Sevenminute documentary on the theme, the three branches and you. To show how action by the executive, legislative or Judicial Branch by the federal government affected you in your community. Theres 200 cash prizes for student and teachers totaling 100,000. For the list of rules and how to get started, go to studentcam. Org. Up next on American History tv, author Elizabeth Cobbs hoffman describes consequences of United States role in world leadership. Asking, is america umpire or an empire. Miss hoffman argues that the u. S. Played the role of umpire since 1776 but also argues that umpires cant win. This program is sponsored by world denver. Its about an hour. Thank you so much, kay. Thank you all for being here. I cant tell you how pleased and honored i have be here addressing the World Affairs council. And especially because what i hope we will discuss tonight is i think one of the most critical conditions of our time. Which is youre not going to know it, because i didnt turn on the microphone. Good, youre human. Where is the button here, kay . No. The green light, right . The classic green light. So anyway, im here to discuss one of the critical questions, i think, of our times which is why the United States assumed the role of world defender after world war ii. And the question of whether we must continue this role indefinitely. Now this conversation springs from my new book which i hope is available outside. But also from an op ed i wrote for the New York Times last year with the title come home america. And this was subsequently the subject of a morning joe show on the same subject. And in the essay, i observed that everybody talks about getting out of the iraq and afghanistan. But what about germany and japan . And in essence what im trying to raise is a very fundamental question. Where do i go from here . Do i need to make more basic changes that turning point in our national history. Because i think in many ways, for me, and im a historian, that our nation suffered from a lack of historical self awareness about our role. And its the lack of historical self awareness that makes us a target and obscures and confuses our future choices. This is where history is important. Im kind of a cheerleader for history. Because history shows us the big picture. It gives us those longrange trajectories that help make sense of the mess and the turmoil of everyday crises. When i say everyday crises, im aware that that sounds like kind of a putdown. No. What i mean by that is that World Affairs have crises every day. So we need to understand the big picture which helps us make sense of our choices. To give us an example of what i ink of this kind of historical confusion, i like to go right to the top here. President obama said last year, when he was addressing our nation about the question of intervening in the Syrian Civil War, and he said at that time that the u. S. Has been the chief enforcer of International Law for the past seven decades. And then the president asserted, america is not the worlds policeman. Well, what do policeman do but enforce law, right . He also said and this was just a couple of weeks after that. He was addressing the United Nations. He said the u. S. Seeks the world in which state sovereignty is respected. But also in which sovereignty cannot shield a regime from outside intervention. This is a flat contradiction. The whole point of sovereignty is absolute authority within territorial boundaries. Now in a sense what the president is doing is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. What he is really saying is we are seeking a world in which sovereignty is subject to external checks and balances to protect individual human rights, much as the federal government operates in the United States. By the way, i want you to already be sort of listening. Checks and balances is such an american term. But in way this has do with the american view and also, i think, the american role in the world. Now i think that this kind of double speak isnt intentional. And i think we see it in president after president. So this is not a democratic or republican problem. Its an american one that we suffer from not knowing exactly what where weve come from and why. I think it reflects a lack of understanding about the structure of the world in general. And if we dont understand our history, no one else will. Because were the ones who write about it. Were the ones who tell people, this is who we are. If we dont understand it, they wont either. By the way, i hate to be a tease because i cant possibly answer all of the really Big Questions in 45 minutes and my idea here is to give you 300 years in 45 minutes. But i will do my best. Because the fact is that the u. S. Exercises a very unusual role. As the nation with the greatest and yet very limited power in the world. The power to determine outcomes in Foreign Affairs. When things go wonky, people ask, whats the United States going to do about it . They say, whats mexico going to do about it. Or france or iran. 95 of all soldiers serving op soil other than their own are americans. That includes u. N. Peacekeepers and troops. This sometimes creates new problems in the process. This raises very important questions and possibilities. For example, are we the worlds policemen . Or from another perspective, are we a selfimposed bully . Are we an empire . Seeks to dominate the world for its own geopolitical benefit and Economic Prosperity. Thats door number one. Door number two, are we, as many realists believe, instead the only power that stand between the world and armageddon between a ref repetition of the Great Depression or world war ii or even Nuclear Devastation of the planet . Is that our role . If thats true, must we play that role forever . Regardless of what it costs. What it costs our schools, infrastructure, domestic security, treasury. Our soldiers, are psyche. Door number three. Or is it possible and this is what my research suggests. Has the road weve been on for the past 70 years been a detour, a necessary detour on the main path to which World History has actually been heading since about 1648, and now is the time for course correction . If im right, then my book challenges us to transition to the next phase of our national epic. Confidently and affirmatively, learning from both successes and failures, indeed to objective, scholars must be as rigorous with the identifying what went right as with what went wrong. As i said, i cant get all of this material and get it all out there. But im going to come pretty close. And for that, youll have to read my book. Every author has to put this plug in there. So, im hoping you will. What american umpire does is try to take essentially 300 years of history and make sense of it so we can understand where we might go. So in todays talk i want to do three things. First of all, i want to tell you a little bit about why i wrote the book. As kay said, im also a novelist. I have lot of irons in the fire. And i also like to explain why i think the reigning scholarly paradigm, this is my second objective, be only why the wrote the book but the way of looking at the world as i think most scholars adhere to is wrong. This refers to the u. S. As an umpire. Lastly i want to produce an alternative. This is a very persuasive explanation. And, in fact, people all around america are starting to call it the empire. I was watching jon stewart the other day. And my hero said, this big imperial nation. No, john youre wrong, but he hasnt called me yet. So i would like to propose in alternative explanation. Which in a nutshell is that world as a whole has devised new norms over the past four centuries. And that these norms are not just made in america. They are worldwide. But that under the press of catastrophic events in the 1940s, the United States reluctantly refers the long standing policy of political nonengagement, nonentanglement and adopted a function thats akin, but not identical to one actually used to playing among its own states, the role of an umpire, to compel acquiescence, between squabbling governments, in moments of crisis. At the time we did this, we were the only nation with a relevant experience and requisite capacity. So, why did i write this book . That is a long story. I wont bother you with the whole thing. But it goes back to when i was first interviewing to be a graduate student and i was interviewing for a scholarship. An Important National scholarship. I was very excited and nervous about the process and there was a panel of experts interviewing me. I was going into the field of what is called diplomatic history at the time. I was asked, young i was, why do you want to enter a dying field . Well, i didnt know it was dying until he told me that. I had to bunt quickly and say, well because we cant let it die, right . This is too important, subject of americas relationship. But he is right. As i discovered. As in the field of history dying, i think for a couple reasons. But in this cultural and social history became very attractive. I think the other reason, i think a lot of Young Scholars repelled by a field in which there was own only ever one answer to every question. Which is if you were look at what had happened in the world, the answer was pretty much america messed up. And so whatever the reason, scholars left the field and what happened is that political scientists took it up. And are mostly concerned with modern policy issues. Their knowledge of history is not deep. Thats not their field. And the historians who stayed in the field are historians generally who subscribed and often do generally subscribe to the idea that the american record is one long story of empire and imperialism. And that goes back to George Washington and ben franklin. But empire, i think, is a terribly misleading term that obscures challenges facing us today. And misdiagnosis, as we know, is often more dangerous than no diagnosis at all. With a misdiagnosis, you can make the wrong prescription. There are groups like al qaeda which also claim the u. S. Is an empire to which there is only one answer which is death to the empire. Or death to america. What i would like do is tell you about who some of these people are. Sometimes i myself even think, am i exaggerating this, that this is the reigning way of understanding the u. S. Role in the world, at least among my peers in the scholar community. I would like to run through a couple of titles for you. This book is by neil ferguson, a brit. Though he is at Harvard University. Cause of the rise and fall of the american empire. Another book, richard emmerman, from Temple University in philadelphia, empire for liberty. And from Benjamin Franklin to paul wolfowitz. Harvard university professor, charles mayor, american decendency and its predecessors. Simply named, american empire. Reality and consequences of u. S. Diplomacy. Or this is more of the basics. Empire the way of life, granddaddy of them all. This is actually the 50th Anniversary Edition of this book. Very simply named empire by michael hart and antonio negre. Some people put a positive spin on this. Saying the u. S. And europe has not just had the monroe doctrine, it is the Marilyn Monroe doctrine. As you can see. Shes not a blond but its the same idea. Or how about the empire trap, at Harvard University again. Now talking about the empire or in praise of empires. This is a historian at ucla. Now by the way, i want to suggest that this is not all criticism from the left, and sometimes people from the opposite side of the political spectrum will say actually we need more empires and we just wish the u. S. Were a better one. Thats another way of interpreting it. This is probably the most famous interpretations of the u. S. As an empire by johnson, who wrote this is now whats called the empire trilogy. I sometimes feel like im arguing against lord of the rings. This really is sort of the reigning paradigm. Out in interesting thing about this term empire is that almost nobody defines it with any precision. It is this absolutely sloppy catch all phrase thats used to describe everything from tourism and religion to Foreign Investment and war. Now i know youre saying, what doesnt she be a little more direct about what you dont like about that term . I actually felt pretty strongly about this. Essentially the term, to an important extent, its used to describe most every catastrophe in the world and any catastrophe with which the United States is associated as an outcome of our attempt to control and really exploit the rest of the world, as if this is the only possible explanation for americas mistakes or its successes. So to give you a sense into the peek of these books all youve seen are the titles. I want you to get a sense, whats the flavor of this criticism. Johnson for example described americas bases abroad and theu has hundreds of bases abroad as a striking evidence, quote, for those who care to look, an imperial project that cold war obscured. Andrew bacevich. Who is a conservative those some say he is so far right that he has come around to the left. That the intervention in iraq as he put it was, quote, a war for the imperium because the policy in total is to, quote, expand an american imperium. Again, this is not just a right wing, left wing thing. On the left, clearly left side, the lord socialist web says quote iraq was a predatory imperialist war. Carried out as part of a longterm strategy to reorganize the middle east to secure american interest. Another british commentator, tarik ali, he writes, quote, when people tell me that the american empire is weakening, i say, dont underestimate it. Europe and the middle east fall into line when the United States says this has to be done and that had to be done. The only sovereign nation today is the imperial nation. Now, this is not just in the ivory tower that these accusations are booted around. Very sadly after the great tragedy of the Boston Marathon last year, dzhokhar tsarnatsaern who engineered that bombing, his neighbors were interviewed and said he went around ranting about the american empire shortly before he set off the bomb that killed so many innocent people in boston last year. President obama, this accusation of the empire has been out there so prevalently since 2003, that not only did george bush but also barack obama, both come out about this. And barack obama told the u. N. Last year, quote, the notion of an american empire isnt born out by americas current policy. We seek a world where a nation does not covet land or resources above nations. President said this. About an hour later, there was a commentary about this on democracy now, a Radio Station associated with the nation. And that time the commentator said, quote, obama basically came out and said the United States is an imperialist nation and we are going to do whatever we need to conquer areas to take resources from the world, unquote. I dont know what machine he put it in to get that translation out, but the point of that is that when you wear a certain kind of glasses or maybe a certain kind of hearing aid, you only hear it in a certain way. And thats why i think this is a terribly important conversation for us to have. And so, jon stewart and others lively say were an imperial nation, i say dont take that lying down. Or at least submit it to analysis. So thats why i would like to step now to talking about the reigning paradigm and the historical profession. And on what basis the United States is called an empire by serious wellmeaning, you know, virtue use scholars, many of whom are my personal friends. One of the bases for this is that the u. S. Was expansionist, you know, throughout the west. Here we are in colorado. So we know that story. The u. S. Expanded over native american nations. It went to war with mexico. Thats why we call the u. S. An empire. Other people say, no, no, no. The main reason to call the u. S. An empire is because of its 20th century military dominance, the bases that we have all around the world and the coincidentally not c coincidental spread of American Values, trailing along with those bases. Some people say thats why were an empire. Others will say, other scholars that it is 21st century economic dominance. How else do you explain it, right . It must come out of the imperial quest. Well, the thing is, the interesting thing is i was writing this book which Harvard Press brought out just last year. I thought, my goodness, when you take off these glasses and the hearing device that filters evidence, you actually find that theres a lot of evidence, obvious evidence that argues against all of these forms of interpretation. Lets take the first one. The u. S. Is an empire because it expanded across the west. That does sound fairly imperialistic. Especially considering the war against mexico. It sounds that way until you say, okay, what was the context of that . In fact, in the 19th century, this was happening throughout the americas. I like this particular picture because it shows what a crazy, crazy quilt latin america was after it declared independence. In fact what happened was there were 21 border wars, very similar to the u. S. Mexican border war in the hundred years following latin america independence. This particular one shows latinamerica before the war of the pacific when chile invaded north and took big chunks out of peru and bolivia. Very similar and justified in almost the same exact way as the american expansion. So if we want to call chile an empire or uruguay an empire, i say do it. But we dont. Why . Because those became nation states in the rights that citizenship are def