[Introduction
1. Basis of Comparison
2. Military History
3. Economic History
4. Mass Media and Propaganda

Our present immersion in many of the same political issues and nationalist loyalties that defined the nineteenth and twentieth centuries makes it difficult to view recent history with scholarly detachment. No historian would venture to speak of the Holocaust with clinical indifference, yet we may find little difficulty in discussing the atrocities of the ancient Assyrians or Mongols without stoking any emotional flames. Our personal involvement in modern politics and nationalism can prevent us from accurately assessing the relative importance and significance of the institutions and events of modern history. In particular, when discussing a contemporary world power such as the United States, historians are susceptible to conforming their narratives to current hyperbole about American power and influence.

The characterization of the United States as a hyperpower is a gratuitous exaggeration that distorts our understanding of historical reality. Ironically, this term was coined and popularized by the French in opposition to Americanism, showing how excessive antipathy as much as sympathy can exaggerate one's assessment of the power of a nation. The notion of the U.S. as a hyperpower is a type of American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States is quantitatively and qualitatively in a class apart from all other world powers. There is nothing exceptional about exceptionalism, as many empires throughout history maintained similar national myths. The French nationalists in particular have been prone to such self-flattery, making them psychologically more similar to their U.S. counterparts than either side would care to admit.

The best remedy to propaganda is not counter-propaganda, but a sober assessment of cold, dry facts. By getting a better handle of dates and events, and normalizing quantities according to the standards of the period, we may arrive at a more realistic assessment of American achievements, resulting in a much more down-to-earth picture of the would-be hyperpower. We will consider the theme of dominance in several spheres. We will find that the United States did not attain global economic supremacy until the Second World War, and then only with an abundance of caveats. With several notable exceptions, its military achievement has been mediocre by the standards of a world empire. Instead, we will find that its most significant achievement is in the sphere of propaganda (which we shall define), and it is control of this domain that has enabled the perpetuation of myths of unparalleled military and economic dominance well beyond what the facts would substantiate. A more realistic assessment of U.S. capabilities serves not only to correct the historical record, but also to contain the hubris and overconfidence that resulted in logistical disasters like the occupation of Iraq.

1. Basis of Comparison

Before we examine the U.S. military record, we should first establish what it means to compare one empire with another of a different time period, and why such a comparison would have any value. In a trivial sense, the current world power is the greatest military power that ever existed, by virtue of the fact that current populations and technological capacities are much greater than those of previous eras. Such a comparison, however, is really comparing the current world as a whole with the world as a whole at some time in the past. The function of an empire is to dominate the world it inhabits, so a truer measure of an empire’s power is to measure its strength relative to the world of its era. This is what I mean by normalizing quantities. The modern nation of Belgium has more firepower than the entire Roman Empire, but it would be misleading in the extreme to argue that present-day Belgium is a greater military power than ancient Rome.

We should apply this principle of normalization not only to military capacity, but also economic output, population, land area, and other factors that vary by historical era. In a word, an empire is to be measured relative to the world it intends to dominate. In earlier eras, the world might have been the entire known civilized world, be it Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, or Eurasia. Today, the world is clearly the entire globe.

The purpose of this comparison is not to provide some arbitrary ranking of the greatest empires in history, but to lend perspective to our analysis of current events. If we know, for example, that U.S. military might, though formidable, is not nearly as effective as the French Army was under Napoleon, we might think twice about advocating military solutions as though our resources were unlimited. We might also be less inclined to explain world events in terms of projections of American power, forcing us to look for the real causes.

2. Military History

With these ideas in mind, let us inspect the record of U.S. wars, beginning with the American Revolution. The insurrection in the colonies was in some ways a proxy war fought by France against Britain. The French supplied the colonials with 90% of their gunpowder, and provided critical naval support against the British. Yankee guerilla tactics made possible some worthy victories over the British militia, but this was hardly a display of American might, not that we should expect such from an infant nation.

Without French support, the U.S. fared worse against Britain in the War of 1812. Hoping to exploit Britain’s preoccupation with Napoleon, the U.S. invaded Canada and burned the city of York (now Toronto). The Americans were soon pushed back into their own territory, and the British repaid the outrage by burning Washington, D.C. Despite this setback, the Americans regrouped and managed to win some battles in the final months of the war, while the peace was being negotiated. This gave a savor of victory to the war, which was in fact a stalemate, as the status quo ante was maintained and the original American military objectives were abandoned.

The most significant U.S. military achievement of the nineteenth century was the success of the Mexican War (1846-48). This accomplishment has not received proportionate attention due to the unsavory and embarrassing politics that motivated the war. Texan settlers from the U.S. rebelled against the Mexican goverment and encouraged waves of illegal immigration, bringing slaves into Texas in defiance of Mexican law. Southern politicians, who were eager to admit another slave state to the Union, supported Texas independence, and used the defense of Texas, in combination with the imperialist ideology of a Manifest Destiny, as a pretext for invading and conquering a third of the territory of Mexico. Mexico, at the time, was a significant military power compared with the United States, so this was not an easy conquest.

The first modern war of U.S. history, with its characteristic destructive armaments and civilian casualties, was the Civil War (1861-65). Abraham Lincoln, who had lost re-election as a congressman for opposing the Mexican War, now presided over the most devastating war in U.S. history to date, in terms of loss of life, limb, and property. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who believed that the Civil War was God’s punishment for what the Americans had done to Mexico, combined modern weaponry with pre-modern tactics in a war of bloody attrition. Militarily, the Civil War represented a triumph of quantity over quality, as the Confederacy’s superior generals lost to the overwhelming numbers and industrial might of the Union.

Although imperialism generally has a bad name in the present United States, arch-imperialist Theodore Roosevelt is still lionized by most biographers. Much of this may have to do with his personal valor, for Roosevelt did not demand any risks from his soldiers that he would not take himself. He was among the last to unabashedly romanticize warfare, and the last president to personally lead troops to battle (though not as president). His greatest military success, the Spanish-American War of 1898, was somewhat farcical, as Spain’s colonies in the Caribbean were defended only by a token garrison; the Spanish Empire had been in decline for centuries. The sinking of the Maine provided a convenient excuse for an easy war of conquest for which imperialists had been lobbying. U.S. businessmen had already fomented insurrrection in Hawaii, and now overseas colonies were sought in order to build upon Roosevelt’s project of establishing a modern navy in two oceans.

The imperialist endeavor was rationalized in terms of freeing people from the Spanish monarchy, but democratization was subordinate to the principal objective of projecting U.S. power. When the Filipinos resisted their American liberators, they were killed by the tens of thousands. The U.S. held onto its Pacific and Caribbean colonies for decades afterward, maintaining military bases even after some became independent. The American foray into imperialism came late in the game, as most of the world had already been carved up among the British, French, Portuguese and Dutch colonial empires, as well as the territorial empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Turks. Most of these empires had much more substantial armed forces than did the United States at the turn of the century. The islands acquired by the U.S. were among the few leftovers available.

The next major U.S. military engagement was World War I. The American contribution to the Great War was limited and belated. Woodrow Wilson, re-elected on a platform of isolationism, brought the U.S. into the war in 1917, after three years of fighting and the outcome already favoring Britain and France. Numerically, the American forces deployed were smaller than those committed by the other major powers, though the U.S. presence did help compensate for the withdrawal of Russia from the war. The modesty of the American contribution was reflected in Versailles, where the U.S. was practically shut out of any substantial role in deciding the peace. The European allies received huge war indemnities, along with territorial acquisitions in the form of colonies and mandates throughout the Mediterranean. Wilson’s Fourteen Points were generally disregarded. Some commentators have blamed the failure of the League of Nations on the U.S. Senate’s refusal to join the organization, but this analysis supposes that the U.S. was a major geopolitical power at the time. In fact, the U.S. remained principally isolationist and a geopolitical lightweight compared with the powers of Europe. The League did not need the U.S. in order to succeed, but it failed because the powers of Europe simply refused to abandon their competing imperialist ambitions. This problem would also plague the United Nations, which for decades was little more than a forum for confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The U.S. participation in World War II may be treated as two wars, fought in the European and Pacific theaters. As in World War I, Americans entered the war in Europe relatively late and in moderate numbers compared with the other participants, though this time the American contribution was quantitatively much more significant. Prior to entering the war, the U.S. had only sold antiquated equipment to Britain, who fought for her life with air and naval power. U.S. manpower, with the help of the British navy, opened a Mediterranean front in Italy in 1943, and a western front with the massive Normandy invasion of June 1944. Still, it was the Soviets who engaged four-fifths of the German army and marched all the way to Berlin at tremendous cost, with millions of lives lost on both sides. By the end of 1942, the Soviets had already turned the tide against Germany, whereas the Western allies did not open a western front until mid-1944, when all that was left was to race the Soviets to Berlin and compete for spoils. Western history tends to downplay the Soviet contribution and emphasize the Normandy invasion, when the quantitative facts would merit an opposite emphasis. Both Germany and the Soviet Union were much greater military powers, on land at least, than the United States. World War II in Europe was principally a clash between these two titans. The fact that Germany could hold off Britain and the U.S. with a fraction of her force testified to her overwhelming military superiority.

In truth, of course, the U.S. fought in Europe with only a fraction of its force, as it was simultaneously committed to war with Japan in the Pacific. The defeat of Japan may be regarded as the most substantial U.S. military success of the twentieth century, as it was as close as the nation ever came to direct single confrontation with another major power. Japan was also fighting with limited forces, since many of her troops were occupied in China, so Japan was really fighting two powers at once. Despite these caveats, the United States established naval supremacy in the Pacific after the battle of Midway. Before Midway, the U.S. had lost virtually every battle with Japan, but through ingenuity and luck, guessed the location of the formidable Japanese carrier fleet. After the Japanese navy and air force were destroyed, the U.S. systematically bombarded population centers, destroying 40% of Japan’s cities. Rather than risk the loss of life that would come with invading this completely crippled country, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prompt an unconditional surrender. The defenseless Japanese had already surrendered repeatedly, though not unconditionally, but this was not enough to dissuade what would have certainly been considered a monstrous war crime had it been committed by an enemy of the United States. Japan’s immediate surrender was needed in order to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring a piece of Japan, as the Soviets had just defeated Japan in Mongolia in the largest land battle of the war.

The atomic bomb cemented the U.S. victory and at the same time made future conflict among major powers impossible, because of the terrifying destruction it could unleash upon the world. The U.S. had dared to use it only against a nation far too weak to retaliate, but this aggressiveness would be self-destructive in the face of the Soviet atomic bomb developed a few years later. The U.S. emerged as a dominant military power precisely when it was no longer possible for any major power to overcome another through military force. All that remained was to invade Third World countries, or to fight the Communist bloc in proxy wars.

The first such war was in Korea, where Chinese support turned the war into a stalemate resulting in de facto partition. Despite recently emerging as a major military power, the U.S. was technically ill-prepared for the Korean conflict, and it was only after this war that the U.S. began to maintain continual production of major military hardware. Eisenhower was elected as president in part to end American participation in this embarrassing quagmire, yet he did nothing to arrest the development of an emerging military-industrial complex that generated a vicious cycle of needs for armament production and armed conflict.

If Korea was a draw, Vietnam was utter defeat, as American forces were unable to defeat guerilla forces without alienating the people they purported to defend. At great cost of life, they finally withdrew and surrendered all of Vietnam to the Communists. Saturation bombing in Laos and Cambodia accomplished much destruction, but little in terms of long-term strategic objectives.

After the debacle of Vietnam, the U.S. would be much more cautious in its choice of enemies, selecting wars that were practically guaranteed to result in minimal casualties. Such a casualty-averse approach to warfare has scarcely been seen since the Italian Renaissance wars conducted by mercenaries. The supposedly belligerent Ronald Reagan was actually quite restrained in the use of military force, withdrawing troops from Lebanon, while venturing only to attack the tiny island republic of Grenada. His strategically insignificant air strike against Libya was similarly tame. At that time, the U.S. fought mainly by proxy, supporting Iraq against Iran, and arming Afghan rebels against the Soviets, without directly involving U.S. troops.

In the early nineties, George Bush Sr. also showed discretion in the use of military force, attacking only pitifully weak targets. His invasion of Panama was hardly awe-inspiring save for the amount of destruction of civilian life and property required to capture his former client Noriega. The first war against Iraq was remarkably cautious, consisting of a month of air strikes before even attempting a ground assault. The ground invasion began only after the Iraqi Republican Guard had left, and most of the regular forces were in full withdrawal.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union (for which the U.S. took credit, despite the CIA’s failure to predict such an outcome, much less cause it), the nation’s newfound military supremacy was exercised against only the weakest of nations. A twenty-four hour invasion of Haiti restored Clinton’s president of choice. A peacekeeping mission against Somalia ended in failure, even though it was against a country with no central government. Intervention in Bosnia resulted only in a de facto partition and recognition of most Bosnian Serb claims. In Kosovo, NATO attempted to repeat the Gulf War’s air-strike only tactics, but Serb withdrawal was achieved only because of Russian diplomacy; military damage to Serbia turned out to be much less significant than was reported in the West.

George W. Bush, easily the most militarily aggressive president in recent memory, has actually done much to prove the limitations of American military might. In Afghanistan, the U.S. took sides in a civil war against the Taliban, providing air support, but taking a very limited ground role. Years later, they were unable to restore order, in part because of a reluctance to commit ground troops in a high risk environment. The successful invasion of Iraq was accomplished only after that nation had been crippled by twelve years of punishing economic sanctions. When U.S. troops had to occupy the country on foot rather than bomb it by remote control, they met much more limited success, to say the least. The U.S. military as presently constituted is better suited for proxy wars and air strikes than long, drawn out fighting, as is evidenced by the personnel strain that the occupation of modestly-sized Iraq has imposed on the would-be hyperpower.

With few exceptions, the American military record is hardly the stuff that makes a military colossus. Before World War II, the U.S. was not a great military power, and it did not even maintain substantial hardware production in peacetime. Before the nuclear age, the U.S. fought on the geopolitical periphery, entering major theaters only with the aid of major European powers. This is in sharp contrast with previous military superpowers such as Napoleonic France, which singlehandedly faced the allied powers of England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

Since the war, the U.S. has maintained a formidable arsenal, but political reality has made it impossible to employ this equipment against major powers, and against minor countries it only wreaks destruction while alienating the populace. A casualty-averse mentality since Vietnam has effectively neutered the U.S. military, forcing politicians to choose only safe conflicts against nations lacking an air force or even a centralized government. This unwillingness to accept losses makes it impossible to project power effectively. In contrast, the Romans, after astronomical losses at Cannae, continued to fight and defeat Carthage.

The U.S. has air bases around the world, yet it cannot effectively project power through its military, not only because of the lack of political will for sustained casualties, but also because influence in the postwar world is achieved through economics and diplomacy. The U.S. emerged as a military superpower precisely at the moment that Europe abandoned her millennium of warfare in the face of the prospect of total annihilation. We have declared ourselves the champions of a game that no one else is playing anymore. Britain, France, and Germany could easily afford more aircraft carriers than they currently possess, but they have deliberately chosen to downsize their military in favor of producing an affluent society and projecting influence in the rest of the world through economic and diplomatic capital. The real function of the U.S. military, as we shall see, is not to fight wars, but to generate economic productivity.

3. Economic History

American economic achievement is much more substantial than its military accomplishments, as should be expected since that has long been the principal objective of the political elite. To quote Calvin Coolidge, The business of America is business. Most of the military engagements we have discussed were motivated by economic concerns. The U.S. tradition of isolationism was motivated by a concern for business, but as U.S. economic interests projected overseas, especially in Latin America and the Pacific, more aggressive behavior became necessary. The American entries into the two world wars were motivated by real political concerns, but the Cold War restored economics squarely at the center of U.S. politics and public morality, as the spectre of socialism threatened U.S. economic penetration of the Third World. The post-9/11 wars in the Middle East are a response to perceived security threats, though our engagement in that region was originally motivated by the need for its oil.

Despite the perennial importance of economics to the American elite, the economic success of the U.S. is a more recent and modest development than the rhetoric of dominance would indicate. In the nineteenth century, the U.S. was similar to a Third World nation in many respects, with panics and busts that made European investors reluctant to risk capital in the U.S. This lack of foreign investment, combined with protectionist policies and tariffs, may have benefited the U.S. in the long run, as a strong domestic market in agricultural and industry developed in the last half of the century. The American colonies of England had long been prosperous in agriculture, producing as much as the mother country. Close ties with England and France in the nineteenth century ensured that the U.S. kept pace and contributed to industrial innovation. Yet, as the nation expanded westward, and after the South was devastated by the Civil War, the impoverished population grew to a shameful extent in the age of the first millionaires. To some degree this malady was characteristic of all countries that toyed with laissez faire policies, but the U.S. was most committed to unbridled capitalism within its borders (though still nationally protectionist), leading to all the economic ills that induced the advent of a more rational financial system in the twentieth century.

By 1900, the U.S. had emerged as a leading industrial producer, owing to its large population, though even per capita production was first rate by the standards of the day. After World War I, the nation turned from being a debtor (having been bailed out of default by J.P. Morgan in the 1890s) to a creditor thanks to the war debts of its allies, and prosperity lasted until 1929. This early period of prosperity must be offset by the fact that, unlike most of the nations of Europe, the U.S. had a modestly developed bureaucracy and social infrastructure until the time of Franklin Roosevelt, so citizens had very little social or financial security. Despite the financial crash leading to the Depression, the U.S. remained a solid producer, ranking with England, France, and Germany as a leading industrial power, though it was not head and shoulders above the rest by any basic measure of industrial production, despite its much larger population.

A remarkable thing happened during World War II: the U.S. GNP tripled, and remained at that high level even after the war. Net immigration was much too small to account for this jump; an entirely new culture of production was introduced. A combination of military, state, and industrial power enabled the beginning of a permanent war economy. The United States led the world in technological development from that point onward, though there were many close seconds, and many important inventions from other countries in the postwar era. Further, the U.S. was heavily dependent on foreign talent (especially German) in science and technology. The enormous concentration of capital in newly emerging federal agencies made massive research projects possible, and this attracted university faculty and students from around the world. The massive military sector is a dynamo of technological development, as well as a lucrative arms trade, as the U.S. trails only Russia in global arms sales. All of these processes continue today, and are the main engine of U.S. industrial growth. Like all economic policies, this one has limited benefits.

U.S. growth was fueled further by the Marshall Plan, which used the reconstruction of Europe as an opportunity to penetrate markets that had long shut out American businesses with protectionist barriers. The International Monetary Fund was established in this environment, and it would continue this legacy of rich nations providing aid to the weak in the form of massive interest-bearing loans. Once Europe and Japan re-established themselves, however, American economic penetration subsided, and the U.S. soon found sectors of its own economy purchased by foreigners.

Since 1970, industrial production has become less of a determinant of economic success in advanced economies. Services and finance have become increasingly important, while actual production tends to be outsourced. Thus we witness the gradual decline of steel mills, automobile manufacturing, and other hallmarks of heavy industry. These are not to be lamented any more than the decline of agriculture; rather, they are a sign of a new phase of development. The high tech industries tend to be focused on light industrial and consumer goods, as well as chemicals and the health industry. Telecommunications, information technology, and human services play a more prominent role in the post-industrial economy. The United States plays a leading role in high tech industries, but Europeans and Asians play comparable roles. Further, the U.S. contribution to economic progress continues to be buttressed by a heavy inflow of foreign talent.

Though international institutions remain relatively impotent in the spheres of military security and politics, an international order does exist for global trade. All countries, including the U.S., respect the decisions of the World Trade Organization, facing economic penalties for failure to comply with its guidelines. The U.S. has backed down on a number of occasions from its policies on tariffs and corporate subsidies, showing a remarkable amount of respect and fear toward the WTO, in marked contrast to its indifference to UN resolutions. We might have supposed that the U.S. would be most dominant in the economic sphere, based on its gigantic GDP and national income, but in fact the economic sphere is where it can least afford to act unilaterally. U.S. economic power remains formidable, but it is not a power that it can easily project into other wealthy nations without reciprocity. A stronger hand, it is true, may be shown towards poorer nations, who can be extorted into following Washington’s policies, but the reaction of Argentina against failed austerity measures may ultimately bring an end even to this limited economic imperialism.

Postwar economic statistics measured in dollars will overvalue the U.S. economy with respect to purchasing power parity. This is because the U.S. dollar has been overvalued by currency traders and banks who buy it in place of gold as a monetary standard. However, the emergence of the euro as a viable alternative standard, even if it never matches the popularity of the dollar, will certainly put an end to any U.S. designs on financial hegemony. Even when the dollar was dominant, European central banks acted independently of the U.S., and the European financial system has proven to be a power unto itself. It is true that European markets often suffer when the U.S is in decline, but the economic regions of the world can also behave asynchronously, so the U.S. can sneeze without the rest of the world catching a cold.

In aerospace, the U.S. has been a major player, but never overwhelmingly dominant. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, the U.S. consistently lagged behind the Soviet Union in the space race, with its sole triumph coming in the manned lunar landings. After the Apollo missions, NASA floundered with the cumbersome space shuttle, while the Soviets pioneered other technologies such as the Mir space station. In the early postwar era, Boeing dominated the world market for commercial airliners thanks to the guaranteed income of government subsidies and military contracts, while competing models such as the Canadian Avro Aero were scrapped through political pressure. The eventual emergence of the European Airbus consortium ended this dominance, splitting the commercial jet market almost evenly, and more recently, the WTO has exacted penalties for the subsidizing of Boeing. The U.S. military’s global positioning system will soon be rivalled by Europe’s more accurate Galileo system, which will be freely available to the private sector, killing the prospects of U.S. hegemony over space. Already, Europe, India, and Japan regularly send payloads into orbit, giving businesses viable alternatives to NASA for satellite launches. As in other areas, the United States remains a leading player, but is hardly a hyperpower that makes the rest of the world irrelevant.

The illusion of global economic dominance by the U.S. arises from several factors, most notably the proliferation of U.S. businesses and foreign investment around the world. These multinationals are often American only in name and logo, with most profits remaining in the regions where they are generated. In cases where U.S. businesses are able to easily siphon wealth out of foreign countries, this is only at the risk of foreign debt default. While individual businesses may profit immensely from such exploitation, the American public sector foots the bill with financial bailouts. Third World nations can keep up with their trade debts only by borrowing to develop their economies, and these debts are invariably reduced or waived at some point. In Third World countries, the U.S. is usually but one of many industrial nations exporting high quality consumer goods or establishing multinational chains. Conversely, the U.S. relies heavily on cheap foreign imports from the poorer nations, as well as high-end goods from Europe and Japan. Also, many ostensibly American companies are actually foreign-owned. This is no cause for alarm any more than American ownership of businesses abroad is cause for exultation. The businesses of the world are interpenetrating and largely not very nationalistic. Nationality is generally of concern only for logistical reasons, such as trade barriers and government support. When governments exhort businesses to voluntarily boycott foreign goods or investments, these efforts invariably fail after at best a few days of patriotic reaction. Nothing short of an outright embargo will prevent a nation’s businesses from placing their own interests against the supposed interests of the nation. It is strange that the U.S. or any nation should take national pride in its success in business, since this is a field of human endeavor that has no nationality. It is only natural, therefore, that international institutions of trade and finance have by far outstripped the progress of their political and military counterparts.

4. Mass Media and Propaganda

The ubiquity of American corporate logos is matched by the omnipresence of its television and film media. This highly visible evidence of U.S. economic dominance is also the basis of belief in American cultural hegemony. American cultural dominance is really reducible to the commercial dominance of its films, television, music, and other mass media. This propaganda dominance is also the basis for belief in American economic dominance and the myth of the hyperpower. For the most part, this propaganda dominance is very real, though it has important caveats.

The world’s image of the United States has long been shaped by its depiction in films. Incredible as it sounds, many intelligent men and women have expressed genuine shock when American political actions fail to match the ideals depicted in Westerns and war movies. Everyone accepts as a given that the U.S. has always stood for freedom and justice, because this has been a staple of our rhetoric, even though a sober knowledge of our history reveals that U.S. policy has been motivated by the same mixture of cynicism and idealism that drives all modern political societies. Much of the world seriously accepts the naive idea that the U.S. is less interested in spheres of influence or power politics than the old nations of Europe, despite more than a century of evidence to the contrary. Each time the U.S. government blatantly contradicts this myth through its actions, this is regarded as an unfortunate exception, though the history of the United States records the exception at least as often as the rule. It is as if we are to regard the America of movies and political speeches as more real than the historical facts of political and economic aggression. Perhaps we want that fictional world to be real, as it is comforting to believe that a nation can achieve supreme wealth and power by being kindly and benevolent.

Pertinent to the propagation of the myth of the American hyperpower is the rhetoric of the American century. Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the American century at a time when his country was still a second-rate power. His wish for supremacy did not become reality until World War II, but the American half-century has less of a ring to it. Even in the second half of the century, the U.S. shared power with the Communist bloc, which ruled a third of the world for four decades, and with Europe and Japan, who became independent of U.S. aid scarcely a decade after the war, and were largely responsible for their own subsequent prosperity. All these qualifications do not lend themselves to the simple clichés of our amnesiac, rapid-fire mass media, which has no patience for historical analysis. The proliferation of television and film as means of communication undermines the sense of continuous historical memory that oral and written traditions fostered in earlier cultures. Film and television rewrite the past in terms of the present, making characters from long ago eras speak in modern voices about modern issues. The myth of the American century reflects this mentality, as present American prosperity and military strength are anachronistically retrojected over the previous hundred years.

Like other aspects of American dominance, the film and media industries achieved supremacy only through a gradual, irregular progress. In the age of silent films, the U.S. industry had credible competitors in Britain, France, and Germany. With the advent of sound, the U.S. produced many serials, mostly Westerns, that were exported and well received abroad. When Hollywood and its cult of celebrity emerged in the 1930s and 40s, the names of American actors were soon known throughout the world. In the postwar era, arthouse filmmaking tended to be centered in Europe, where most top directors resided, and films with American stars were often shot there, or the directors would come to the U.S. Hollywood’s strength was twofold. Its focus on physically beautiful actors (many of whom had mediocre acting ability, while others were serious thespians) was complemented by large budgets that enabled major productions with magnificent effects. Hollywood films had tremendous visual appeal, fully exploiting the nature of the medium, while European films tended to be more conceptual, like the stage, where props, costumes, and scenery are imperfectly realistic, the play being driven by dialogue. There was also serious filmmaking in Hollywood, since visual appeal does not exclude intellectual brilliance. Some of the top directorial and acting talents were imported, attracted by the large salaries only Hollywood could offer. The fact that the entire film industry of a giant nation was concentrated in one town enabled a fabulous concentration of capital.

By the 1960s, nonetheless, American filmmaking was still far from global hegemony. The avant-garde movement and spaghetti Westerns of Europe were at first derided, then imitated, in the U.S. European and Japanese filmmakers established a credible alternative market to U.S. fare, and were often able to lure famous American actors to their projects. In the mid-1970s, however, Hollywood filmmaking underwent a transformation. As actors’ salaries spiraled upward, it became increasingly difficult to create blockbusters based on a slew of big name stars in the same movie. The phenomenon of the summer blockbuster relied on thrilling special effects and a few solid actors to command record-breaking audiences. Marketing merchandise based on movies made film seem to be even more of a cultural phenomenon. Catch phrases, explosions, sex appeal and attitude merged into the stereotypical Hollywood film of today. Movies have always made a deeper impression on people’s minds than their real importance has merited, and their value has been even more greatly exaggerated by the audio-visual imprinting that the modern blockbuster achieves, as well as marketing’s transformation of the film from a work of art into an entire line of merchandise and a pop culture phenomenon. Marketing has enabled Hollywood budgets to soar to ever-greater heights (though not enough to enable a return to all-star casts), making it impossible for other studios to compete in the realms of viscerality and merchandising. Hollywood studios also engage in what is effectively corporate dumping to drive up market share, when they create unprofitable big-budget movies in the hopes of recovering cost with DVD sales, or when they force-feed B-movies to foreign theater chains in exchange for distribution rights to top films. As a result, European and other foreign films have steadily lost market share, though Japanese, Hong Kong, and Indian films have more than held their own in their regions, appealing to cultural needs that Hollywood cannot or will not match.

The dawn of the age of television can be dated circa 1970. This is when live sports broadcasts became common, and evening television became a way of life in America. It is also when the existence of television became widespread even in the Third World. As an art form, American television was much more sophisticated in this period than in previous decades; in many cases, it was as nuanced and intelligent as stage theatre. Strangely, there was a move away from using movie film for television at this time, so the stunning visual effects of Hollywood were largely lost on television. For all the abuse that cultural commentators have heaped on television, it has been largely content-based since its heyday, and is the closest modern equivalent to stage theatre. American television shows have long been syndicated throughout the globe, but this seems to owe more to a deficiency in foreign supply than recognition of product superiority. A top-rated American show can be re-broadcast in New Zealand at a time-filler slot with low ratings. New Zealand does not produce enough shows to fill the time schedules of all stations, so any well-produced import will suffice to fill the gap. With a few exceptions, American shows do not make the same sort of cultural impact that films do. This is because television has not become a way of life in most countries, though all are heavily enough exposed to allow television to be an effective medium for American ideas. Though not as spectacular as film, television is a steady, subtle influence, like the air people breathe. Propaganda agencies of many nations have recognized the power of television and used it to promote the goals of the state explicitly or deceptively.

Closely aligned with the television and film industries and their massive concentration of capital, the American music industry has also become commercially dominant in recent decades. American contributions to world music date back to the jazz age. British bands were instrumental in the worldwide spread of blues-derived rock and metal, though American bands have also played a prominent role. Today, American music is but one competitor among many on foreign markets, but it is always able to hold a decent market share because of its capital and marketing power. American music, like film, is not just about the medium itself, but also about the merchandising and image of a cultural phenomenon. The success of all American media depends on a concentration of capital and effective marketing. The cultural dominance of American media is principally a matter of commercial success.

Of course, this commercial success might generate a genuine cultural dominance through the sheer volume of exposure to American media. It is difficult to gauge the effect that mass media have on people, but to some extent the mere act of using these media has greater cultural significance than the specific content. The fact that people spend much of their time in the passive acts of watching television and film, or listening privately to music on headphones, possibly has a greater impact on how people think than whatever the content of this media suggests. Most foreigners who listen to American music do not understand the lyrics, but only get the raw emotion. American films are generally watched for entertainment, not ideology, and few of them have deep philosophical messages. The same is true even for television, especially in recent years, as there has been a turn toward the viscerality of Hollywood. Perhaps the real contribution of American media is to promote irrational modes of discourse and the triumph of emotionalism, though other nations have made their fair contributions to the stupefaction of culture.

American media promote the myth of the hyperpower through their internal content and by the impression of American omnipresence that the mere fact of media dominance implies. Simplistic as they are, American films portray Americans as simple idealists who are courageous, powerful, and affluent. The magical world of Hollywood seems like a paradise compared to any reality, and American prosperity is magnified to mythical proportions on film. Though Americans do not dominate print media nearly as much as film, many obsequiously pro-American columns can be found in foreign journals. This is partially attributable to syndication, but also to the interconnection of the worlds intellectual elites, and the fact that intellectuals, like anyone else, are tacitly affected by American propaganda more than they would like to admit. It is not propaganda in the style of state propaganda, for in fact Hollywood tends to be very left-leaning and anti-imperialist, but on a basic psychological level it spreads the American ethos abroad, so that people of other lands may easily, and to their minds freely, assent to the American party line as soon as it is explicitly presented to them. The ultraliberals of Hollywood might be dismayed to consider that they have done more to support the paper empire of the United States than any supposed military or economic dominance. The real test of this theory would be to see how quickly the illusion dissipated if American dominance of the global media market crumbled. It is noteworthy that France, the nation most acutely conscious of perceived American cultural intrusions, at the expense of French film and other media, is itself the place where the term hyperpower was coined. The myth of the hyperpower derives its credibility from the fact that it is based more on foreign perception than American self-adulation. This mass deception has been achieved by the inadvertent effects of the genuine U.S. dominance of several global media.

© 2006 Daniel J. Castellano. All rights reserved. http://www.arcaneknowledge.org