On a new episode of #TheCurrent, @NormEisen highlights significant democratic backsliding in the U.S. and offers actionable steps to strengthen democratic institutions at home and abroad.

🎧 Listen here: [_link]

— Brookings Governance (@BrookingsGov) February 13, 2025

Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint | Hoover Institution - April 2003 |

Only recently, we were accused of "abandoning" Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet departure from that country. Today, Afghanistan may be the germ of a new American imperium.

Iraq forces the imperial question. In the aftermath of an Iraqi war, it may suffice to install a friendly autocracy, withdraw the bulk of our forces, and exert our influence from afar. Yet some have called for more. From voices within the administration like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to policy intellectuals like Richard Perle, to esteemed scholars like Bernard Lewis many have argued that only a democratic transformation of Iraq, and eventually of the larger Arab world, can provide long-term security against terrorism and nuclear attack.

In an important address in February, George W. Bush lent his voice to this chorus. In no uncertain terms, the president affirmed that ...

"the world has a clear interest in the spread
of democratic values," not least because "free
nations do not breed the ideologies of murder."

The president invoked the examples of American-led democratization in post-World War II Germany and Japan, and he pointedly rejected the claim that Arab nations are incapable of sustaining democracy. What the president did not say, yet gently and ambiguously implied, was that so deep a cultural change would require America to occupy Iraq in force and manage its affairs for years to come.