BOOK REVIEW How high can a Turkey fly? The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America's Global Role by
Caleb Stewart Rossiter
Reviewed by Peter Certo
In The Turkey and the Eagle, Rossiter takes as his central metaphor an
argument in early American history over what bird the nascent United States
ought to take as its symbol. Eschewing the lazy, thieving eagle, president
Benjamin Franklin wryly advocated the turkey, that "vain and silly" bird
"untainted by symbolic association with European expansion, and indeed, with
expansion of any kind".
Franklin lost that argument. The eagle has become the national symbol and also
a fitting choice to represent the broad sweep of American foreign policy. As a
foreign policy paradigm, Rossiter's "Eagles" come in two varieties. Hard Eagles
are the unapologetic
American expansionists who advocate and sustain a program of voracious military
spending and unilateral foreign adventurism.
Hard Eagles are happy to expound on the virtues of democracy, but often do so
"while arming and financing repressive but cooperative regimes" around the
world. According to Rossiter, Hard Eagles constitute the bulk of the modern
Republican Party, though such an orientation also characterizes a solid
minority of Democrats.
Soft Eagles, who enjoy a tenuous hold on the Democratic Party, share the Hard
Eagles' goals of economic and military dominance. But they decry the damage to
America's international standing caused by ill-advised, unilateral military
adventures, as well as "dramatic international eyesores" such as the prisoner
abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the US detention center at Guantanamo
Bay in Cuba. Although they are amenable to multilateralism, Soft Eagles can be
nonetheless persuaded to back unilateral action if the goals they share with
Hard Eagles are sufficiently threatened. Fundamentally, Soft Eagles differ from
Hard Eagles in tactics - not goals.
Underpinning the Eagles' willingness to act on their goals of military and
economic supremacy is a cultural belief shared by the vast majority of
Americans: exceptionalism. This exceptionalism permits the self-congratulatory
perception of a benevolent US state that shapes the world for the better.
Moreover, exceptionalist policies that advance American self-interest are
legitimate because what's good for America is good for the world. "The logic of
exceptionalism," writes Rossiter, "dovetails with the requirements of
domination." America's cultural acceptance of this logic largely confines
anti-imperialists to the political hinterlands.
Rossiter's "Turkeys", however, categorically reject the logic of
exceptionalism, and in so doing invalidate American claims to "determine a
[foreign] government's makeup and policies by threat, subversion, military and
covert alliance, or force".
While not necessarily isolationist, and indeed ideally inclined toward
cooperative international behavior, Turkeys reject the role of the United
States as "world enforcer". A minority of Democrats may subscribe to the
Turkeys' beliefs, but Turkeys' often Democratic voting habits may only reflect
the lack of a viable alternative. Though they frequently find it convenient to
critique the effects of US foreign policy, they depart from the Soft Eagles in
that their criticism is ultimately a moral one. Determining the affairs of
other countries, whether by force, suasion or the propping up of
often-oppressive regimes is ultimately the domain of empires. And for Rossiter,
empire is irredeemably evil.
According to Rossiter, the fundamental failing of anti-imperialists, whether
principled Turkeys or concerned Soft Eagles, has been a tactical propensity to
attack not the principle of empire but the efficacy of its exercise. To prove
it, he delves into his decades of experience on Capitol Hill as "an inside
agitator, an anti-imperialist trapped in imperial Washington".
Rossiter presents a lucid insider history of numerous congressional attempts to
scale back American interventions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. But "Soft
Eagles in Congress", Rossiter explains, "disputed neither [the] goal of
blocking another Cuba nor [the] assumption that the United States had the right
... to do so. Instead they fought [imperialism] on tactical grounds," arguing
that various interventions were not in the national interest.
But having conceded the goal of restricting perceived Soviet influence in Latin
America, their attempts were almost invariably derailed or set back. This
massive concession of purpose inevitably prejudiced policy outcomes in favor of
Hard Eagles, who not only espoused the goals but also pushed aggressively to
attain them. Rossiter bolsters this thesis over and over again in his histories
of other US engagements in Vietnam, Angola, and elsewhere.
If such are the failings of Soft Eagles, Rossiter points to several
"distractions" that have drawn the undue interest of Turkeys at the expense of
more pressing anti-imperial projects. Among these are human rights, foreign
aid, and most controversially, climate change.
While he credits Turkeys with bringing human rights to the forefront of
international consideration, he also laments that Eagles have managed to usurp
the human-rights project via so-called "humanitarian interventions", where the
veneer of human rights is used to justify self-interested or imperial
invasions.
He argues as well that foreign aid, even if is not embezzled by a dictatorial
regime or funneled into brutal police forces, represents only a salve that does
nothing to alter the fundamental power structures that enable poverty and
oppression. Rossiter also acutely observes that climate change represents "a
rare chance to find common cause with the American mainstream ... to dismember
the carbon-driven capitalism that many Turkeys see as the source of numerous
political and social ills." But unlike most other Turkeys, Rossiter is a
climate change skeptic, if not an outright denier. He argues that this "perfect
storm" hinders economic growth in vulnerable regions and that Turkeys should
level their fire elsewhere.
So what should Turkeys do? Rossiter proposes that switching to a congressional
proportional representation system, long advocated by political scientists like
Arend Lijphart, could provide more space for anti-imperial parties. He even
flirts with the idea of dissolving the union. But most importantly, Turkeys
must confront head-on the cultural assumptions of American exceptionalism. For
this he proposes an aggressive, long-term media campaign attacking the moral
right of Americans to dominate the world. If future Americans see their country
as fundamentally similar to any other, they will reject the interventionist
impulses of today's Eagles.
The Turkey and the Eagle is a sweeping, detailed and at times eccentric
exposition on the imperative of changing America's global role. Properly read,
it can change the way we talk about empire and how we go about dismantling it.
One needn't share Rossiter's climate change skepticism to join his civilizing
mission. We can, he tells us, and we should walk back from empire not in
weakness but in conscience. "In that case," he concludes, "America could,
finally, rightly claim to be exceptional."
Peter Certo is an intern with Foreign Policy In Focus.
The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America's Global Role by
Caleb Stewart Rossiter, Algora Publishing (August 16, 2010). ISBN:
978-0-87586-798-4. Price: US$23.95, pages 300.
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Soft Eagles, who enjoy a tenuous hold on the Democratic Party, share the Hard
Eagles' goals of economic and military dominance. But they decry the damage to
America's international standing caused by ill-advised, unilateral military
adventures, as well as "dramatic international eyesores" such as the prisoner
abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and the US detention center at Guantanamo
Bay in Cuba. Although they are amenable to multilateralism, Soft Eagles can be
nonetheless persuaded to back unilateral action if the goals they share with
Hard Eagles are sufficiently threatened. Fundamentally, Soft Eagles differ from
Hard Eagles in tactics - not goals.
