WHITE PAPER

JUNE 2022

Woke Imperium:
The Coming Confluence Between
Social Justice & Neoconservatism
CHRISTOPHER MOTT

1
Table of Contents

Executive Summary..........................................................................................................................1

Key Findings..................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Historical Evolution of a Complex.................................................................................................. 4

A Cultural Shift in U.S. National Security Strategy.......................................................................9

The Raison d’Etre of the Woke Imperium.....................................................................................11

The Role of Culture and Class in the Woke Imperium................................................................ 15

Conclusion...................................................................................................................................... 17

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Executive Summary

The primacist, interventionist wing of the United States foreign policy establishment—’the Blob’—has a long
history of using prevailing moralist trends to serve as ideological justifications for expansionist and hawkish
policies. From Presidents William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson on through the militant democracy
promotion of the George W. Bush administration, this process often mutated to accommodate the de jour
proclivities and entrenched biases of the policy-making class. The newest iteration of this process is the
adoption of social justice causes and rhetoric as the explicit goals of the United States’ foreign policy. Such use
and weaponization of the language of justice to advance the foreign policy objectives of the liberal Atlanticist
Blob is particularly evident against regions and countries the West believes actively challenge the Liberal
International Order (LIO) status quo or where it seeks to justify military and economic interventions on
normative grounds.

Rather than a coordinated conspiracy directed from a central organization or even a conscious desire on the
part of the participants however, this process of adopting, incorporating, and cultivating new rationales to
sustain what is an idealist and internationalist strategic culture in the United States has become routinized.
This entrenchment of systemic moralism in the American national security apparatus has been facilitated,
and is at least partly driven, by a highly competitive professional class vying to secure their position in
the system by using virtue signaling to demonstrate class solidarity to their higher ranks. This mimetic
mechanism incentivizes pushing the envelope and chasing trending causes (normative mimicry)—but always
in service of the imperial needs of the state where expansionism and primacy are viewed as the triumph of a
universalized American conception of virtue over those forces which are viewed as being on ‘the wrong side
of history’. Under such moralistic conditions, prudence, moderation, and narrower conceptions of interest—
provisos of realism—could be effectively vilified as enabling oppression and injustice.

The current Wokeist incarnation of American globalist evangelism seeks not only to change the governments
of other nations, but engineer their very cultures according to the Western progressive model. Its universalist
framing of human values could be readily applied to violate or undermine the sovereignty of alternate political
or cultural systems and justify those interventions for the domestic Western audiences in the name of ‘moral
responsibility’.

This white paper seeks to elucidate the often hidden processes and mechanisms that have led to the
consolidation of this “woke imperium” of moralistic cosmopolitanism: its historical roots, present day trends,
and possible future evolution. It is also intended as a guide for advocates of realism and restraint: to help
realists understand the nature of the resistance they are likely to encounter from certain sectors of the foreign
policy establishment and their sympathizers as they try to realign U.S. foreign policy goals with more limited
and concrete national interests.

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Key Findings

• The advocates of American primacy within the United States foreign policy establishment historically
rely on prevailing ideological trends of the time to justify interventionism abroad. The new ‘woke’
face of American hegemony and projects of empire is designed to project the U.S. as an international
moral police rather than a conventional great power—and the result is neo-imperialism with a moral
face.

• This is an iterative and systemic process with an internal logic, not one controlled by a global cabal:
when the older rationalizations for primacy, hegemony, and interventionism appear antiquated or
are no longer persuasive, a new rationale that better reflects the ruling class norms of the era is
adopted as a substitute. This is because the new schema is useful for the maintenance of the existing
system of power.

• The rise of a ‘woke’ activist-driven, social justice-oriented politics—particularly among the members
of academia, media, and the professional managerial class—has provided the latest ideological
justification for interventionism, and it has become readily adopted by the U.S. foreign policy
establishment. These groups now have an even greater level of symbiotic relationship with state
actors.

• Professional selection and advancement under these conditions require elite signaling of loyalty to
‘progressive’ universalism as the trending state-sanctioned ideology, which further fuels the push
towards interventionism. This combination of factors encourages a new institutional and elite
consensus around trending shibboleths.

• The emerging hegemonic posture and its moral imperialism are at odds with a sober and realistic
appraisal of U.S. interests on the world stage, as they create untenable, maximalist, and utopian
goals that clash with the concrete realities on which U.S. grand strategy must be based.

• The liberal Atlanticist tendency to push moralism and social engineering globally has immense
potential to create backlash in foreign, especially non-Western, societies that will come to identify
the West as a whole with niche, late-modern progressive ideals—thus motivating new forms of anti-
Westernism.

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Introduction codes will likely be used to justify sanctions and
interventions in parts of the world the political
In Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel, The
and economic establishment in the North Atlantic
Leopard, Prince Tancredi announces what could
deems to be of strategic importance.
be the guiding theme of U.S. foreign policy: “if
we want everything to remain the same, then This shift essentially amounts to further
all things must change.” While the domestic ideologizing and solidifying the neo-imperialism
American scene has seen a striking emergence on which conventional liberal internationalist goals
of political radicalism over the past several years, depend. As such, members of the establishment
foreign policymaking is already proving fully in the English-speaking world routinely strive to
capable of coopting and channeling these trends present their geopolitical ambition as part of a just
without deviating from its longstanding norms and universal mission to liberate the world from
and practices. oppression. In this sense, they are hearkening back
to the Puritan cultural roots of Plymouth Rock,
Current trends in media, non-governmental
rather than George Washington’s sober warnings
organizations (NGOs), and government
to conduct foreign policy on a basis of cautious
institutions within the DC foreign policy
calculation that avoids theological or domestic
complex imply that the rhetoric of North Atlantic
political disputes with foreign countries.1
interventionism is shifting away from the
general post-Cold War approach that is primarily Rather than a coordinated effort by a self-aware
driven by (liberal) exceptionalism and financial cabal, however, this new internationalist activism
globalization into one focused on narratives is driven by the professional and corporate
of human rights promotion and global social managerial elites within a dispersed and
justice. This turn is best shown by the rise of decentralized system of power across government,
human rights NGOs closely aligned with the state, industry, and academia. The establishment
presaged by maneuvers by the Bush and Obama groups leading this impersonal complex—i.e.,
administrations to pivot to democracy promotion the imperium—genuinely believe in and wish to
and nation-building after the early ‘War on Terror’ globalize the current normative trends within
period and the morphing of the Afghanistan their class as the only True axiological paradigm
mission away from its original focus on pursuing for everyone to uphold—often overlooking and
Al Qaeda. dismissing the subjective, historical, and relative
nature of their values.
While for much of the period spanning from the
late 1990s to the late 2010s the liberal-Atlanticist Whether consciously or subconsciously, this
foreign policy establishment aspired to political confluence of elites from different domains
projects of regime change, the new consensus advocates for policies which, if successful, would
has seemingly set global culture-forming based amount to global homogeneity under one (North
on Western norms and mores as its key objective. Atlantic) value system—akin to the historic
In the immediate future, rhetoric around causes
such as oppression of women and minority
1  Mary V. Thompson, Morocco Archive, National Library for the
groups, failure to affirm self-declared identities,
Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, retrieved 6/12/2022:
as well as opposition to foreign cultural practices https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclo-
like child marriage and forced gender-based dress pedia/article/morocco/

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 3 WOKE IMPERIUM

imperial projects from the heights of the British has, in one form or another, survived since the
and American eras of missionary expansionism. days of Oliver Cromwell.4
Such projects energized and sustained imperial
A secularized version of this worldview first
expansion even after its continued economic
appeared in the early United States with Thomas
desirability became less convincing, effectively
Jefferson and his belief in an exemplar ‘Empire
keeping the bureaucracy of the burgeoning empire
of Liberty’ that would shine forth like a beacon
employed while transferring wealth from ordinary
to the other benighted nations of the world.5
citizens to an imperial elite.2 Meanwhile, foreign
Though restrained by the fragile state of the
social engineering can—as shown in Afghanistan,
young republic, ideas that were previously hidden
Iraq, and Libya, among others—often empower
underneath certain sectarian trends began, in
the most reactionary local elements.3
time, to enter the political mainstream. By the end
While, at first glance, it may seem surprising of the 19th century, such views had become even
that late-modern progressive ideologies—i.e., more influential. While the colonial expansion
‘Wokeism’—could support and empower that occurred in the aftermath of the Spanish-
(often highly militarized) interventionist and American War was brief and controversial, the
expansionist policies, this tendency is in many ways McKinley administration would already declare
neither new nor especially unlikely. To understand that the United States’ form of colonization to
why, however, it is necessary to examine both the be different from other powers, claiming that
history and the current prevailing structure of U.S. American hegemony served as “an instrument of
foreign policy-making across both governmental God.”6
and non-governmental institutions.
With the presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1913-
1921), this cultural trend (or “civil religion”7) was
Historical Evolution of a Complex
incorporated into policy-making. Wilson saw the
A certain idealistic and moralistic element in First World War as an opportunity for spreading
Anglo-American culture dates back to the rise of American political values and a universal
Puritanism in the 17th Century. While frequently framework for understanding inter-state affairs
a cover for ulterior motives, it nevertheless also once the United States became embroiled in
represents a genuine belief—one that contributes
to that same culture’s endurance. This worldview,
which eschews particularly and places universalist
4  Matthew Hutson, “Still Puritan After After All These Years,” The
narratives at the center of the human story, is an New York Times, August 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/
outgrowth of an interpretation of Christianity that opinion/sunday/are-americans-still-puritan.html
5  Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, “Thomas Jeffer-
son and American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1990:
2  Lance Davis, Susan Davis, and Robert Huttenback, Mammon and https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1990-03-01/thomas-jeffer-
the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism son-and-american-foreign-policy
1860-1912. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 6  Gary Scott Smith and William McKinley, Religion in the Oval Office:
3  Ben Denison, “The More Things Change the More they Stay the The Religious Lives of American Presidents, Oxford: Oxford University
Same: The Failure of Regime-Change Operations,” CATO Institute Pol- Press, 2015.
icy Analysis No. 883, January 2020: https://www.cato.org/policy-anal- 7  Walter McDougall, The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How Civil Re-
ysis/more-things-change-more-they-stay-same-failure-regime- ligion Betrayed the National Interest, New Haven, Ct.: Yale University
change-operations Press, 2016.

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 4 WOKE IMPERIUM

the conflict.8 This attempt at changing the United Nations becoming a reconstituted version
international order would lead to the formation of the League of Nations. This time, the United
of the League of Nations (which, due to the States would be one of the founding members,
intransigence of Congress and president Warren ensuring a strength previously missing from the
Harding’s active resistance, the United States League. However, this more successful turn at
would eventually abstain from), but Wilson’s internationalism depended more on the almost
contradictory stances9 and the imperial interests absolute authority enjoyed by the victors of the
of the most intact postwar powers (namely Britain, Second World War than on an idealist model of
France, and Japan) fatally undermined the project cosmopolitanism. With the swift descent of the
of defending national sovereignty as an ideal. shadow of the Cold War upon the postwar order,
the realities of great power politics compelled
The United States also failed to extend the principle
the United States to downplay exceptionalism
of self-determination to colonized people outside
and focus instead on countering Soviet influence
of Europe.10 Additionally, the newly-born states
with whatever partners it could find. The global
in Europe quickly turned to fighting each other
challenge of Soviet Marxism, it seemed, could
over disputed borders and thus were often of
restrain the missionary drive in America’s self-
insufficient strength to serve as a bulwark against
conception.
resurgent powers—namely Germany and the
Soviet Union—so the project of building a new The rapidity and unexpectedness of the Soviet
American internationalism was brief and quickly collapse beginning in the late 1980s, however,
faded. Nevertheless, the idea that the United which culminated in the fall of that regime in
States could Americanize the world and globalize 1991, coupled with the overwhelming military
its values with little regard for the values of other victory of U.S. and allied forces in the First Gulf
civilizations had just made its world debut.11 War produced an immense sense of euphoria to
match the new situation of unipolarity. The United
The end of the Second World War saw the
States was now the world’s sole superpower.
emergence of two global superpowers along
This development raised immediate questions
with the renewed opportunity to globalize the
as to how this unprecedented position of power
world under an American framework, with the
and influence should be utilized. The Clinton
Administration—the first to have its tenure
8  Milan Babik, “George D. Herron and the Eschatological Founda- entirely overlap with the new unipolar order—was
tions of Woodrow Wilson’s Foreign Policy 1917-1919,” Diplomatic His- rife with internal disagreements about embracing
tory, Vol. 35 No. 5, Oxford University Press, November 2011: https:// humanitarian intervention. The issue was finally
www.jstor.org/stable/44254537
decided during the collapse of Yugoslavia, as
9  Josh Axelrod, “The Treaty of Versailles and its Rejection of Ra-
cial Equality,” NPR, August 2019: https://www.npr.org/sections/
human rights were explicitly invoked to justify
codeswitch/2019/08/11/742293305/a-century-later-the-treaty-of- military intervention against Serbia’s attempts to
versailles-and-its-rejection-of-racial-equality retain former Yugoslav territories not recognized
10  Krista Johnson, “Wilson’s Imperial Internationalism,” Georgetown as Serbia proper and in response to the atrocities
Journal of International Affairs, August 2020: https://gjia.georgetown.
of Miloševič forces against non-Serbians in those
edu/2020/08/19/wilsons-imperial-internationalism/
territories. In a statement that best captures
11  Lloyd E. Ambrosius, “Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His
Legacy in American Foreign Relations,” Palgrave MacMillan, 2002: the mood of the time, then-Secretary of State
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403970046_2 Madeleine Albright at one point asked Colin

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 5 WOKE IMPERIUM

Powell, “What is the point of having this superb Hussein arming Islamist terrorists with chemical
military you are always talking about if we can’t and biological weapons. However, as predictions
use it?”12 by the intelligence agencies of Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda proved
Mere months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the
to be false, Bush returned to the old playbook
Bush Administration pivoted from the specific
of attempting to justify the war in terms of
mission of hunting down Al Qaeda and its allies
explicit democracy promotion. Already, Clinton-
to declare a global war on terror—embarking
era liberal internationalism had shown that it
on a utopian project to pacify global flashpoints
could pivot quickly towards a kind of Christian
through ‘nation-building’ (beginning in
internationalism and then back again when that
Afghanistan).13 These policies were often justified
failed. Such moralistic rationalizations were
with explicit calls for democracy promotion. The
fungible even if the policies they triggered and
religious tinge of that effort and that of prior U.S.
justified often endured with little change.
administrations14 also colored priorities, such
as developmental and AIDS-related educational The shift toward nation-building was not only
aid to African countries being contingent on limited to Iraq but became the basis for American
abstinence-only education, then a major culture policy throughout the greater Middle East.17
war cause of the religious right in domestic This did not stop the backlash against Bush’s
politics.15 These programs were largely ineffective interventionist foreign policy goals among the
and often counter-productive.16 general public. As the Sudanese state careened into
civil war and sectarian strife, attempts by various
True, the most notorious action of the Bush
NGOs and media outlets to drum up support for
Administration, the Iraq War, was initially
a military intervention in Sudan’s Darfur region
presented as a necessary hard power response
were stymied by the growing dissatisfaction
to a profound security threat—that of Saddam
with the foreign policy of the neoconservatives
who largely directed the Administration’s Iraq
12  Kelly Beaucar Vlahos, “Remembering Powell’s revealing exchange policy.18 Now, with the benefit of hindsight, the
with Madeleine Albright,” Responsible Statecraft, October 2021: https:// results of these policies have become even more
responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/18/remembering-powells-reveal-
pronounced. In the wake of the disastrous NATO
ing-exchange-with-madeleine-albright/
Afghanistan experiment, not to mention the
13  Ted Galen Carpenter, “The Imperial Lure: Nation-Building as Re-
sponse to Terrorism,” The CATO Institute, Winter 2006: https://www. troubled circumstances in which many other
cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/carpenter_nation-building-ter- previously ‘liberated’ countries find themselves
rorism.pdf after U.S. withdrawal, the notion that liberal
14  David K Shipler, “Missionaries for Democracy: U.S. Aid for
Global Pluralism,” The New York Times, June 1986: https://www.
nytimes.com/1986/06/01/world/missionaries-for-democra- 17  Thomas Carothers, “U.S. Democracy Promotion During and Af-
cy-us-aid-for-global-pluralism.html ter Bush,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007: https://
15  Robert Walgate, “Bush’s AIDS plan criticized for emphasizing ab- carnegieendowment.org/files/democracy_promotion_after_bush_fi-
stinence and forbidding condoms,” BMJ Publishing Group, July 2004: nal.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487767/ 18  Harry Verhoeven, Ricardo Soares de Oliviera, and Madhan Mo-
16  Christine Gorman, “The U.S. Blew $1.4 Billion on Abstinence Ed- han Jaganathan, “To Intervene in Darfur or Not: Reexamining the
ucation in Africa,” Scientific American, August 2016: https://www.sci- Darfur Debate and Its Impact,” Global Society, Volume 30, issue 1, No-
entificamerican.com/article/the-u-s-blew-1-4-billion-on-abstinence- vember 2015: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/136008
education-in-africa/ 26.2015.1093464

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 6 WOKE IMPERIUM

interventionism is a boon for the recipients of U.S. The consequences of military action in Libya,
largesse could be readily dismissed.19 however, show that the R2P doctrine ruined the
country. Indeed, the intervention turned that
With the collapse of the Bush Era’s evangelism
country into an example of state failure following
and the coming of the Obama Administration’s
the collapse of a centralized government.22 It
professed realist outlook, Americans voted to
currently has no functioning national government,
reject messianic thinking and regime change
is wracked by civil war between different factions,
policies as the proper response to Twenty-First
has a burgeoning terrorism problem that did not
Century threats. Rather than abandoning the
previously exist, and is now host to slave markets
utopian policies of the past, however, the new
which operate openly on the street.23 In the case
government simply shifted the rationale for
of Syria, where intervention was more covert and
such policies yet again. In the wake of the ‘Arab
conducted by proxy actors rather than through
Spring’ protests, the United States and its allies
direct NATO operations, jihadist groups acquired
proceeded to launch military operations in Libya
massive amounts of military aid intended for
and Syria under the pretext of humanitarian
supposedly ‘democratic’ anti-government
interventionism.
opposition groups. Allied nations were severely
The theoretical framework for this ideological tested over the direction and purpose of the
bait-and-switch was the concept of ‘Responsibility intervention and, once again, state failure rather
to Protect’ or R2P—the brainchild of Samantha than successful nation-building was the result.24
Power whose inclusion in the Obama
The true consequence of R2P and its devastating
administration coincided with the shift away
impact on foreign nations has been one of
from the realism promised by Barack Obama to
perpetuating and exacerbating the problems it set
the more conventional approach characterizing
out to solve, which in turn perpetuates systemic
U.S. policy in the unipolar era. The acolytes of this
violence and—perhaps most crucially—created
doctrine argued that only by engaging with human
new opportunities for future humanitarian
rights and building certain types of governments
interventions as state failure becomes reality. In
abroad could the United States and its allies deal
creating and exacerbating the conditions that
with issues such as state failure and terrorism in
would arguably make it necessary, humanitarian
the long term.20 Counter-terrorism evolved into
intervention thus becomes a kind of perpetual
counter-insurgency, itself viewed as a corollary
to nation-building, with the former being seen as
increasingly precise and even ‘humane’—though and Reinvented War. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2021.
this interpretation runs contrary to empirical 22  Dexter Filkins. “The Moral Logic of Humanitarian Interven-
results.21 tionism,” The New Yorker, 2019: https://www.newyorker.com/maga-
zine/2019/09/16/the-moral-logic-of-humanitarian-intervention
23  Stephanie Nebehay, “Executions, torture and slave markets per-
19  Christopher Mott, “The Unraveling of a Myth: “Nation-Build- sist in Libya: U.N.,” Reuters, March 2018: https://www.reuters.com/
ing” and Calamity in Afghanistan,” Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-mar-
August 2021: https://peacediplomacy.org/2021/08/17/the-unravel- kets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY
ing-of-a-myth-nation-building-and-calamity-in-afghanistan/
24  Christopher Mott, “The Last Straw for Liberal Hegemony- Inter-
20  Samantha Power. A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of vention in the Syrian Civil War,” Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, July
Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 2002. 2021: https://peacediplomacy.org/2021/07/23/the-last-straw-for-lib-
21  Samuel Moyn. Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace eral-hegemony-intervention-in-the-syrian-civil-war/

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 7 WOKE IMPERIUM

casus belli for a vicious cycle of crisis.25 the Central African Republic and Uganda.30 Of
course, the United States was already increasing
Concurrent to these policies being implemented
its Central African footprint concurrent with
by Washington was a strong shift in media and
this viral campaign.31 While the actual effect of
NGO quarters. The post-9/11 patriotic jingoism
the campaign on policy was nearly negligible, it
and the allied desire to force economic integration
took over media discourse for weeks and became
of ‘rogue’ countries fueled in part by messianism26
a viral cause among young news consumers
was gradually replaced with a liberal-cosmopolitan
in a way that the declining War on Terror was
concern for the rights of the people trapped in
increasingly failing to do. Moral outrage could be
conflict zones. Effectively, these ideologies proved
exploited and channeled to manufacture consent
to be highly compatible with interventionism
around confronting an actor or issue, but the
while creating new fertile grounds of instability
more complex32 a situation appears to be, the less
primed for more intervention pushed by a
the public can be persuaded to sustain the outrage
mainstream media that functioned to uncritically
long term.33 The downfall of this social media
boost such narratives, especially in regard to the
campaign was therefore as rapid as its rise and
rise of the Syrian Civil War27 (the primary issue of
culminated in a very public meltdown on behalf of
foreign policy commentary for that time and one
the group’s evangelist frontman.34
particularly prone to moralism and falsehoods).28
Despite the specific failure of the Kony 2012
One of the most coordinated and impactful
campaign, its immense—if temporary—popularity
examples of this humanitarian-NGO turn was
signaled a shift in how the foreign policy
Kony 201229, a social media campaign waged by
establishment would evaluate its future prospects
the group Invisible Children, whose purpose was
for manufacturing consent for intervention in
to raise awareness about the activities of warlord
targeted countries as well as presenting new
Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army
opportunities for professional growth for the elites
which operated in the ungoverned spaces between
in the competitive national security ecosystem.

25  Philip Cunliffe. Cosmopolitan Dystopia: International Intervention

and the Failure of the West. Manchester: Manchester University Press,
2020. 30  Adam Branch. Displacing Human Rights: War and Intervention in
26  Mark Tooley, “Christian Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy,” Provi- Northern Uganda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
dence Magazine, February 2020: https://providencemag.com/2020/02/ 31  Mareike Schomerus, Tim Allen, and Koen Vlassenroot, “Obama
christian-influence-on-usa-foreign-policy/ Takes on the LRA: Why Washington Sent Troops to Central Africa,”
27  Kevin Young, “How to Hoax Yourself: The Case of a Gay Girl in Foreign Affairs, November 2011: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/arti-
Damascus,” The New Yorker, November 2017: https://www.newyork- cles/uganda/2011-11-15/obama-takes-lra
er.com/books/page-turner/how-to-hoax-yourself-gay-girl-in-damas- 32  Michael Diebert, “The Problem With Invisible Children’s “Kony
cus 2012”, The Huffington Post, May 2012: https://www.huffpost.com/en-
28  Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris, “Exclusive: McCain Hires try/joseph-kony-2012-children_b_1327417
Controversial Syria Analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy,” Foreign Policy, Sep- 33  Daniel Sullivan, Mark Landau, and Aaron Kay, “When enemies go
tember 2013: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/27/exclusive-mc- viral (or not)- A real time experiment during the “Stop Kony” cam-
cain-hires-controversial-syria-analyst-elizabeth-obagy/ paign, Psychology of Popular Media Culture 5(1), 2016: https://psycnet.
29  Fuyuki Kurasawa, “On humanitarian virality: Kony 2012, or the apa.org/record/2014-12883-001
rise and fall of a pictorial artifact in the digital age,” June 2019: https:// 34  Paul Harris, “Kony 2012: campaigner’s meltdown brought on by
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470357219851807?journal- stress says wife,” The Guardian, March 2012: https://www.theguard-
Code=vcja& ian.com/world/2012/mar/17/kony-2012-meltdown-stress-wife

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 8 WOKE IMPERIUM

A Cultural Shift in U.S. National Security political realignment found it useful. This has
Strategy become increasingly apparent when examining
the foreign policy rhetoric concerning not just
As the symbiosis between the cultural and
the Middle East and Central Asia but South and
foreign policy elites continued to accelerate,
Central America as well.
providing a suitable ideology that would justify
the expansion of imperial influence turned into an Such trends also underlie the increasing usage of
internal competition for the professional classes social justice buzzwords to describe nations that
in how to reconcile their primacist interests are cast as rivals to the U.S to foment increased
with their moralistic certitude and sense of self- hostility toward them among the American media
righteousness: to both signal their virtue as good consumers. For example, the 2021 protests in
people aware of the struggles of the marginalized Cuba were described by the left-wing but generally
and to grease the cogs of the War Machine. The pro-U.S. North American Congress in Latin
underappreciated continuity across Republican America as primarily a reaction against the Cuban
and Democratic administrations became clearly government’s tolerance for anti-black racism.37 A
evident in the run-up to the 2016 election when more direct sign of this rhetoric being used was
many traditional neoconservatives began to look when a far-right and U.S.-backed government that
upon Hillary Clinton as the candidate most likely came to power through a coup in Bolivia under
to carry out their preferred policy objectives. Jeanine Anez was often referred to approvingly
in English-language media as being headed by a
These growing associations quickly matured
‘women’s activist’.38 This government then went
into a ‘mainstream’ coalition after the
on to take an extremely hostile position towards
unexpected victory of Donald Trump, leading
people of indigenous Amerindian backgrounds
to new think tanks bringing together formerly
and practitioners of their traditional religions
Republican commentators with the leadership
in that country before it fell not too long after
of the Democratic Party.35 Bill Kristol—the
in an electoral defeat.39 Anez ended up arrested
neoconservative partisan once loathed by
and imprisoned under charges of sedition and
Democrats in the Bush Era as the primary
ordering massacres of activists.40
propagandist for the prosecution of the Iraq War—
even got his own one-off segment on Democrat-
leaning MSNBC as ‘Woke Bill Kristol’.36 The 37  Bryan Campbell Romero, “Have You Heard, Comrade? The So-
cialist Revolution is Racist Too,” North American Congress in Latin
congruency between human rights advocacy and
America, August 2021: https://nacla.org/cuban-socialist-revolu-
activists who advocate military interventionism by tion-racist-too
NATO countries in conflict zones thus expanded 38  “Women’s activist Jeanine Anez takes the reigns in Bolivia,” The
to mainstream commentary once a significant Australian, November 2019: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/
world/womens-activist-jeanine-anez-takes-the-reins-in-bolivia/
news-story/1a19c22fed8cc62aac5e43384fd447c3
35  Glenn Greenwald, “With New D.C. Policy Group, Dems Contin- 39  Cindy Forster, “ Bolivia’s Post-Coup President Has Unleashed
ue to Rehabilitate and Unify with Neocons,” The Intercept, July 2017: a Campaign of Terror,” Jacobin, May 2020: https://jacobinmag.
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/17/with-new-d-c-policy-group- com/2020/05/bolivia-coup-jeanine-anez-evo-morales-mas
dems-continue-to-rehabilitate-and-unify-with-bush-era-neocons/ 40  Redacción AN / GS, “Bolivia: ordenan arrestar a la ex presidenta
36  The Beat with Ari Melber, “Fat Joe and Woke Bill Kristol,” Jeanine Áñez y 5 de sus ministros por golpe de Estado,” Aristegui Noti-
YouTube, MSNBC, December 2018: https://www.youtube.com/ cias, March 2021: https://aristeguinoticias.com/1203/mundo/bolivia-
watch?v=SnAGwA9zmI8&ab_channel=MSNBC ordenan-arrestar-a-la-ex-presidenta-jeanine-anez-y-5-de-sus-minis-

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 9 WOKE IMPERIUM

With the end of the U.S.-led NATO operation in the global march of liberalism brought on by
in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, this new America’s withdrawal from that country.45
rhetoric made itself even more predominant in
Influential U.K. professor Mary Kaldor, long an
North Atlantic discourse. The war in Afghanistan
advocate for liberal interventionism, wrote about
had previously been justified as a counter-
how the War on Terror might have been a failure,
terrorism operation and then a nation-building
but humanitarian intervention could take its place
enterprise. Part of this nation-building effort, as
as a guiding mission for the U.S. and its allies. This
revealed by the Afghanistan Papers,41 involved
would be accomplished by outside powers holding
mandating gender representation quotas in
onto international airports (and thus controlling
that country’s government42 and military which
foreign airspace) in war-torn or illiberal countries
caused difficulties with Afghan recruits and cost
so that they could fly out dissidents seeking
the United States at least $110 million before the
refuge.46 Considering the degree of military
inclusionary aspect of the program was dropped.43
supremacy over other countries such maneuvers
Despite these programs, U.S. and global media would require, it is hard to see this suggestion
coverage of the war waned over the course of the as meaningfully different from the 19th and
war. However, with the fall of Kabul in August of early 20th-century treaty port system in China,
2021, ‘Afghan women and girls’ suddenly became where European powers and Japan carved out
the primary topic of discussion once again, showing autonomous port districts and railroad corridors
that this approach to nation-building clearly had inside Chinese territory as de facto colonies.47
at least rhetorical power among journalists and
As it was, the temporary U.S. military presence
policymakers.44 In keeping with a general strategy
at the Kabul airport during the evacuation in
of framing their Afghanistan coverage in terms
the summer of 2021 led to turning the troops
of domestic social issues and topical causes in
stationed there into prime targets for militants.
America, Western journalists even highlighted the
A suicide bombing carried out by a single ISIS-
covering up of a George Floyd mural in Kabul by
affiliated actor caused the deaths of 170 civilians
the Taliban as a particular example of backsliding
and 13 U.S. troops.48 It is difficult to see how such
small zones of control could be effectively secured
tros-por-golpe-de-estado/
41  Craig Whitlock, “At War with the Truth,” The Washington Post, 45  Akhtar Mohammed Makoii, “The soul of Kabul’: Taliban paint
December 2019: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/ over murals with victory slogans,” The Guardian, September 2021:
investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-doc- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/07/the-soul-of-ka-
uments/ bul-taliban-paint-over-murals-with-victory-slogans
42  Gender Quotas Database, “Afghanistan,” International IDEA, 46  Mary Kaldor, “The main lesson from Afghanistan is that ‘the war
retrieved February 2022: https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gen- on terror’ does not work,” The Guardian, August 2021: https://www.
der-quotas/country-view/44/35 theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/24/lesson-afghanistan-
43  John F. Sopko, “Support for Gender Equality: Lessons from the war-on-terror-not-work?
U.S. Experience in Afghanistan,” Special Inspector General for Afghan- 47  Catherine Ladds, “China and treaty-port imperialism,” The Ency-
istan Reconstruction, February 2021: https://www.sigar.mil/interac- clopedia of Empire, John Wiley and Sons LTD, 2016: https://onlineli-
tive-reports/gender-equality/index.html brary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe079
44  Jim Lobe, “Three major networks devoted a full five minutes to 48  Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper, “Lone ISIS Bomber Carried
Afghanistan in 2020,” Responsible Statecraft, August 2021: https://re- Out Attack at Kabul Airport, Pentagon Says,” The New York Times,
sponsiblestatecraft.org/2021/08/20/three-major-networks-devoted- February 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/
a-full-five-minutes-to-afghanistan-in-2020/ kabul-airport-attack-report.html

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 10 WOKE IMPERIUM

against such attacks when they exist as remote draft was also prescient in recognizing the role
islands deployed deep inside hostile territory. ideas germinating in the university would play
in providing convenient and useful rationales for
Bringing the conflict’s commentary full circle,
advancing globalism and future projects of empire
the rhetorical tactics most often employed at the
in the name of ‘liberation’.
end of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan serve as
an exaggerated form of the moralist posturing The cumulative effect of presenting complex
signaled earlier in the war. After all, intelligence international issues through the lens of domestic
agencies in the first decade of the war had Anglo-American cultural and ideological
decided to use human rights and feminism rather concerns—focused on global justice and equity for
explicitly to justify the shift in U.S. policy toward marginalized groups—is to sacrifice particularity
nation-building in Afghanistan to the people of and sovereignty at the altar of universalism and
allied European countries.49 With the collapse of moralism and thereby undermine any prudential
the U.S.-backed Afghan government, Western arguments that might oppose regime change
legacy media’s targeted communications strategy operations or international sanctions. The new
attempted to present the chaos of the Taliban academic-governmental consensus intends to
takeover as an unmitigated and largely avoidable promote a conception of political theory based
tragedy rather than the necessary conclusion of on universal morality and designed to push global
the longest war in American history. cultural homogeneity by weaponizing both soft
and hard power.
The Raison d’Etre of the Woke Imperium
In this context, it should not surprise that
Fundamentally, this latest iteration of liberal one of the most influential living theorists of
interventionist ideology centered on co-opting postmodernism and critical gender theory, Judith
activism and progressive causes to advance U.S. Butler, has taken to writing about the domestic
global primacy is not so much of a break with politics of countries she has little stake in in a way
the past as it might at first appear, especially that casts them as ‘authoritarians’, in lockstep with
considering the long-entrenched nexus between the commonly heard phraseology of the Beltway
academia, defense contracting, and government foreign policy establishment. Such writings on an
agencies. In fact, the first draft of President ascendant ‘Authoritarian Axis’ fuel the perception
Eisenhower’s famous speech on the dangers of a that an existential, Manichean struggle for global
‘Military Industrial Complex’50 originally included values—rather than simply the return of historical
a reference to academia as an important driver patterns of realpolitik—is underway.52
of that oligarchic relationship.51 The original
Certainly, there are strong internal incentives for
49  Wikileaks, “CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in
furthering the activist causes originating in the
western Europe,” March 2010: https://wikispooks.com/w/imag-
es/0/06/Cia-afghanistan.pdf ?fbclid=IwAR1yHYWk3ZS4PVEhzd- 2007: https://www.routledge.com/University-in-Chains-Con-
PVxo_Nax_rSlQyX-nEYOek9ZqsIShLIgWyvB4KvBo fronting-the-Military-Industrial-Academic-Complex/Giroux/p/
50  President Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, January book/9781594514234
1961, YouTube upload on Ewafa, 2015: https://www.youtube.com/ 52  Judith Butler, “Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the
watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU&ab_channel=Ewafa world over?”, The Guardian, October 2021: https://www.theguardian.
51  Henry A Giroux. University in Chains: Confronting the Mili- com/us-news/commentisfree/2021/oct/23/judith-butler-gender-ide-
tary-Industrial-Academic-Complex. United Kingdom: Routledge, ology-backlash

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 11 WOKE IMPERIUM

university and its continual merger with the more This same phenomenon undergirds the rise of
hawkish elements of the defense establishment. what could become a ‘woke military’ in the United
The consolidation of an elitist and culturally- States. A Department of Defense internal report
defined language of power and access has created a from 2021 made several recommendations to
kind of holy lexicon for policy middle-management increase recruitment pools for officers in order to
types hoping for promotion and advancement address the very real problem of the upper echelon
within government agencies and non-government ranks being disproportionately unrepresentative
institutions awash in credentialed applicants. relative to the general military population. Despite
Elite overproduction has increased the pool of an enormous conservative backlash to the report,
humanities graduates beyond society’s ability to there is nothing inside of the paper that can be
employ them.53 It, therefore, becomes necessary taken as a direct attempt to transform the military
for the class of applicants to demonstrate their along the same ideological lines as is currently
ability to work within the language not just of happening in the Department of State.55
academia generally, but also of the obscurantist
Nevertheless, given the current institutional
jargon so prevalent within postmodernist schools
proclivity to exploit social justice causes and
of philosophy.
redirect them towards advancing a more hawkish
American intelligence agencies, which once foreign policy at the highest echelons of the state,
had a role in influencing a formerly class-based the possibility that the United States could one day
left opposition and molding it into one of safely tout its efforts at ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’
middle-class cultural revolution, find this as evidence of its suitability to restructure other
process quite natural.54 The end result is one of societies through occupation, training missions,
performative radicalism and activism, where or logistical support cannot be discounted.
desire to reform policy at home can be safely Currently, certain identitarian signaling within
integrated into the structures of the government the army and the navy has already shown how
and redirected abroad. The danger posed by impactful presently fashionable ideologies like
truly radical and dissenting domestic voices can critical race theory (CRT) have become within U.S.
therefore be weakened in the domestic sphere bureaucracy.
and redirected to support military expansionism
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General
abroad. Given elite overproduction and the highly
Mark Milley gave a pointed defense of using niche
competitive nature of selection within these
academic theories like CRT in the education of
institutions, these trends are only exacerbated
military officers, stating that 'I want to understand
by the virtue-signalling that is needed to appear
white rage, and I’m white”56 and denied
cutting edge and ‘woke’, hence the championing of
ever more niche and avante-garde causes.
55  Department of Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion Report,
“Recommendations to Improve Racial and Ethnic Diversity and In-
53  Peter Turchin, “Blame Societies’ Elites as Our Society Frays,” clusion in the U.S. Military,” Department of Defense, June 2021: https://
Bloomberg, November 2013: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ media.defense.gov/2020/Dec/18/2002554852/-1/-1/0/DOD-DIVER-
articles/2013-11-20/blame-rich-overeducated-elites-as-our-society- SITY-AND-INCLUSION-FINAL-BOARD-REPORT.PDF
frays 56  Connor O’Brien, Top General fires back at ‘offensive’ mil-
54  River Page, “The CIA and the New Dialect of Power,” American itary being ‘woke,’ Politico, June 2021: https://www.politico.
Affairs, Winter 2021: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/11/the- com/news/2021/06/23/top-general-fires-back-criticism-mili-
cia-and-the-new-dialect-of-power/ tary-woke-495703

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 12 WOKE IMPERIUM

accusations that such a focus would undermine
the functionality of the military, but critics
The rise of fashionable activist rhetoric garnering
contend that this course could raise questions
prestige in policymaking circles is clearly gathering
about the future ability of the military to remain
pace and being conflated with the United States’
mission-focused and independent of the cultural
international image and role in the world given
trends dominating the American foreign policy
America’s status as a great power. This process
ecosystem.57
also reflects a general trend of postmodern
Moreover, General Milley personifies a worrying theories permeating the political center60—where
trend of cultural fragmentation between the the majority of pro-interventionist policies in
military leadership staff (the three and four-stars the U.S. originate.61 The factions which adhere
who represent the views of the dominant class) to the conventional Post-Cold War view of
and the junior officer corps (who often enlist from interventionism clearly see utility in turning
among the less privileged and working class). U.S. domestic causes centered on social justice
Further politicization of the U.S. military could into international ones with no regard to how
therefore undermine institutional cohesion and divergently issues of minority rights operate in
tear apart the U.S. military from within—reflecting culturally and historically different contexts.
the general polarization of Western societies that The parallel to state-directed missionary activity
pits populist groups against the elitist ruling class, is obvious. If other nations live differently in
and the proliferation of ideology throughout all ways deemed unacceptable, they can be deemed
institutions. “problematic.”

These worries were magnified by a leaked draft The adoption of progressive speech patterns
policy by the army that would provide soldiers the by the establishment serves to fracture and
ability to request to move from states if they felt effectively silence internal dissent against
discriminated against in some way—a policy that hawkish policies such as sanctioning or launching
would “in practice, [see] the military taking sides military operations against the ‘illiberal’ country
in a bitterly divisive political dispute.”58 Other in question. This, in turn, makes it easier for
signs of this type of gradual infiltration of domestic interventionists to adjust to a post-9/11 era that
politics into the functioning and indoctrination has largely discarded security-based arguments
of the military came in the form of a video from in favor of a United States that acknowledges
the Naval Undersea Warfare Division in Newport and repents for its troubled past, and then uses
in June of 2021 which served as an instructive that newfound self-awareness and atonement to
video on the usage of preferred pronouns in the proclaim that countries that have not gone through
workplace.59 the same process should adopt an American-style
historical reckoning.

57  Edward Chang, “Whose Army Is It, Anyway? Substack, May 2022: 60  Liza Featherstone, “Radical Academics for the Status Quo,” Jaco-
https://edwardchang.substack.com/p/whose-army-is-it-anyway?s=r bin, December 2019: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/radical-aca-
58  Ibid. demics-judith-butler-kamala-harris-donation
59  NAVspeaks-Pronouns, Defense Visual Information Distribution 61  David Klion, “Anne Applebaum and the Crisis of centrist politics,”
Service, June 2021: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/844401/nav- The Nation, January 2021: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/
speaks-pronouns anne-applebaum-twilight-democracy/

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 13 WOKE IMPERIUM

In this light, the problem with speeches such as the U.S. canceling talks with the Taliban over seized
one given by the U.S. Representative to the United assets due to the government in Kabul declaring
Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield at the General it would not reopen education for girls in March
Assembly is that by seeking to leverage the New of 202266, it becomes apparent that this new
York Times’ ‘1619 Project’62 within the context phase of the national security establishment is
of a foreign policy address, she universalizes the now well underway and being used to tie allied
American historical experience (as posited in nations together under one ideological rubric
that report) and transforms it into an absolute as an international community spearheaded
moralistic position from which to interpret global by Washington with the goal of targeting and
trends.63 ‘prosecuting’ enemy states as moral criminals.67

The pivot towards these themes as the new It is questionable whether these policies advance
way to single out rival states also came up at the concrete U.S. national interests or if they
acrimonious Alaska summit between Washington function as yet another vehicle to empower the
and Beijing, where both sides accused each liberal-Atlanticist ruling class internationally.
other of hypocrisy on human rights.64 Building Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of such policy
on this trend, in September 2021, the Biden shifts, should they continue, will likely be to create
Administration released an executive order a new method for delegitimizing foreign states in
imposing sanctions on actors related to the the eyes of the Western media consumers who
outbreak of civil war in northern Ethiopia’s largely share similar socio-cultural mores. Such
Tigray region which explicitly cited the ethnic an ideological pivot also means keeping rhetoric
nature of the violence and its impact on women consistent and complementary with much of the
specifically as justifications for the U.S. to begin news media’s priorities which in turn allows less
inserting itself into that conflict.65 Coupled with scrutiny of the strategic wisdom of the adopted
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) policies and their benefit to the general public.
hosting workshops on “Exploring Gender and It further suggests that a new generation of
Hybrid Threats” in February of 2022, and the policymakers will more successfully integrate
themselves with mainstream public opinion
bringing non-state activists into closer alignment
62  Nikole Hannah-Jones, The 1619 Project. One World Publishing,
with the objectives of the state.
October 2021.
63  Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, “Remarks at an UNGA With the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War
Commemoration on International Day for the Elimination of Racial
of 2022, some of this commentary has already
Deiscrimination,” U.S. Mission to the United Nations, March 2021:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILBYPnhSle8&t=3s&ab_chan- started to percolate in the press, with Ukraine’s
nel=USMissiontotheUnitedNations%5BPress%5D poor record on LGBT issues being positioned as
64  CNN, “US-China meetings breaks into tense confrontation on
camera,” YouTube, CNN channel, March 2021: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=nfGkJAX2WUc&ab_channel=CNN 66  Charlotte Greenfield and Jonathan Landay, “US cancels talks with
65  Presidential Actions, “Executive Order on Imposing Sanctions on Taliban over U-turn on girls’ education,” Reuters, March 2022: https://
Certain Persons With Respect to the Humanitarian and Human Rights www.reuters.com/world/exclusive-us-officials-cancel-talks-with-tal-
Crisis in Ethiopia,” The White House, September 2021: https://www. iban-over-bar-girls-education-state-2022-03-25/
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/17/ex- 67  North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Deep Dive Recap: Exploring
ecutive-order-on-imposing-sanctions-on-certain-persons-with-re- Gender and Hybrid Threats,” February 2022: https://www.nato.int/
spect-to-the-humanitarian-and-human-rights-crisis-in-ethiopia/ cps/en/natohq/news_191429.htm

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 14 WOKE IMPERIUM

still superior to Russia’s. While this is admittedly has clear interests in making U.S. foreign policy
a low bar considering Moscow’s present culture appear ‘woke’ while casting unfriendly nations as
war proclivities, the issue is clearly seen as one of illiberal and anti-woke. These moves could also be
utility and soft power advantage in certain sections amplified by state, media, and NGO actors.
of the press amenable to interventionism.68
Such selective use of ‘woke’ causes allows for an
A media market for such commentaries open-ended potential for intervention in a long
already clearly exists, with the generally pro- list of trouble spots in the Global South while also
interventionist The Atlantic running an article in shoring up a domestic narrative that intervention
May of 2022 advocating for the ‘decolonization’ would be beneficial—and outright righteous—
of Russia by painting the multi-ethnic history of given the purity of the Blob’s convictions.
that state as identical to Victorian colonialism and Foreign rivals opposed to these policies can be
thus in need of dismantling via regime change.69 painted as being “on the wrong side of history”,
Whether the conflict escalates further or remains “against Progress”, “diabolical”, and so on. Most
frozen, one could expect to see rhetoric like this likely, Washington will emphasize these causes
increase.70 when dealing with nations that the U.S. wishes
to undermine and or to interject in regions in
Of course, by emphasizing the ideological nature
which it seeks to expand its military footprint.
of the U.S.-Russia competition, Washington
At the same time, these very causes are likely to
undermines its own diplomacy by neglecting the
be systematically de-emphasized in the cases of
real security concerns that motivate potential
nations allied to the U.S—such as Saudi Arabia—
allies in the Ukraine crisis:71 the sovereignty of
opening Washington and its allies to charges of
smaller states located at regional and civilizational
hypocrisy and further undermining their claim to
fault lines.72 This obvious core of diplomacy has
moral virtue.
been all but forgotten in the rush to make foreign
policy into an extension of domestic culture
The Role of Culture and Class in the
wars. Given these trends, the liberal imperium
Woke Imperium
68  J. Lester Feder. “The Fight for Ukraine is Also a Fight for LGBTQ While it may be tempting to treat the adoption
Rights,” Vanity Fair, March 2022: https://www.vanityfair.com/
of social justice rhetoric by the administrative
news/2022/03/the-fight-for-ukraine-is-also-a-fight-for-lgbtq-rights
state as a matter of ideological commitment and
69  Casey Michel, “Decolonize Russia,” The Atlantic, May 2022:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/russia-pu-
puritanism on the part of its partisans—and this
tin-colonization-ukraine-chechnya/639428/ is precisely what most media coverage as well as
70  Malcom Kyeyune, Pride and American Imperialism, Com- institutional recruitment, like that of the Central
pact Magazine, June 2022: https://compactmag.com/article/ Intelligence Agency,73 typically emphasizes—this
pride-and-american-imperialism
does not tell the whole story.
71  Stephen Wertheim, “The One Key Word Biden Needs to Invoke
on Ukraine,” The Atlantic, June 2022: https://www.theatlantic.com/ Ideology alone—of whatever stripe—cannot
ideas/archive/2022/06/russia-ukraine-war-democracy-sovereign-
explain either the widespread incorporation
ty-right/661231/
72  Arta Moeini, Christopher Mott, David Polansky, and Zacha-
ry Paikin, “Middle Powers in the Multipolar World,” The Institute 73  “Humans of CIA,” Central Intelligence Agency, March 2021: https://
for Peace & Diplomacy, March 26, 2022. https://peacediplomacy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g&ab_channel=CentralIn-
org/2022/03/26/middle-powers-in-the-multipolar-world/ telligenceAgency

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 15 WOKE IMPERIUM

of various forms of progressive discourse into new generations of a professional class enter
the policymaking apparatus nor the way that public service, the media organizations that are
the hawkish policies themselves have largely responsible for the majority of foreign policy
continued uninterrupted. For an explanation, it is coverage are also overwhelmingly represented by
necessary to look at how the prevailing structure those from the highest echelon of the university
of material and professional incentives shapes and system—hence joining the complex out of class
exploits the cultural mores of the policy-making solidarity as much as from ideological conviction.
class—the class that then proliferates those same
Conceptualizing policy–-including foreign
mores.
policy—through the lens of social justice is
Dating back to the Central Intelligence Agency’s now the mainstream position of the university-
financial support for the modern artists of the credentialed class who make up the majority of
early Cold War to push liberal values associated the government, media, and corporate middle-
with American Exceptionalism74, the ruling class management. Ironically, the former ‘Boston
has been attuned to exploiting the prevailing Brahmins’, whose patronage networks ensured
cultural winds in the West to advance their Anglo-Saxon and Protestant domination of
foreign policy and security interests disguised government institutions more than a century ago,
as American national interest. In practice, state- have now given way to its successor movement,
backed institutions have used carrots and sticks one that might nominally resist such an association
of grant-making and professional advancement or be unaware of its philosophical linkages to the
and development to secure systemic groupthink former but behaves symmetrically in practice:
among the bureaucracy, foster ideological the professional managerial class social justice
hegemony around liberal internationalism, and activist.76
to manufacture consent around permanent U.S.
Just as the largely performative use of LGBT or
global primacy. And networks of elite recruitment
Black Lives Matter symbols by investment banks
and promotion are foundational both to reinforce
and arms manufacturers does not indicate a
institutional prestige and to cultivate and catalyze
sacrifice of their respective bottom lines, so too
a culture of strategic consensus enhanced and
can Langley and Foggy Bottom publicly signal
propagated by a highly visible and media-savvy
their commitment to au courant forms of social
army of activists and advocacy groups.
progressivism without deviating from their
This complex has routinized a positive feedback imperial ambitions and universalist missions.77
loop reinforcing conformity among the Moreover, this form of signaling can in turn be
technocratic, bureaucratic, and managerial picked up and disseminated by both existing
class operating in different domains rather than and prospective personnel solely through the
simply being dominated by the military.75 As

76  Jonathan Wai and Kaja Perina, “Expertise in Journalism: Factors

74  Frances Stonor Saunders. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the Shaping a Cognitive and Culturally Elite Profession,” University of Ar-
World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press, 2013. kansas: Journal of Expertise Volume 1, 2018: https://www.journalofex-
75  Israel Vargas, “How did American “wokeness” jump from elite pertise.org/articles/volume1_issue1/JoE_2018_1_1_Wai_Perina.html
schools to everyday life?”, The Economist, September 2021: https:// 77  Leo Sands, “Pride month: Kuwait criticizes US embassy over pro-
www.economist.com/briefing/2021/09/04/how-did-american-woke- LGBT tweets,” BBC, June 6, 2022: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
ness-jump-from-elite-schools-to-everyday-life middle-east-61678929

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 16 WOKE IMPERIUM

process of professionalization. It is one of the while delegitimizing criticism of such policies.
means by which would-be staffers indicate their The new wokeist coming of the empire, however,
acculturation into these institutions. is arguably even more destabilizing as it seeks
not merely political restructuring in targeted
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called
countries but total cultural submission—which
this resource cultural capital, which he defined
could, in time, further radicalize the countries in
as “familiarity with the legitimate culture within
the Global South against, not just America, but
a society.” This broadly takes the form of various
liberalism and progressivism as such. Already,
kinds of knowledge, skills, mannerisms, and
nations with little common interest but that of
credentials and marks one as a member of the
shared opposition to U.S. meddling appear to be
dominant class. A certain verbal facility with the
aligning with each other in the name of state and
tropes of modern discourse represents a form
civilizational sovereignty against the hegemonic
of cultural capital for the contemporary policy-
globalism of the liberal imperium.78
making class.

The point is not that certain progressive ideals Conclusion

cannot also be held as sincere beliefs by those who
The processes described above are, historically
espouse them; it is more so that the functional
speaking, neither new nor unique to the United
significance of these beliefs rests not upon the
States. The British Empire furthered the global
intensity of those ideological commitments on
slave trade for financial and colonial reasons in
the part of the adherents, but rather upon the
the 17th and 18th Centuries. With the coming of
role they play in consolidating and perpetuating
industrialization and the anti-slavery movement
the hegemonic prestige of the institutions of
in the Victorian Era, however, the anti-slavery
governance and the class that staffs them. This
cause became a means to reinvent the expansion
is not to say that the dangers of genuine belief in
of British imperial power as one of moral duty.79
such an idealistic framework for understanding
Both of these contradictory phases, however,
geopolitics should be overlooked either. The
still fueled greater levels of colonialism around
purpose, however, is to maintain continuity in
the world. Where once the empire had expanded
the foreign policy establishment as it enters a new
to find more slave labor and workable plantation
cultural environment—i.e., to use the very cultural
land, an abolitionist cultural shift enabled a
shifts to resist a fundamental paradigm shift in
reinvention of the empire as extirpating the slave
U.S. international posture while protecting the
trade it had helped create.
status quo for the establishment and safeguarding
its underlying strategic assumptions. A similar logic applies to the functioning of the

Most importantly for those who would prefer to

see the United States adopt a more realist and 78  Benjamin Norton. Venezuela and Iran sign 20-year cooperation
prudent foreign policy, the new social justice plan, Maduro pledges “joint anti-imperialism struggle,” Multipo-
ethos fulfills approximately the same function as larista, June 2022: https://multipolarista.com/2022/06/11/venezue-
la-iran-20-year-agreement/?fbclid=IwAR3vzX2vFHemz0Zi8x8gtkX-
democracy promotion or R2P did in years past: it
qN2ZJUZ_OctmaB5hYzqXTwhWbhfViC-U7C9w
legitimizes any form of military and diplomatic 79  Padraic Scanlan, “The Emancipated Empire,” Aeon, October 2021:
action that is nominally undertaken in its service https://aeon.co/essays/the-british-empire-was-built-on-slavery-
then-grew-by-antislavery

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 17 WOKE IMPERIUM

liberal imperium led by the U.S. establishment: view U.S. hegemony as a net positive, given their
humanitarian intervention often occurs in regions institutional and cultural adherence to similar
of previous interventions, creating the conditions worldviews.
with which it can continually respond in a spiral
The result of these policies elsewhere, however,
of frozen and perpetuated conflicts. The utility
is the eventual division of an otherwise
of casus bellis rooted in social justice is apparent
pluralistic civilizational international system
for those of hawkish foreign policy dispositions.80
into a bifurcated system along the lines of Anglo-
Thus, one way to read this analysis is as a
American domestic culture wars—fomenting a
warning to advocates of social justice: that the
new global Cold War the West cannot easily win.
military-industrial complex is perfectly capable
Indeed, from the standpoint of the advocates of
and incentivized to assimilate their language
realism and restraint, such an ideological framing
and repurpose it for its own internationalist or
will invite—if it has not already—a new form of
militarized ends. Wokeness, after all, is good for
international backlash against U.S. influence.
the imperium. Whether it is good for the nation
that hosts the imperium, however, is a very One can point to the democratizing impulses
different question. in U.S. foreign policy during the end of the First
World War or after the Cold War as precedent,
The advocates of a more realist and restrained
but the rhetoric of ‘wokeness’ targets foreign
foreign policy in the North Atlantic, and especially
cultures and is not simply seeking to reshape the
the United States, must realize that a rhetorical shift
political and economic system of those distant
toward social justice and human rights represents
lands. It seeks to subvert core beliefs that diverge
only the latest iteration of a universalism already
across class lines and vary greatly from culture to
predominant in most U.S. institutions—the
culture in order to push normative and cultural
fated ideological evolution for those in favor of
homogeneity.
expanded military and sanctions policies. This
will be accomplished by redirecting, enlarging, Interference of this type is so totalistic as to be
and universalizing U.S. domestic politics within akin to cultural eugenics, which if anything, is
the extant machinery of U.S national security and likely to produce a powerful backlash against the
Western alliances such as NATO. country advocating for the intervention as well as
against the policy recommendations themselves,
This move is likely to be championed by a media
ironically harming the very causes espoused. The
apparatus and NGO network committed to the
non-Western world is therefore increasingly likely
ever-expanding liberal project. Both of these
to define its future in the existential terms as often
domains will enjoy enhanced political access
cast by the West and to view its own collective
and increased financial support from the U.S.
resistance against liberal values as a struggle for
government bureaucracy. Certain allied states—
cultural autonomy and sovereignty against moral
such as Britain and its cultural descendants like
imperialism and foreign interventionism of the
Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as
liberal imperium.
countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and
the Scandinavian nations—will also be likely to While the attempts to remake foreign cultures
according to the mores of the 21st-century
American (and, to a lesser extent, European) haute
80  Cunliffe, 2020.

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 18 WOKE IMPERIUM

bourgeoisie cosmopolitanism is also ethically weaponized to create a new—and perhaps
troubling, it is no less imprudent. The source more pathological—version of American
of social justice-tinged imperial quests, after Exceptionalism to continue the same unpopular
all, is not shared and critical agreement on the and dangerous policies of the post-Cold War era
national interests of the people but the desire to but reformed so as to appeal to a new generation.
further entrench and prolong the existing power After all, those conditioned to believe that
structure. geopolitics is a realm of moral certitude can be
convinced to support any action carried out by
As professional competition for limited
a foreign policy establishment provided it only
promotional opportunities within the apparatus of
sounds the correct ideological notes.
numerous state and NGO institutions intensifies,
the desire to advocate for interventionist
missionary activity in foreign policy as an
instrument of leverage and enhanced prestige will
continue to strengthen so long as the ‘wokeist’
culture retains its dominance over the hearts and
minds of the elite university-credentialed ruling
class.

With the greater consolidation of the ‘Woke

Imperium’ over the coming years, one could
therefore expect significant domestic ramifications
as well, particularly as the process aggravates the
growing divide between the interests of ordinary
citizens in the West and those of a professional
cosmopolitan class in the liberal Atlanticist
capitals that increasingly identifies itself with the
status markers of ‘wokeness’.

Whether wokeism will prove a more effective

cover with which to justify a hawkish foreign
policy and military interventions abroad than
previous ideological umbrellas remains to be seen.
Either way, it is likely that once its utility ends,
woke internationalism too will be replaced in turn
by another ideological vehicle, and the cycle will
repeat itself—unless pragmatists, realists, and
prudent statesmen come to recognize and actively
resist the underlying logic and utilitarian pull of
ideology and idealism as such in greasing the
wheels of the U.S. war machine.

But as of now, such idealism is repeatedly

PEACEDIPLOMACY.ORG 19 WOKE IMPERIUM

About the Author

Dr. Christopher Mott is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy and an inter-
national relations scholar focused on historical geopolitics, grand strategy, and the intersection
of defensive realism and conceptions of sovereignty in an era of increasing multi-polarity. He
holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, an MA in International
Relations from London Metropolitan University, and a BA in History from Rutgers University. He
has published a book, 'The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central
Asia,' on the rise of indigenous forms of geopolitical strategy on the Eurasian steppe as well as
numerous peer reviewed and general audience articles on foreign policy and historical topics in
a variety of places. Dr. Mott was previously a fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington DC, and
a former researcher and desk officer at the U.S. Department of State.

@chrisdmott

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