Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. US$56.00, cloth; US$56.00, ebook. ISBN 9781421447384.
In his superb conclusion to his densely written book, Stuart Rollo argues that economic interests have defined American expansion and that for much of it, “China has been the lodestar toward which American market-driven expansionism has advanced” (211). Scholars active in the 1960s will feel a great deal of nostalgia for a time when William Appleman Williams dominated the debate over the history of American foreign policy. Rollo does in fact lean heavily on the writings of Williams, no longer fashionable in the United States.
References to an American empire cease to shock American scholars. Walter LaFeber settled that issue with his The New American Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansionism, 1860-1898 (Cornell University Press, 1963). In his book, Rollo notes the decline of the American empire since the glory days of the “unipolar world,” and argues that failureto accept that decline, a determination to remain the world’s hegemonic power in the face of China’s rise, will lead to conflict. He rightly notes the hopelessness of the current political situation in the United States as a factor in the country’s decline.
On the other hand, Rollo is relatively sanguine about China. He is dismissive of concerns about China’s weakening economy and ignores the demographic issues confronting the country. He offers no challenge to the claims of Chinese analysts that China, for cultural reasons, will not try to impose its will on others—despite the fact that China started its history as an aggressively imperialist power many centuries ago, long before the existence of the United States. He does suggest that in any event, China’s neighbours can take care of themselves. Rollo is a bit fuzzy about Taiwan’s relationship to the United States, erroneously referring to it as an American ally (175, 181).
He also seems to take America’s strategic “pivot” to East Asia more seriously than most American analysts, who note that it has yet to happen. Robert D. Blackwill’s relatively recent Implementing Grand Strategy toward China (Council on Foreign Relations, 2020; cited by Rollo on 188) and Richard Fontaine’s Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power (Oxford University Press, 2024) both demonstrate how little American strategy has actually changed, and how the government has failed to respond to the rise of Chinese military power.
Rollo’s history of American expansion across the continent, stressing economic determinism, is often questionable—although after reading Albert K. Weinberg’s classic Manifest Destiny (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935) he concedes that economic determinism alone does not explain mass support for expansion. That does not prevent him from discussing the American Civil War without noting the issue of slavery. He also exaggerates American economic interest in China circa 1900: trade with China constituted roughly 1 percent of US exports, and investments in China constituted slightly above 1 percent of US overseas investments. He overstates the importance of John Hay’s famous Open Door Notes—just pieces of paper designed to relieve internal pressure that had minimal impact on the recipients. He does make an excellent point about the urge to control strategic raw materials—not just oil—considered vital to national power as an explanation for imperialism generally.
When he reaches the Cold War, Rollo very sensibly concedes that the rivalry with the Soviet Union focused on geopolitical concerns, sometimes at the expense of American market opportunities. He notes that the United States supported the economic recovery of Western Europe and Japan “to the point of supporting competition against its own domestic industries” (148). Nonetheless he overemphasizes material interests as opposed to geopolitical concerns in explaining the war in Vietnam—although there is no denying that Washington was very much aware of the importance of Southeast Asia for Japan’s economic well-being.
In sum, Rollo has written a very thoughtful analysis of American expansion, of the development of the American empire, and of the evils committed along the way. It’s always important to be reminded of the devastation inflicted on Native Americans whose lands were stolen. China is almost surely less the “lodestar” that he imagines it to have been and his economic determinism is overdone, but he is too good a scholar to ignore the obvious exceptions.
Rollo’s ultimate point about the need to avoid a conflict between America and China is indisputable. There is little comfort to be had in his conviction that peace depends on the United States, as a declining empire, understanding the limits of its power, and working with China to establish mutually accepted political boundaries. Xi Jinping demonstrates little interest in any boundaries that might be acceptable to American leaders—although a reelected Donald Trump might be open to a deal: What will you offer in return for Taiwan? And perhaps China’s rise is a little less certain than Rollo assumes, and the decline of the American empire not as steep or as imminent as he suggests.
Warren I. Cohen
Woodrow Wilson International Center, Washington DC