American Grand Strategy from Obama to Trump: Imperialism After Bush and China's Hegemonic Challenge

By Zeno Leoni

This book maintains that the theory of imperialism should incorporate the concept of an “operational code” of political elites to account for agencies’ actions. This concept would explain the strategic continuity and tactical change in US grand strategy from Obama to Trump. While both presidents pursued a strategy of off-shore balancing, their competing worldviews led to tangible differences in the way they sought to restore American power after Bush and to contain the rise of China. This book offers an important contribution after the departure of Bush concluded the 21st century debate on imperialism, at a time when an increasingly post-American world order has undermined the “end of the state” thesis. Indeed, over the last twelve years US grand strategy has emphasized inter-state competition rather than the annihilation of rogue regimes. These events require renewed efforts for the theory of imperialism to contribute to Globalisation Theory at this crucial historical junction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Mar 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9783030547424

Zeno Leoni

Zeno Leoni is a Teaching Fellow in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London within the Joint Services and Staff College (JSCSC) of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. He is also an affiliate to the Lau China Institute of King’s College London.

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© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

Z. LeoniAmerican Grand Strategy from Obama to Trumphttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54742-4_1

1. Introduction

Zeno Leoni¹  

(1)

Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Swindon, UK

Zeno Leoni

Email: [e-mail]

In the Preface to his Imperialism and Global Political Economy (2009) Alex Callinicos wrote that ‘[i]mperialism, to many people’s surprise, survived the Cold War. More to the point, it has also survived the presidency of George W. Bush’ (Callinicos 2009, ix). In spite of this, after the first decade of the twenty-first century—during which there was a ‘great renaissance’ in the study of the subject—discussions on imperialism and American grand strategy have somehow not made it to academic headlines. Far from this being a criticism of the academic community, in this author’s view there are at least two reasons why the debate on imperialism has become quieter and more circumscribed to single professional endeavors. The first reason is also the most obvious one. Barack Obama did all he could not to appear like George W. Bush. In his Cairo speech in 2009 he apologized to the Muslim world. His foreign policy narrative and actions often highlighted that democracy cannot be exported and that bombs do not lead to peace. When Trump arrived at the White House, Obama’s hesitation to take a more interventionist stance continued but under a more nationalist guise, motivated by power.

The second reason is less obvious but equally important in order to understand the contemporary imperial aspirations of American grand strategy. Obama, and later Trump, made Asia and in particular China the main focus of their foreign policy. Imperialism after Bush has not manifested itself in the military subjugation of a small and weak country by a powerful one. Instead, it has taken the shape of an inter-imperial rivalry—a nuance that too often is neglected by non-Marxists. Since the late Bush and above all after his departure, the military, economic, and diplomatic levers of American power have been employed in an effort to manage the rise of a great power like China—often accused of being neocolonial itself. This makes it more difficult to cry ‘imperialism!’. Nonetheless, there are still good reasons to observe American grand strategy through the prism of imperialism intended as interstate geopolitical competition. American grand strategy after Bush has displayed elements of both continuity and change that deserve to be considered through a critical lens. Tensions between Washington, DC and Beijing provide an opportunity for testing the theory of imperialism. Furthermore, even if in world politics change does not happen overnight, the geopolitical world order is different from the early 2000s. The power bonanza of the unipolar moment is over, especially if observed from the viewpoint of regional geopolitics. US geopolitical leadership has been challenged by Russia in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria. China has been weaponizing contested islands at the heart of global trade, in the South China Sea. Revisionism and territorialism are back in fashion after what many saw as a ‘strategic pause’ at the end of the Cold War. Although scholars are still debating what kind of polarity will rule the world—if any at all—the rise of China and Asia has disrupted the post-Cold War order and it has required the United States to adjust its geostrategic priorities. Politically, the United States and the West have struggled to enforce their interests within institutions of global governance such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), which since the Doha Round has faced a decisional crisis. From an economic viewpoint, the financial leadership of the United States has been undermined by the Great Recession.

Simply put, the post-2008 international order reminds us that theses such as the ‘end of the state,’ the ‘end of history,’ and the ‘end of geography’ have to be rethought as nation-driven geopolitical competition remains a crucial factor in world politics. Although global capitalism continues to frame inter-imperial rivalries, the foreign policy of a world hegemon cannot be explained exclusively as based on the ‘logic of capital.’ On the one hand, the resilience of the state is great news for the theory of imperialism because of its focus on interstate rivalries. On the other hand, it takes us back to a long-lasting problem within the Marxist theory of imperialism, such as theorizing political agencies in the international. Indeed, given that Karl Marx never developed his political insights into a theory of the state or of the international, the Marxist theory of imperialism remains a theory in the making. This is a weakness but also a strength to the extent that the theory is open to the integration of new ideas and elements of other theories.

The book has two principal endeavors that stem from the theoretical dilemmas of a Marxist theory of imperialism and contemporary world politics. Firstly, at the most abstract level, the book makes a contribution to globalization theory by reasserting the role of the state behind imperialist forces and by claiming that interstate rivalries remain a relevant concept to contemporary world politics. States also continue to act based on (geo)political logics. This is the case even if globalization appears to have reached an unprecedented degree of economic integration. More to the point, it contributes to the latest debate on imperialism by showing that Marxism can engage more productively with the international and mainstream theories of International Relations (IR). It is argued that a Marxist theory of imperialism can be expanded by linking it to the worldviews of the political elite. The advantage of incorporating this level of analysis is that it allows us to look at foreign policy in a holistic, long-term way while accounting for tactical changes determined by individual elites’ operational codes.

Secondly, and following from the previous point, this book’s objective is to demonstrate that while American grand strategy continues to reflect the interests of capitalism, political elites can to an extent influence the direction of US power. Indeed, leaders such as Obama and Trump have been able to influence US foreign policy coherently with their worldviews—although they did not manage to revolutionize it as they promised. US presidents’ ideology and ideological agendas can account for tactical adjustments to a American grand strategy that in the long term never changes.

This book is organized in the following way: Chapter 2 develops a discussion on Marxist theories of imperialism and introduces the structure of the case study. The aim of the chapter is to provide the reader with the instruments for understanding how the concept of capitalist imperialism developed between the first wave of debates—in the early twentieth century—and the third wave—at the start of the twenty-first century. Engaging with the most recent contributions from scholars of the New Imperialism thesis, it is argued that the concept of uneven development of capitalism has to be conceived on three different levels of analysis, that is, geographical, institutional, and ideological. This allows the theory of imperialism to connect to theories that deal with ideology and strategic culture in a non-reductionist manner. Based on this, a Marxist theory of imperialism could even develop an ‘operational code’ of political elites’ ideologies that accounts for their views of the geopolitical world order, capitalism and the ruling class, and the employment of power in the international.

Rather than moving straight from Chapter 2 into the case study, Chapter 3 provides the reader with historical and conceptual instruments of American grand strategy. In this way, the reader can better appreciate some of the points raised in the chapters on Obama’s and Trump’s foreign policy. Chapter 3 offers a snapshot of the historical development of American grand strategy from the early nineteenth century until the arrival of the Truman Administration. This is a crucial time because, it is argued, it is a period of gestation for American grand strategy.

After having explored debates on empire and hegemony, the chapter argues that American grand strategy since the end of World War Two (WWII) has been framed within a global sphere of influence. This global sphere of influence is the product of the intersection between global geoeconomic openness and national geopolitical primacy. But such global openness and the vital necessity to draw other countries into the global capitalist order have led American grand strategy to systemic blowback. This short circuit is best symbolized by the rise of China, which for the United States is both a crucial partner and a strategic enemy.

Chapter 4 is tasked with providing a picture of the systemic geopolitical level of analysis. It shows that since the Great Recession of 2008 the world order has become less favorable to the United States, compared to after the Cold War. Following some engagement with contemporary literature on the crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO), three inter-related arguments are made. Firstly, the rise of China is key in order to explain why the geopolitical world order has been going through a transition since—symbolically—the Great Recession of 2008. Secondly, China has been eroding US economic power thanks to the uneven development of capitalism as represented by US globalization. Thirdly, the rise of China and Beijing’s commercial global strategy and assertive military policy in the South China Sea have compelled the United States to adjust its geostrategic focus toward the Asia-Pacific. Such a global geopolitical context has informed Obama’s and Trump’s review of US geostrategic priorities and appetite for military interventionism.

Chapter 5 focuses on Obama’s grand strategy. After a review of the literature, this chapter provides an account of Obama’s relationship to capitalism and the ruling class, a portrait of his general operational code, and of his views of the Asia-Pacific. It is argued that contrary to what many believed, Obama did have a clear grand strategy. On the one hand, his strategy was the product of a reassessment of US strategic ends-means ratio at a time of financial constraint and new geopolitical challenges; on the other hand, it was the result of a president’s worldview based on pragmatic globalism and a special appreciation of historical changes in the Asia-Pacific and of how the United States’ Pacific identity fitted in the region. Based on this, Obama sought to maintain an offshore balancing posture in Europe and the Middle East while adjusting the geostrategic vectors of US imperialism toward the Asia-Pacific, where US priorities lie. In the Asia-Pacific, in particular, Obama sought to manage the rise of an assertive China. Having failed attempts at integrating China within a G2 framework, he cautiously sought to contain Beijing’s power by entangling it in a web of military power, economic rules, and diplomatic alliances, refraining from being explicitly confrontational.

Chapter 6 provides an account of Trump’s grand strategy by following the same structure as the chapter on Obama. After a review of the literature, this chapter looks at Trump’s relationship to capitalism, at the president’s operational code in general and with reference to the Indo-Pacific. Drawing on the arguments in Chapter 3 about American grand strategy, Chapter 6 maintains that there clearly is strategic continuity between Obama and Trump but also some tangible tactical changes. Indeed, like Obama, Trump opted for an offshore balancing posture although this was framed through a nationalist rather than multilateral lens. Furthermore, Trump had to deal with an international system and financial constraints that have been unfavorable to the United States. This explains the continuity with Obama. On the other hand, Trump was informed by a more nationalist worldview and a more competitive appreciation of human life and power. Like Obama, Trump claimed that burden-sharing was needed in international alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO); for a less interventionist policy in the Middle East; and for prioritizing strategic competition with China. Yet his style was different. He was especially vocal about NATO spending and risked several diplomatic incidents with allies; he was more sensitive to Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s interests and unwilling to negotiate with Iran; he approached China in a more direct and confrontational way. All in all, Trump’s grand strategy displayed a coherent direction even if the president’s idiosyncratic operational code and style made this strategy more chaotic in appearance.

The book, as can be seen by its table of content, combines theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work. However, it is specifically meant to be for a wider readership in order to go beyond the debate on imperialism, if necessary, and to make the most of the chapters on the world order, the rise of China and American grand strategy from Obama to Trump, since these are timely issues. Indeed, as Chapter 2 is heavily charged with theoretical abstractions, and Chapter 3 engages with a debate on how American grand strategy should be conceptualized, the rest of the book makes a constant effort to look at the empirical direction of such theories and concepts.

Ultimately, this book’s author believes that for the sake of developing and spreading a Marxist theory of the international this needs to be intelligible to other kinds of scholarships.

The analysis conducted in this book relies on a qualitative observation of US foreign policy which provides the backbone to Chapter 5 and Chapter 6—although the number of primary sources is larger than those mentioned here. The proposal to look at imperialist foreign policies through the lenses of the systemic level, the governmental-societal level, and the ideological level—advanced in Chapter 2—is reflected in the structure of the case study. Indeed, Chapter 4 provides an analysis of the geopolitical world order that Obama and Trump have faced. Instead, Chapters 5 and 6 offer, respectively, Obama’s and Trump’s relationship with capitalism and the ruling class and an account of their worldviews and foreign policies. The chapter on Obama’s foreign policy relies on 30 speeches from Obama and three interviews released to the media concerning Obama’s worldview and foreign policy; two National Security Strategies; five strategic documents concerning American grand strategy, the Asia-Pacific, and China; six speeches from Hillary Clinton, Tom Donilon, and Ash Carter concerning the ‘pivot to Asia.’ The chapter on Trump’s worldview and his foreign policy is based on 27 presidential remarks and three interviews related to foreign policies issues and the Indo-Pacific; one national security strategy; three strategic documents; 14 speeches from Mike Pence, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, and Robert Lighthizer on the Indo-Pacific and China.

Reference

Callinicos, A. (2009). Imperialism and global political economy. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

Z. LeoniAmerican Grand Strategy from Obama to Trumphttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54742-4_2

2. A Marxist Theory of International Relations

Zeno Leoni¹  

(1)

Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Swindon, UK

Zeno Leoni

Email: [e-mail]

2.1 Introduction

This chapter intervenes in the third wave of debates on theories of imperialism (Anievas 2010; Ashman 2006; Callinicos 2007, 2009; Colás 2008; Colás and Pozo 2011; Harvey 2003; Pozo-Martin 2006, 2007). Two events triggered much intellectual frenzy that ultimately led to a comprehensive academic discussion. The first event was the publication of Michael Hardt and Tony Negri’s book Empire (2000). Among other things, this work ambitiously confined the state and concepts like imperialism and inter-imperial rivalries to the dustbin of history. The second and much more dramatic event was represented by the US occupation of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) which followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The tension between the two triggers could not be more tangible. The territorialism and militarism that characterized the War on Terror challenged the very raison d’être of Hardt and Negri’s book. This stimulated literary production on the left camp of academia. Such tension was further compounded by the fact that Marx never produced a fully fledged, systematically organized theory of the state and of International Relations (IR). In the words of one contributor, the state in theories of imperialism has become a ‘Gordian knot’ (Pozo-Martin 2006).

Demand for such a theory not only stemmed from the specific events that triggered the third wave of debates on imperialism. The termination of the Cold War and slogans such as the ‘end of the state,’ the ‘end of history,’ and the ‘end of the geography’ appear distant from the contemporary world, both in time and from an empirical viewpoint. Nationalist identities and economic and military multipolarity have increasingly become defining features of IR since the Great Recession in 2008. What stands out is a tangible techno- and geopolitical competition for regional if not global hegemony between the United States and China. The bottom line is that if the world order appears less homogeneous and more fragmented, a Marxist theory of imperialism would benefit from sharpening further its theoretical tools. The aim is to overcome a Marxist tendency to generalize—a mistake that different strands of the theory of imperialism have in common, from Lenin and Bukharin to Hardt and Negri—and to over-rely on economic as opposed to political analyses. In this regard, Marxism has remained for too long a ‘lame duck’ vis-à-vis mainstream IR theories. The lack of a systematic Marxist theory of the state has not only resulted in a proliferation of Marxist accounts of the state and of imperialism—this in itself is actually a very positive development, but it has also meant a neglect—until recently—of the role that human agency performs within the foreign policymaking process.

To avoid the temptation of echoing realism in order to explain conflict in the international, this chapter cuts out a space for Marxism in IR and offers a new perspective building on previous scholarly contributions. This aim is achieved by developing an interdisciplinary framework situated between Marxist International Political Economy (IPE), IR theory, and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). In particular, the chapter aims to demonstrate that a materialist theory of imperialism can incorporate elements from other theories of the international and that some commonly used IR concepts should not be the exclusive prerogative of mainstream theories.

The chapter is organized in the following sections: Sect. 2.1 provides an overview of the context from which the classical Marxist theory of imperialism emerged. It highlights that this was a very diverse but not a particularly rigorous intellectual experience, considering the differences between the protagonists of that first wave of discussions.

Section 2.2 unpacks these theories further along the fault line of capitalism and imperialism as a catalyst for peace or war.

Section 2.3 engages with Kenneth Waltz’s and Robert Gilpin’s critique of the theory of imperialism. Although the chapter disagrees with some of the issues raised by Waltz, it finds that he touched upon important questions—especially on the validity of the theory with regard to a US-led, post-WWII order. While accepting some of the limits of the theory of imperialism, it is noted that this is a flexible theory. It offers a comprehensive framework for analysis that brings together economic and geopolitical levers of power and it is open to further refinement.

Section 2.4 of this chapter engages with contributions from the third wave of debates. It endorses the thesis of those Marxists who have defined imperialism as an intersection of economic and political interests and who have launched proposals for further research in this area. In particular, the chapter praises David Harvey’s thesis but it also acknowledges that he did not stretch the theory of imperialism far enough into the realm of agency.

Section 2.5 puts forward a proposal for facilitating the interaction between a materialist theory of imperialism and foreign policymaking. Drawing on James N. Rosenau’s blueprint for a ‘pre-theory’ of foreign policy based on multiple levels of analysis, the chapter looks at the relationship between structure and agency through the lenses of space (the systemic or external environment level), state-capital relations (the societal-governmental level), and political elites’ strategic worldviews (the idiosyncratic or individual level). The relationship between politics and economics is then deconstructed along these three levels of analysis and through the fault line of capitalist unevenness. The subsection on space and the systemic level retrieves an overlooked aspect of Henri Lefebvre’s writings that invites the merging of the geoeconomic understanding of space, common in Marxist geography, with the political spatiality of states. Here, it is maintained that capitalist production of space compels the state to intervene in economic matters in order to manage the consequences of the uneven development of capitalism. Although the state operates within the boundaries of capitalism, it does so by maximizing its geopolitical leverage and through its (geo)political means. The subsection on state-capital relations draws on the Miliband-Poulantzas debate but it seeks to move away from the discord on state autonomy, arguing that by virtue of the functions it performs the state retains legitimacy and control of foreign policy decisions. A successful capitalist economy requires a diplomatically and geopolitically assertive state and in general capitalist interests will benefit from this. However, short-term political and strategic decisions may not be the ones favored by the ruling class and could have collateral effects across the geoeconomic space. The subsection on the ideological space suggests that the unevenness of capitalism does not only affect geoeconomic and institutional processes, but also ideological ones. Drawing on The German Ideology (1974) and Sebastiano Timpanaro’s work, the subsection endorses Lefebvre’s argument that space is social, but also physical, and above all, mental. It points out that in addition to economic and institutional unevenness one should also consider ideological unevenness. At the ideological level policymakers will seek strategic synthesis accordingly to their worldviews, therefore it would be useful for a theory of imperialism to develop an operational code of political elites. This, it is argued, opens a space for dialogue with theories such as strategic culture, among others.

2.2 One or Many Marxist Theories of Imperialism?

It is widely believed that Marx ‘did not use’ the word ‘imperialism’ (Brewer 1990, 25). This is only partially true. He did mentioned the ‘i’ word at least once in a letter addressed to Friedrich Engels (MECW Volume 40, 72). However, Marx never integrated this concept into his work, neither did he engage with ‘a generic term to describe the rule of a more advanced nation state over a more backward area’ (Brewer 1990, 25).¹ As Marx never produced a theory of imperialism the early twentieth century was the ground for several contributions in this regard. These theories did not arise out of the work of a coordinated research network. Lenin and others were not academics and did not feel the need to build a rigorous theory (Callinicos 2009, 25–6).² The classical Marxist theory of imperialism is a multitude of different works and experiences which developed in the run up to, during and after WWI. Its authors came from a variety of professional and ideological backgrounds. Ironically, with Marx dying too early to put together the puzzle of his many intuitions, great credit for putting forward the vital elements of the classical Marxist theory of imperialism does not go to a Marxist but to a liberal dissatisfied with the socio-economic conditions of his time, John Atkinson Hobson. Another major contributor was Rudolf Hilferding—an Austro-Marxist—who later became the intellectual leader of Eurocommunism and the New Left, and the Austrian experience inspired the policies of governments of the UK Labour Party and Scandinavian Social-Democrats.³ A further and decisive development occurred with what Alex Callinicos called the ‘Lenin-Bukharin’ synthesis. Differences also existed between the two comrades, particularly because Nicolay Bukharin’s work is more comprehensive and accurate than Vladimir Lenin’s. For the latter, Imperialism (1939) was an opportunity to publish in the legal press. The pamphlet resulted from a commission by the ‘legal Russian Parus (Sail) Publishers in Petrograd.’ The official purpose was to write a booklet for the popular ‘Pre- and Post-War Europe’ series, giving a general characterization of the new epoch. To write ‘a popular outline’ meant using a certain style of communication, and to write something ‘with an eye to the tsarist censorship’ required, in Lenin’s words, the use of ‘slavish tongue’ (Lenin 1939, 7–9). Thus, writing a theory of imperialism was also functional to Lenin’s political aspirations and his proselytising action, before anything else (Arrighi 1978, 19–21). Furthermore, the pamphlet fulfilled the purpose of writing something ‘scathing’ about ‘Marxists like Kautsky’ whose analyses in Lenin’s view were too kind to capitalism (Kiely 2010, 59). These writers were intellectuals and militants, but they came from different experiences—Hilferding was a pediatrician turned minister, Hobson an economist and journalist, Lenin a revolutionary leader and Bukharin a journalist and communist intellectual. Their views ranged from (what later became) Keynesianism and different forms of Marxism. Their ideas for action were different. Hobson, Hilferding, and Kautsky had a reformist approach in contrast to the unequivocally revolutionary character of the other three: Rosa Luxemburg, Bukharin, and Lenin. They had different national origins and even though they had the shared context of WWI in common, their political experiences which shaped their intellectual outlook were different.

With such a multifaceted picture, why should one use the label of ‘classical Marxist theory of imperialism’? In spite of the above-mentioned differences, some extensive commonality existed. These thinkers lived roughly at the same time and all of them noted a change in capitalism. Between 1870 and 1900, world GDP rose exponentially. Despite the Long Depression of the 1870s, heavy industry overtook light industry, becoming a central feature of industrial production, while the revolution in the technical base of production also brought a rapid increase in the size of enterprises. Hilferding, Bukharin, and Lenin wrote around the time of the start of WWI and all of them acknowledged two aspects. On the one hand, they noted ‘the formation of monopolies on a national basis and the intensification of competition on a world scale between national groupings of capital’; on the other hand, ‘they predicted an acceleration of capitalist development in backward areas of the world’ (Brewer 1990, 20).⁴ As Eric Hobsbawm put it, industrialization and depression were slowing the rate of profit and turning national economies into rivals, as ‘the gains of one [country] seemed to threaten the position of others’ (1987, 42). Contrary to previous forms of imperialism, interstate rivalry was increasingly the product of capitalist economy (Hobsbawm 1987, 60; Wood 2003). Hilferding, Bukharin, and Lenin all noted that state institutions and big capital mergers were tied together in a symbiotic relationship. Although the growing transnationalization of economics was an important feature in the decades leading up to WWI, even multinational corporations needed to ‘attach themselves to a suitably important national economy’ (Hobsbawm 1987, 42, 54). These thinkers provided an instrumentalist perspective in that their theories highlighted the primacy of economic over political interests. Like many who came after them, they never engaged in a study of distinctive national peculiarities or of political elites. The classical Marxist theory of imperialism was flawed by its attempt at extrapolating a universal theory from the particular (Callinicos 2009, 10).

2.3 Capitalism and Imperialism: Peace or Rivalry?

Although Marx never described himself as a space theorist, he portrayed a world where capitalism was transforming the global space. He lived in the mid-nineteenth century when the world economy was being made and remade at such a fast pace, a time that historian Eric Hobsbawm called The Age of Capital (1975) and Jules Verne daydreamed about traveling Around the World in Eighty Days (2008). Technologies of transport led the change and Marx spoke of ‘annihilation of space through time’ (1973, 538–9). This view dramatically informed Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto (1967), in which they illustrated the inexorable rise of a world bourgeoisie. The ‘age of capital’ was revolutionary by definition, according to the two comrades, as it swept away older modes of production and levelled economic conditions across (some) nations, changing the way millions of people lived: ‘the bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of productivity, by the immensely facilitated means of communications, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization’ (Marx and Engels 1967, 8). Anticipating narratives of globalization by at least one century, the Manifesto portrayed the fragmentation of sociopolitical barriers to trade with adjectives such as ‘world-market’ formation, ‘technology’ diffusion, ‘connections,’ ‘globe,’ ‘cosmopolitan,’ ‘new industries,’ and the ‘interdependence of nations.’⁵ Neil Smith described this trend as a ‘drive toward spacelessness,’ that is ‘an equalization of conditions and levels of production’ (1990, 94).⁶

This understanding of capitalist spatiality was central to one of the two main strands in the early twentieth-century debate on imperialism. Some authors saw in the globalizing tendency of capitalism a systemic thrust toward interstate peace and economic integration. For Eduard Bernstein ‘[t]he most industrially developed countries are simultaneously competitors and customers of one another; … the era in which peoples attempted to subjugate one another is finished in Europe’ (Howard and King 1989, 92). Heinrich Cunow stated that because ‘imperialism is present-day capitalism; the development of capitalism is inevitable and progressive; therefore imperialism is progressive; we should grovel before it and glorify it!’ (Kumbamu 2010, 135). Karl Kautsky noted that WWI was leading to ‘a federation of the strongest, who renounce their arms race. … a phase of ultra-imperialism, … of … world peace’ (Kautsky 1970, 46).⁷ For Kautsky, concluded Lenin, imperialism amounted to no more than a ‘striving for annexations.’ To Lenin this sounded ‘very incomplete’ (1939, 90). Like others in the German debate, Rosa Luxemburg believed that capitalism was ‘destined’ to reach globally. Eventually, it would have to implode after running out of non-capitalist space, so important to its expanded reproduction. This was a theory of inevitable capitalist overstretch: ‘capitalism, as a result of its own inner contradictions, moves towards a point when it will be unbalanced, when it will simply be impossible’ (Luxemburg 2003, 24). Luxemburg however, was not a Kautskyite. Although she envisioned a global capitalist order she insisted that capitalism is a ‘spasmodic expansion’ that violently attacks people, nature, and previous modes of production (Luxemburg 2003, 352).⁸

As far as this book is concerned, these ideas implied a less proactive role of states in the international arena. This was not the case on the other side of the spectrum of the theory of imperialism. Hobson found that the ‘taproots of imperialism’ lie in the overproduction that ‘forced Great Britain, Germany, Holland, France to place larger and larger portions of their economic resources outside the area, … and … to take in the new area’