions in relation to USSR). In order to show these characteristics, he separates periods of US diplomacy during this time into six eras: 1941-1945- (“strange alliance”,) 1947-1953- (“cold war proper”) 1953-1958-( “thaw” and revelation of ‘measure of solidarity’ between superpowers due to the twin crises of Suez and Hungary in 1956) 1958-1962 (détente/offensive alternatively throughout this period- it ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he finds to be the best damned managed crisis ever) 1962-1969 (US at summit of supremacy after Cuba, starts into decline with problems in Vietnam), then post 1969, which is characterized by Nixon’s trip to China (which he believes is genius and long overdue) and the devaluation of the dollar. In his view, these two events combined mean the end of the postwar period.
In talking about these periods he is not interested in whether an action by the US is right or wrong (except in a few instances where even he finds it impossible not to judge, like Cambodia and then its like “Dude, I’m sorry my friends are such total jerks, I don’t know what to tell you. I will totally tell off Henry the next time I see him though, I promise.”), but whether certain occurrences were inevitable or whether decision makers could have taken any other course. His analysis of each choice is given from within a realist framework which presents a given set of options that he perceives as possible choices given the realities of the individual situations and the practical considerations that had to be taken into account and deems decisions with bad consequences either “errors” or “faults” . It is his contention that he US was far less influenced by ideology, even in policies like containment (which he finds to be poorly understood. In his view, containment was a defensive or an “ideologically negative” strategy, not an offensive strategy and meant to balance power in Europe as originally understood by Kennan and Acheson, not what it came to seem to mean, of fighting any communists anywhere), then it was by the considerations of national interest and power politics and the US’ new role at the time- which was to be the new “guarantor of the power equilibrium” in Europe and elsewhere, taking over this role from the British Empire. He suggests that many of the US foreign policy actions that are now questioned or reviled were “necessary” or “inevitable” with there being no other good option at the time. The origins of Vietnam are actually quite interestingly and somewhat compellingly (from a certain point of view) explained from its beginnings as something the US got tangled up in after Korea (which is also really well explained as a test of the US security guarantee after WWII) and then progressively became more and more important the more we committed and then it WAS important just because we were so committed- which, in essentials, I don’t believe is wrong. If he has issues with the US in the political realm it is the country’s tendency towards a) “excesses” in political rhetoric- McCarthy and chums- which he believes is silly but relevant to why people make decisions (which, well, you can’t blame the man that he wrote before Foucaultian discourse analysis became fashionable!), and b) “half measures” and its reluctance to “take up its due rank” in the world as it should have. However, he believes that US diplomacy has been a “success” insofar as success means containing the USSR and making a “favorable environment” for itself in the world as much as possible.
The second section seems mostly concerned with directly addressing accusations by what he calls “paramarxists,” about the US’ economic exploitation and “imperialist” attitude towards the rest of the world. In his view, the US economic actions cannot be separated from its political actions- they are all wound up together. So, it is impossible to say that the main goal of US foreign policy is to gain markets for the country because of data that show it doesn’t make so much money- just enough to cover the cost of protecting the world! (Which, since the United States is the guarantor of peace for so many areas of the world, he finds to just be its due. Of course.) I thought the most interesting part of this section was his distinction between the “imperial” and the “imperialist”. He sees the concept of “imperial” as a legitimate part of the “nature of the system” and inevitable part of the inter-state system whereby great powers will try to influence the affairs of the small states around them to get a “favorable” environment for themselves- with the definition of “favorable environment” changing “with circumstances. As for “imperialist,” he sees this as “only a difference of degree” from imperial, he does find it to be more negative and involve inegalitarian relationships such as: repatriation of profits, system being bound to keep some people poor. However, he believes that the increase in dollars can only be good for the world, and the role of the US has not been so bad as has been reported. I think many of his pushy viewpoints in this section can be explained by the fact that he spent much of his life as the intellectual opponent and centre-right alter ego of Sartre, with whom he had very public battles in his political column in Le Figaro, and even at one point wrote a book length critique of Sartre’s philosophy. Give in to those poor, misled, pro-Stalin fools? I. think. not!
Indeed, the second section was much more heavy on what is a fault of the entire point. His “Never give up, never surrender!” viewpoint. He makes very good, insightful points throughout, but then will not leave an issue alone. He has to push and push until he does not have to concede anything but minor issues, while ultimately winning the war. A great example of this is his treatment of the Marshall Plan, which he gives an absolutely glowing report of, suggesting that this helps to prove that the US motives were not all bad, given the fact that it generously rebuilt a continent devastated by war and helped it get back up on its feet politically and economically once again. Which, fair enough- I think we can all get behind that to a certain degree. But then he raves on about how “look look, see see the US didn’t do this just to provide itself with markets- it actually gave itself competitors in the world market and didn’t get very much out of it financially, and if anything, if I were an American, I would be opposed to the Marshall Plan from a realist perspective because it might actually hurt the US in the long run!” Which: really? Really really? All it did was made me go look up Marshall Plan stuff and in the end I found out that it wasn’t actually all that economically helpful to Europe, it was just amazing political PR against communism. So there. Don’t oversell me, Raymond!
However, despite this, in the end I absolutely found this worth the read. By removing the emotional element from the analysis of Cold War actions as much as possible, he did make me realize that there were people in each of these situations facing a set of choices that they saw as possible and choosing from among them, given what the effects will be. It is a very, “well, what would you have done?” sort of argument. Which is valid to a certain degree, though I must in the end take issue with how few options he always seems to think are available- at SOME point, morality has to assert itself, right? Can we really remove intentionality from the US’ actions at all times? I don’t know. Is that just my lefty sensibility inserting itself improperly into analysis, I’m not sure. And that’s the thing. Aron reminds me that we can really never be sure about what is going on and why- if there’s one thing that he is definitely against, it is Manichean black and white views of the world. Now that I can get behind.
With Raymond Aron, the viewpoint is all. He speaks from a very specific center-right, pro-Atlanticist perspective with very specific points to prove, and he is not hiding it or ashamed of it, and it would not occur to him that he should, merci tres beaucoup. As one might imagine, the year 1972 (and 1973, when the English translation was released with an up-to-the-last-24-hours updated forward accounting for even more recent events) gave a man with strong political opinions in favor of the United States government, and in particular its foreign policy (dark) masters, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, plenty of reasons to feel like he should explain himself. At the time, it was a commonplace to observe that the United States’ image in the world had gone from the reluctant hero on a white horse charging the beaches of Normandy for the sake of its friends to the Evil Empire itself. Aron wishes to interrogate the foreign policy of the United States over the course of the period that his change occurred (1945-1973) from the perspective of US policymakers at the time each action was taken and examine how much truth is behind this cliche.
He states at the beginning that he is interested only in “accounting for the external action of the United States as it was, not as the actors intended or thought it to be,” and tries to take the discussion out of the realm of good and evil morality and tell a story in which “there are neither villains nor heroes.” Discussion is divided into two essays on different types of external action, one discussing the United States’ actions on a diplomatic/political level, and the other mainly discussing the economic role of the United States in the world.
In the first section, he sets the scene with an initial background characterization of America’s role in the world that appears to agree with many of Schmitt’s (though he does not mention his name- the use of German scholars , particularly ex-Nazi ones, being still a sensitive political issue at the time) contentions about American foreign policy before WWI- that it goes back and forth between isolationism and a projection of power or a crusading spirit, that it is based on its history as an expansionist power on the North American continent that did not become powerful at the expense of other states (discounting the Native Americans), and that the European system died at the end of the 19th century and cannot be applied to the rest of the world.
However, from his perspective, the period 1945-1973 has been aligned into a new “world system” one run by the United States, and characterized by four major traits: 1- globalism, 2- heterogeneity (meaning acceptance of the existence of the USSR, at least eventually, rather than a focus on annihilation.), 3- revolutionary spirit (anti-colonialism, which leads to hate of American corporations, wealth gap once this period draws to a close), and 4- bipolarity (meaning US policymakers viewed their actions in relation to USSR). In order to show these characteristics, he separates periods of US diplomacy during this time into six eras: 1941-1945- (“strange alliance”,) 1947-1953- (“cold war proper”) 1953-1958-( “thaw” and revelation of ‘measure of solidarity’ between superpowers due to the twin crises of Suez and Hungary in 1956) 1958-1962 (détente/offensive alternatively throughout this period- it ends with the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he finds to be the best damned managed crisis ever) 1962-1969 (US at summit of supremacy after Cuba, starts into decline with problems in Vietnam), then post 1969, which is characterized by Nixon’s trip to China (which he believes is genius and long overdue) and the devaluation of the dollar. In his view, these two events combined mean the end of the postwar period.
In talking about these periods he is not interested in whether an action by the US is right or wrong (except in a few instances where even he finds it impossible not to judge, like Cambodia and then its like “Dude, I’m sorry my friends are such total jerks, I don’t know what to tell you. I will totally tell off Henry the next time I see him though, I promise.”), but whether certain occurrences were inevitable or whether decision makers could have taken any other course. His analysis of each choice is given from within a realist framework which presents a given set of options that he perceives as possible choices given the realities of the individual situations and the practical considerations that had to be taken into account and deems decisions with bad consequences either “errors” or “faults” . It is his contention that he US was far less influenced by ideology, even in policies like containment (which he finds to be poorly understood. In his view, containment was a defensive or an “ideologically negative” strategy, not an offensive strategy and meant to balance power in Europe as originally understood by Kennan and Acheson, not what it came to seem to mean, of fighting any communists anywhere), then it was by the considerations of national interest and power politics and the US’ new role at the time- which was to be the new “guarantor of the power equilibrium” in Europe and elsewhere, taking over this role from the British Empire. He suggests that many of the US foreign policy actions that are now questioned or reviled were “necessary” or “inevitable” with there being no other good option at the time. The origins of Vietnam are actually quite interestingly and somewhat compellingly (from a certain point of view) explained from its beginnings as something the US got tangled up in after Korea (which is also really well explained as a test of the US security guarantee after WWII) and then progressively became more and more important the more we committed and then it WAS important just because we were so committed- which, in essentials, I don’t believe is wrong. If he has issues with the US in the political realm it is the country’s tendency towards a) “excesses” in political rhetoric- McCarthy and chums- which he believes is silly but relevant to why people make decisions (which, well, you can’t blame the man that he wrote before Foucaultian discourse analysis became fashionable!), and b) “half measures” and its reluctance to “take up its due rank” in the world as it should have. However, he believes that US diplomacy has been a “success” insofar as success means containing the USSR and making a “favorable environment” for itself in the world as much as possible.
The second section seems mostly concerned with directly addressing accusations by what he calls “paramarxists,” about the US’ economic exploitation and “imperialist” attitude towards the rest of the world. In his view, the US economic actions cannot be separated from its political actions- they are all wound up together. So, it is impossible to say that the main goal of US foreign policy is to gain markets for the country because of data that show it doesn’t make so much money- just enough to cover the cost of protecting the world! (Which, since the United States is the guarantor of peace for so many areas of the world, he finds to just be its due. Of course.) I thought the most interesting part of this section was his distinction between the “imperial” and the “imperialist”. He sees the concept of “imperial” as a legitimate part of the “nature of the system” and inevitable part of the inter-state system whereby great powers will try to influence the affairs of the small states around them to get a “favorable” environment for themselves- with the definition of “favorable environment” changing “with circumstances. As for “imperialist,” he sees this as “only a difference of degree” from imperial, he does find it to be more negative and involve inegalitarian relationships such as: repatriation of profits, system being bound to keep some people poor. However, he believes that the increase in dollars can only be good for the world, and the role of the US has not been so bad as has been reported. I think many of his pushy viewpoints in this section can be explained by the fact that he spent much of his life as the intellectual opponent and centre-right alter ego of Sartre, with whom he had very public battles in his political column in Le Figaro, and even at one point wrote a book length critique of Sartre’s philosophy. Give in to those poor, misled, pro-Stalin fools? I. think. not!
Indeed, the second section was much more heavy on what is a fault of the entire point. His “Never give up, never surrender!” viewpoint. He makes very good, insightful points throughout, but then will not leave an issue alone. He has to push and push until he does not have to concede anything but minor issues, while ultimately winning the war. A great example of this is his treatment of the Marshall Plan, which he gives an absolutely glowing report of, suggesting that this helps to prove that the US motives were not all bad, given the fact that it generously rebuilt a continent devastated by war and helped it get back up on its feet politically and economically once again. Which, fair enough- I think we can all get behind that to a certain degree. But then he raves on about how “look look, see see the US didn’t do this just to provide itself with markets- it actually gave itself competitors in the world market and didn’t get very much out of it financially, and if anything, if I were an American, I would be opposed to the Marshall Plan from a realist perspective because it might actually hurt the US in the long run!” Which: really? Really really? All it did was made me go look up Marshall Plan stuff and in the end I found out that it wasn’t actually all that economically helpful to Europe, it was just amazing political PR against communism. So there. Don’t oversell me, Raymond!
However, despite this, in the end I absolutely found this worth the read. By removing the emotional element from the analysis of Cold War actions as much as possible, he did make me realize that there were people in each of these situations facing a set of choices that they saw as possible and choosing from among them, given what the effects will be. It is a very, “well, what would you have done?” sort of argument. Which is valid to a certain degree, though I must in the end take issue with how few options he always seems to think are available- at SOME point, morality has to assert itself, right? Can we really remove intentionality from the US’ actions at all times? I don’t know. Is that just my lefty sensibility inserting itself improperly into analysis, I’m not sure. And that’s the thing. Aron reminds me that we can really never be sure about what is going on and why- if there’s one thing that he is definitely against, it is Manichean black and white views of the world. Now that I can get behind.
January 2, 2013
Aron has analyzed the foreign policies of the United States from 1945 to 1973. It is a must-read for anyone that is interested in American foreign policy, and anyone that is interested in the role of America in the future. I highly recommend this book.
November 2, 2019
Narra el desarrollo y auge del imperio estadounidense, lo considera no como un imperio en términos tradicionales, especialmente porque destaca la falta de expansionismo territorial y los elementos coyunturales y económicos.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews