Gunboat globalization

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting -- yet it ends in danger and decline. ... The demands of justice, and the peace of this world (depend on) American leadership." So declared President Bush in his State of the Union address last month. \nAs I sat that night in the company of conservatives -- fans of the president, to be sure -- I offered something to the effect of, "Take that, Patrick Buchanan!" I was nearly booed out of the room. For those unfamiliar with this right-wing gadfly, Mr. Buchanan has seldom seen an American military intervention or free trade agreement he didn't deplore. \nBut how popular, really, is the isolationist temptation in American politics? \nTo judge by the reaction of some critics -- who declared it cheap of the president to set up this straw-man argument and then duly burn it -- not very popular at all. But there are plenty of voices across the political spectrum that wish, in one way or another, for America to come home from the world. Those voices in favor of disengagement are loudest not when it comes to America's commercial empire but its political one. Any argument for political retreat, however, must stand or fall by its success in appreciating the danger this poses to the economic sphere.\nOn this, the pro-business but anti-war argument doesn't even fall, let alone stand. America cannot be at peace in a world of wars any more than it can have a strong economy in a weak world economy. Thomas Friedman recognized this truth in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree": "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps." \nAmericans have recently discovered the great peril in believing that globalization's engine only drives economic progress. It also birthed al-Qaida, what foreign affairs specialist John Gray has designated as the first multinational terrorist organization. On Sept. 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden, struck not only America's military headquarters, but also towers dedicated to trade. These Islamo-bolshevists have judged that the trend toward free markets is not an organic process but rather a project that ultimately rests on the energetic exercise of U.S. power. Historian Niall Ferguson poses the question: Is globalization possible without gunboats? \nMy patience has worn thin with those who live off the hard-won and stored-up capital passed to them by the gunboats but castigate these very custodians. So too, apparently, has Mr. Bush's. The president concluded his speech by warning against American drift, for "the only alternative to American leadership is a dramatically more dangerous and anxious world." If the march of globalization, which is in large measure Americanization, is more important than we tend to admit, it is also more double-edged. Despite the many dangers and anxieties, that march will surely go on. All thanks, that is, to the preservation and augmentation of America's benevolent global hegemony.