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The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed

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Eland challenges conventional wisdom about why so many people around the world dislike Americans--it's not who we are or what we believe, but how our government behaves. With specific chapters directed at both conservatives and liberals explaining how over-reaching US interventionism goes against their principles, there is something in this book for everyone.

A direct, educated antithesis to the imperial warmongering of Kaplan and the like. A read that will interest anyone who is interested in preserving our declining democratic republic.

The author presents his position that the best U.S. government is the one that governs least and does not spend its resources building an empire. Presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, Johnson, and Bush who spent a great deal of effort to expand the American Empire become the worst presidents in our history. The idea that we need an empire to push the battle lines farther from our shores is exposed as a hoax for the aggrandizement of the president in power. As the author so eloquently states, there is no reason for the U.S. to maintain its "great power" status, especially at the expense of its economy. Should we not learn from the case of the Soviet Union which fell because the obligations of its military empire were too great for its economy. The author posits; can it not happen to us?

The U.S. now has more than 700 military bases throughout the world, and maintains a significant position in NATO, an organization centered in Europe where the EU has the world's 2nd largest economy, but uses the US military as its security shield. Nice. And Japan uses us as their defense force while penetrating our economy and buying American domestic assets to our great detriment. Gee, the only thing made in America any more are its women and then increasingly by foreigners. But in the meantime we become the world's mercenary police force unfortunately paid by ourselves on behalf of others.

So the argument goes: we need Hawaii to protect the West Coast. Then Okinawa and Guam to protect Hawaii. Then Japanese bases to protect Okinawa. Then troops in South Korea to protect Japan and South Korea. Is there no end to this lunacy? I guess so -- only when we have troops all over the world to isolate any seemingly hostile country at its own borders. The problem, of course, is not only can we not afford this, it's that no other country agrees we need to do it. So by our own actions, we set ourselves up as the power to be defeated. And history proves that day will not be long in coming. Almost all empires have not lasted longer than 250 years -- (for us that would be 2039 at the latest.)

The author makes so many good points that it would take another book to recount them. But for example, he makes the case that Truman, Johnson and Bush I claimed the authority as President to take the U.S. into war. However, the pesky Constitution specifically states that the President is only the Commander-in-Chief, and that only Congress has the power to declare war. In addition, the people have the right to keep and bear arms for their own defense -- yet empire-mongering presidents have sought to eliminate that troublesome feature in the Constitution bit by bit to create subjects out of citizens. And on and on.

Everyone should read this book and ponder the ideas within. Author Eland has much to say, and there is much to learn here. The reader should not let himself be swept along by media propaganda to the downfall of the U.S. Even if I don't agree with all of the author's points, they still bear careful scrutiny and consideration. The reader will be the better for reading this work.

Highly recommended.

Oh, this review is based on the Updated Edition of 2008.

eland does a unique thing with this book - he deconstructs the imperialism argument from every perspective. so it really feels like he's not preaching to the choir. by doing so, he strengthens his argument. no matter what your political philosophy is, this book finds a way to address you and dissuade you from supporting the american empire (it may or may not technically be one, depending on how you define it, but you know what he's talking about here). admittedly, eland is a bit more of an isolationist than i'd like, but hey, people with different political views coming to similar conclusions is a good thing! it's also a pretty easy read - you don't need to have coursework in international security or international political economy to get what he's saying.

This is a book that members of Congress definitely need to read or perhaps listen to the warnings of the courageous Ron Paul. With over 700 military bases stationed in over 130 countries and a decades-long bipartisan foreign policy of relentless intervention, Ivan Eland traces how our republic has strayed away from its constitutional roots and evolved into the very thing it rebelled against, Empire. He shows how a interventionist foreign policy ultimately does not serve genuine American interests and most importantly, is making us less safe. He correctly links terrorism to "blowback", the unintended consequences of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. With a chapter for liberals, conservatives, and all Americans, Eland gives strong arguments that empire goes against what each group cherishes most. More importantly than ever, it is time for the United States to heed the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and return to a non-interventionist foreign policy. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."

http://www.mypatriotact.com/?page_id=7

Eland is Director of the Center on Peace and Liberty at the Independent Institute in California. Though his political philosophy differs significantly from mine, this book provides sound arguments against American imperialism that he manages to justify from both sides of American party politics. The general thrust of his writing is similar to Chalmers Johnson's (in fact, he references Johnson frequently), though the book focuses less on militarism and the loss of freedom and more on the general - and frighteningly, now commonly accepted - idea of an American Empire. A must-read for anyone looking for justification to forge a strong political movement for the dismantling of our empire.

Mr. Eland lays out persuasive arguments showing that the U.S. has been acting as an empire, particularity since 1950, rather than as the republic established in the U.S. Constitution. He presents separate chapters addressing the reasons that conservatives, liberals, and all citizens should be against empire. His point is that most foreign entanglements do us more harm than good, leaving him open to criticism for being isolationist, but the point is that even if foreign threats to the U.S. arise, it will be decades in the making, during which we stay abreast of events, rather than continually funding security for other countries while they use their savings for their own economic development.

This book was in no sense biased. Every fact in this book was well researched. But after reading one chapter in the book, I fell asleep. Sometimes, I spent sometime trying to understand the similes and metaphors throughout the book. Overall, I would recommend the book for research, but not for casual reading.

As I said it for another book ("The New American Empire"), Ivan Eland's book "The Empire Has No Clothes" is also a great book to see through Bush's lies.

Now, George W. Bush says that he accepts responsibility for taking the U.S. to war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence. -This is all wrong.

It was not the intelligence that was faulty; it was Bush's intentions to wage war against Iraq no matter what were the intelligence and the facts. He twisted the intelligence reports and invented lies around his already decided policy.

That's why he is guilty of having launched a war of aggression on lies and deception, and on having violated, in so doing, international law. He and his neocon advisors should pray that they will never be brought before an international court of justice.

This book is a mind-numbing set of specious one-sided arguments slamming American history and values. The author seems to inhabit his own little world, where every historical "empire" no matter how complex, illustrates a few simple notions of the evil of getting involved with the larger world. The talking points are discussed and concluded with the glib tone of a high-school debating club. The author's view of history is extravagantly revisionist, and often self-contradictory. He seems hopelessly confused by world politics, and just wishes we could withdraw behind a wall, secure in our smug superiority. He has nothing at all intelligent to say about Islamic terrorism, rogue nuclear states, or the impending bankruptcy of the western social democracies, caused by an inward-looking worldview that agrees with his own.