In my post of last weekend I discussed two aspects of empire. But in the back of my mind as I wrote there was a third aspect which I couldn't easily bring in. Beyond empire as colonia and imperium there is a third type, empire as suzerainty. In this form, the imperial power does not exert direct control, as in imperium, but operates essentially through an acknowledgement of superiority by others.
In Anglo-Saxon England there was a recognised status known as Bretwalda. This status was accorded the king who was recognised to be the most powerful in Britain. It did not imply direct rule: it was rather a state of more or less grudging acceptance of the Bretwalda's position. Several of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms held the Bretwaldaship over the centuries: Kent in the late sixth century, East Anglia and then Northumbria in the seventh, Mercia in the eighth and Wessex in the tenth. Then the Vikings came and destoyed all the kingdoms except Wessex, which then fought back and regained its position. The high point for Wessex came when king Edgar the Peaceable met six kings at Chester, in 973, and they took the oars and rowed, while Edgar directed the boat - a metaphor of obvious significance.
The distinction between sovereignty and suzerainty was well understood in the Middle Ages, when it was a cause of war, for instance during the Hundred Years' war. In the late fourteenth century a consistent demand of the Plantagenets of England was for full sovereignty over their possessions in France, especially Gascony, a demand which the Valois royal house of France equally consistently refused. The kings of England could enjoy their duchy of Gascony, but only with the kings of France as feudal overlords. In the end the Plantagenets lost Gascony altogether: the old feudal balance of rights between kings and feudal magnates was eroding. The king's sovereignty came to over-ride the old aristocratic privileges.
Later on the British Empire was a Bretwalda on a European scale. In the nineteenth century the other European states had to consider, when meditating a course of action: 'what will London think?' In short Britain was in the position for which Thomas Hobbes had provided the phrase two centuries earlier: 'a common power to keep them all in awe'. The system broke down in 1914, but even then the Kaiser's clique might have restrained themselves had they known for certain the Britain intended to intervene. As it was the German Chancellor had a nasty shock on the 30th July when he realised Britain might actually fulfil its treaty obligations.
Today the USA is of course the global Bretwalda. This is what Bill Clinton meant by saying America is the 'indispensable nation' (aside to Robert Fisk: you use quote marks when you have a quote to put inside them).
Without American power any number of wars would beyond a doubt have been fought which have not been. (Arguably it was American reluctance to play Bretwalda in 1920 that made WWII possible.) Turkey and Greece, Israel and Syria, Pakistan and India, all have to ask themselves: 'what will Washington think?' Besides this there are clear cases where American power is essential to protect free nations from aggressive neighbours, as in Taiwan and Korea. Beijing and Pyongyang may hate it, but they stay in awe. For now. This is why American credibility is not an abstraction, a worthless phantom not worth fighting for: it is on the contrary the reason why such peace and freedom and prosperity as we enjoy exists. To claim instead that this is the work of the UN is simple wishful thinking.
Because when Offa or Raedwald ceases to be Bretwalda, there is only one way that a successor can emerge.
I hope to see a day when there is no need for such a Hobbesian power. But as long as there are tyrants and terrorists in the world (and a tyrant is simply a terrorist with good career opportunities) there cannot be a Kantian, rational international order. The UN fails to be a global suzerain today because it treats everyone as Kantian rationalists who have essentially the same goals.