IN THE NEWS
I've recently read Frank Lambert's The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World. I'll have a lot to say about this excellent little book, a real eye-opening account of the real issues for the United States during its first clash with Muslim states. The issues were not, as the "clash of civilizations" crowd might like to believe, an inescapable friction between Christianity and Islam, or powerful Western nations and the developing world.
I've read a lot of accounts of the Barbary Wars, and until now, none of them did justice to them. Some have focused on operational details, such as Stephen Decatur's famous raid; others have mentioned this on-again, off-again conflict as an annoying distraction from the real first foreign policy challenge to the American republic, relations with Britain and France. Lambert points out how both axes of conflict, with the Barbary states and Europe, rotated in the same direction: the early American republic's assertion of its sovereignty.
When the American colonies won their independence from Great Britain, they lost the protection of the British Navy. Consequently, American commerce in the Mediterranean became vulnerable to the predations of corsairs from Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. American leaders struggled with this direct challenge from the Barbary states, and the indirect challenge from Great Britain, which frequently encouraged the corsairs to attack American ships. Even a single pirate attack could drive shipping insurance through the roof, making it economically impractical to continue American trade through the lucrative Mediterranean shipping routes. Obviously, these attacks also humiliated the United States, which was more than just an image problem. If the United States could not protect its citizens and property from a gaggle of pirates, how then would the great European nations treat the United States, except as a semi-comical minor power? Since the United States was regularly clashing with Britain and France on the high seas, the importance of the Barbary Wars grew beyond just trade in the Mediterranean.
The Barbary Wars echo many of the problems the United States faces today in the Middle East. The main enemy operates as a loose, flexible network that is difficult to track down and defeat. Barbary pirates operated in swift vessels that could operate in shallow waters, letting them slip by the initial American blockades. The efforts of European navies to defeat the Barbary states provided little comfort. European warships failed to run the elusive pirate ships to heel. Consequently, bombarding the cities of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli accomplished very little. Even when Europeans captured or sank a corsair ship, another enterprising privateer captain took his place.
European countries eventually accepted the situation, preferring to pay tribute and ransom, rather than engage in pointless and expensive military campaigns. However, the United States had a much harder time swallowing this idea. "Millions for defense, and not a penny for tribute" fit American views better than making a humiliating and expensive peace with the Barbary states. Leaving American idealism out of the picture, the cost of tribute proved to be outrageously high, and the Barbary states regularly broke agreements. The turnover rate for the leaders of these "weak states" was high, and any new dey or bashaw usually thanked his followers by giving them the license to resume piracy.
The choices facing Adams, Jefferson, and Madison resembled the ones posed to later Presidents dealing with the Near East and North Africa. Should the United States reach some accommodation with these countries, such as it did in modern times with Saudi Arabia? Should it contain its more aggressive enemies, such as Iraq and Libya? Or should it "go for the throat," as the current President did with Iraq?
This first post seeks only to point out the meaningful parallels between the Barbary Wars and contemporary conflicts. I'll talk about the conclusions we might draw in some follow-up posts.
This first post seeks only to point out the meaningful parallels between the Barbary Wars and contemporary conflicts. I'll talk about the conclusions we might draw in some follow-up posts.
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