That Sinking, Colonial Feeling

His latest book is likely to further infuriate conventional internationalism around the world. Imperial Grunts has two broad themes. The first is a sombre celebration of the empire and its benefits; the other is the real life story of American military units dispersed around the world, where the imperial rubber meets the rough roads of the Third World.

Both tales are equally provocative, told in riveting but relentless prose. Kaplan hardly debates the controversial proposition that empires may be a good thing. Taking it for granted, Kaplan reflects on the thankless job of the contemporary American empire in making nations “out of places that were never meant to be countries”.

Most Indians would recoil at this celebration of the American empire. But it is about time the Indian elite debated the definitive return of the notion of empire in the current international relations discourse and what it means for India’s own security policies.

While Niall Ferguson’s Empire got the perfunctory dismissals in India, there is a larger debate today on the potential role of “imperialism” in bringing stability to large parts of the world.

Has the wave of intense nationalism that rocked the world since the 19th century ebbed? Were past multinational empires—Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman—better at protecting minorities than their nationalist successors? Even more fundamentally, are there organising principles of empires which might be of some relevance in the current world? These questions must be debated, whether we like them or not.

As India begins to acquire the attributes of a great power, its military would increasingly be called upon to provide order in far corners of the world. India has not hesitated to use force in its own neighbourhood and has dispatched troops under the UN flag to places as remote as Gaza, Congo and Cambodia.

Much like the American forces today—which are battling terrorists in Yemen and drug lords in Colombia to name just two interventions—India too would have to respond to the challenge of nation-building beyond its own borders. New Delhi is already down that path in Afghanistan today. The challenges might ultimately be no different in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Would it take up those responsibilities or merely cede them to the UN or others?

Kaplan is certainly not demanding a return to old style colonialism. “In a world where nineteenth-century-style colonialism was simply impractical and where the very spread of democracy for which America struggled meant that it could no longer operate with impunity, an approach that merged humanitarianism with intelligence gathering, in order to achieve low-cost partial victories, was what imperialism demanded in the early twenty-first century.”

In narrating the story of the American military units in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mongolia, El Salvador and many other places—where he spent time living with the forces—Kaplan raises broader questions about military doctrine and organisation for the modern age.

Kaplan insists that the large scale warfare of the 20th century will no longer be relevant in the new age. His focus is on the small units of Special Forces that are being asked to perform an array of tasks from intelligence gathering to nation-building, from disaster management to a decentralised strategy of fighting terror.

In developing the theses on military transformation, Kaplan has by no means drifted away from the American mainstream. Both liberal and conservative internationalists in the US have demanded greater use of the military around the world. In fact, liberals have been far more interventionist.

Kaplan is merely providing a powerful perspective by merging stories from the bottom of the American military pile with the larger debates on the nature of war and peace in the 21st century.

No Indian interested in today’s global politics or willing to reflect on India’s own future contributions to international peace and security should miss this book. A few weeks ago, before he headed off to the South Asian summit in Dhaka, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked of the threat of “failing states” in India’s neighbourhood. The logical extension of his remarks would lead to the question he did not ask. How should India cope with these threats? Answering that question must necessarily involve a careful reading of Kaplan.

Throughout the book, Kaplan refers to the imperial experience of the British Indian army. India too must dust off the military records of the Raj and re-examine them as it seeks to cope with its emerging great power burden as well as new demands on its armed forces.