Be serious about your imperialism —the Great Game is not for dilettantes.
Thrilling to accounts of the Battle of Plassey, savoring the Sykes-Picot agreement, taking in seminars at AEI—that’s not good enough. Here’s how the Los Angeles Times recently described Doug Feith, undersecretary of defense and leading neo-imperialist, in his home: “sitting in his library surrounded by stacks of Commentary magazines and books on the British empire and the Middle East.” In other words, an armchair warrior—literally. Is it any wonder Feith has been Ineffective?
By contrast, the Highly Effective Imperialist gets off his fanny and “goes native.” We might consider, for example, Richard Francis Burton—now he was Effective. In the days before jets or mints on your hotel room pillow, Burton made his way across five continents. He helped discover the source of the Nile; he was one of the first Westerners to visit Mecca, disguised as an Afghan Muslim. Yet in addition to all his journeys, in addition to writing a half-dozen books and innumerable monographs on people and places, he also learned the local languages; he translated works from Arabic and Hindi, notably the Kama Sutra and The Arabian Nights. Not surprisingly, Burton saw little of England during his adult life—he died in Trieste in 1890—which is to say, Burton lived out the self-sacrificing injunction of Rudyard Kipling: “Take up the White Man’s burden/Send forth the best ye breed/Go bind your sons to exile/ To serve your captives’