The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America's Purpose

by Robert W. Tucker, David C. Hendrickson

"The peril is not preeminently to the nation's purse; it is to its soul. The danger is not so much that we will fail to protect our interests, it is that we will betray our historic ideals . . . . . There is no assumption made here that the nation has always lived up to its deals; it did, however, always look up to them. We believe that it needs to do so again."
—from the Introduction
In The Imperial Temptation , two eminent foreign policy experts warn that America has made a Faustian bargain in its quest for the leadership of a new world order. In its attempts to address the challenges posed by new global realities, the Bush administration, so argues The Imperial Temptation , has betrayed the fundamental ideals on which this country was founded.
Criticizing the all-out military assault on Iraq as a disproportionate and inhumane response to the crisis, Tucker and Hendrickson argue that President Bush seized on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to crystallize its vision of a new world order that would reclaim America's position of world leadership. But, in choosing to wage war against Iraq when another alternative was available, the authors write, Bush made the use of force the centerpiece of his vision of world order. As a result, America has fastened on a formula that allows us to go to war with far greater precipitancy that we otherwise might while simultaneously allowing us to walk away from the ruin we create without feeling a commensurate sense of responsibility. By leaving Iraq in chaos, America has succumbed to an imperial temptation without discharging the classic duties of imperial rule.
The Imperial Temptation makes an important—and what is sure to be viewed as controversial—contribution to the national debate over the future of U.S. foreign policy and offers a revealing examination of the classic ideas underlying American diplomacy and their relation to the nation's historic purpose.

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Robert Warren Tucker was an American realist writer and teacher who served as Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Tucker received his B.S. from the United States Naval Academy in 1945 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949. He was co-editor of The National Interest from 1985 to 1990, and president of the Lehrman Institute from 1982 to 1987. During his lifetime, he published essays in Foreign Affairs, World Policy Journal, The National Interest, Harpers, and The New Republic. His 1977 book The Inequality of Nations is a highly skeptical analysis of the Third World's efforts to redistribute power and wealth in the international system.

Reviews

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more like a series of 3 long essays with some loose connections. The general message of the book is that with the restraints of the Cold War lifted the US now faces the imperial temptation. This means that the US risks pursuing an overly militarized foreign policy that balances against aggression everywhere rather than a specific threat (the USSR, GR, or JP), or a global policeman type role. Tucker argues that the US has the power to do this but not the will or tradition to follow through on the consequences of imperial interventions. In other words, he sees a US at risk of intervening in lots of places because of this expansive role but not tying up the loose ends. We would have the Hamiltonian tradition of a strong military (shorn of the realpolitik) combined with Jeffersonian idealism (shorn of the anti-militarism) resulting in an expansive, destructive position in the world.

I'm perfectly okay with this argument, but I don't think it applies to his main case study: Desert Storm. Tucker argues that in Desert Storm the US rushed into the defense of the New World Order against aggression anywhere, fought the Iraqis, but then withdrew from the whole mess, leaving SH in power and the Kurds and Shia to be crushed. He argues that the US should have chosen one of 2 options: 1. Go to war, but finish the job. Embrace the imperial responsibility and impose a MacArthur-like sovereignty over Iraq in order to rehabilitate it as a nation. 2. Pursue the sanctions route, draw down troops levels in Saudi Arabia, and wait the Iraqis out. This might not work in getting SH out of KW, but it avoid stirring the pot too much, keeps the international coalition in check, and doesn't impose undue suffering on the Iraqis in a war. Instead, he criticizes Bush for choosing the irresponsible imperial role.

I think Tucker's warnings about an imperial role are all well and good. Everyone and their dog who wasn't a neocon was making this kind of warning in the early 1990's. The problems were that the Gulf War was not an imperial war, that the sanctions route probably would not have worked, and that not invading and reconstructing Iraq was the much safer and more responsible route. I would be happy to spell this argument out further, but I'm tired right now. Sorry.

This book's central argument about the Gulf War isn't correct, but the book has lots of redeeming value in its thoughtful essays about American foreign policy traditions. It is very well historically versed, concise, and thoughtful. It's really only of interest to scholars of foreign policy, but it should remain on the list of those interested in post-Cold War transition and the Gulf War in particular.