In American Umpire, historian Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman argues against the familiar notion of the United States as imperial power. In her telling, many of the values and ideals that have become prevalent in the world may have originated with America, but they spread on their own merits, pushing most of the world in the direction of democratic capitalism. The United States did play a unique role in international affairs, Cobbs Hoffman argues, but it did so as a necessary and welcome arbitrator.
Arbitration itself is one of three goals or practices that Cobbs Hoffman sees as having gradually supplanted “the world order known as Empire.” Along with arbitration of disputes are access to opportunity and transparency in government and business. World War II was a watershed event in the transmission of those values, and Cobbs Hoffman notes that in the war’s aftermath the United States stepped forward to play an international part that was then sorely needed.
American Umpire traces world history from the American Revolution to the present, documenting the spread of these global values and the largely benevolent role Cobbs Hoffman sees the U.S. as having played. In that verdict, of course, she’s at odds with any number of critics of America’s international conduct, historian and HUP author Andrew Bacevich perhaps most prominent among them.
One of the interesting things about that disagreement, though, is that each narrative arrives at the same place: whether its leadership has been for better or for worse, welcome or resented, it’s time for the United States to step back from its role as the world’s steward. As Cobbs Hoffman sees it, the United States should greatly reduce its global presence, retire some of its permanent foreign military bases, and make room for other nations to lead. And, as she argued last week in a much noted New York Times piece, doing so would significantly reduce American defense spending, ameliorating the country’s struggling economy and helping to curtail its partisan budget battles.
Part of Cobbs Hoffman’s project, then, is to help the world see ways to carry on in relative peace after the retirement of its American umpire:
How the United States might cease playing umpire is not obvious. The trends toward access, arbitration, and transparency have not yielded an idyllic world. Violent, divisive conflicts remain. Holding the proverbial tiger by the tail, the U.S. government has been loath to let go. Perhaps by examining how the American role developed, this book will encourage other trustworthy nations to do more policing and the United States to do less—as occurred during the Libyan crisis of 2011, when France and Britain took the lead.
The Republican political objection to that strategy of “leading from behind” in Libya, the forceful arguments from the likes of Senator John McCain that the U.S. must intervene in Syria, and the persistent strain of American exceptionalism in the 2012 presidential contest all serve to illustrate the many domestic obstacles in the way of an international American drawdown. For her part, Cobbs Hoffman is dismissive of those who worry that the world would fall to instability without American lead (“It’s patronizing and naïve to think that America is the only truly ‘necessary’ country.”), but the nature of the above-noted objections indicates the challenges to the corrective she’s offering. For it’s likely that the very voices who’ll most welcome her depiction of American benevolence are those least likely to heed her plea for the nation now to stand aside, and those most likely to agree with her calls for a reduced American role are likely least inclined to accept her characterization of its historical valence.
Here’s Cobbs Hoffman describing the book: