Map of the US and directly controlled territories at its greatest extent from 1898 to 1902, after the Spanish–American War1898 political cartoon: "Ten thousand miles from tip to tip." referring to the expansion of American domination (symbolized by a bald eagle) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines following the Spanish–American War; the cartoon contrasts this with a map showing the significantly smaller size of the US in 1798, exactly 100 years earlier.
History of the United States expansion and influence
American imperialism or US imperialism is the exercise of power or control by the US outside its borders. It operates through military conquest; military protection; gunboat diplomacy; unequal treaties; support for preferred factions; regime change; economic or diplomatic support; economic interference via private companies, or influence on local culture and media, potentially followed by intervention when American interests are threatened.[1][2]
American imperialism and expansionism took the form of "New Imperialism" beginning in the late 19th century,[3] although authors such as Daniel Immerwahr consider earlier American territorial expansion across North America at the expense of Native Americans to fit the definition.[4] While the US has never officially identified itself and its territorial possessions as an empire, some commentators have done so, including Max Boot, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Niall Ferguson.[5] Other commentators have accused the US of practicing neocolonialism—dominating territory via indirect means—which leverages economic power rather than military force.
US interventions in foreign countries have been much-debated throughout the history of the United States. Opponents of them claim that such actions are inconsistent with its history as a colony that rebelled against an overseas king, as well as with the American values of democracy, freedom, and independence. Conversely, American presidents who attacked foreign countries—most notably William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft—cited the necessity to advance American economic interests, such as trade and debt management; preventing European intervention (colonial or otherwise) in the Western Hemisphere, (under the 1823 Monroe Doctrine); and the benefits of keeping "good order".[citation needed]
Following Columbus, the European and then American presence steadily expanded across what became the US, driving Native Americans out by treaty or by force, including multiple wars. Many Native American settlements were depopulated by unknowingly imported diseases, such as smallpox. Native Americans became citizens in 1924 and experience a form of tribal sovereignty.
US acquisitions on the North American continent became states, and the residents of them became citizens. Residents of Hawaii voted for statehood in 1959. Other island jurisdictions remain territories, namely Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands, but the residents of them are also citizens. The remainder of US territories eventually became independent, ranging from three freely associated states that participate in US government programs in exchange for military basing rights, to Cuba, which severed diplomatic relations during the Cold War.
Caricature by Louis Dalrymple showing Uncle Sam lecturing four children labeled Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, in front of children holding books labeled with various US states and territories. A black boy is washing windows, a Native American sits separate from the class, and a Chinese boy is outside the door. The caption reads: "School Begins. Uncle Sam (to his new class in Civilization): Now, children, you've got to learn these lessons whether you want to or not! But just take a look at the class ahead of you, and remember that, in a little while, you will feel as glad to be here as they are!"
Yale historian Paul Kennedy asserted, "From the time the first settlers arrived in Virginia from England and started moving westward, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation."[7] Expanding on George Washington's description of the early US as an "infant empire",[8] Thomas Jefferson asserted in 1786 that the US "must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North & South is to be peopled. [...] The navigation of the Mississippi we must have."[9] nNoam Chomsky stated, "the US is the one country...that was founded as an empire explicitly".[10]<Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : Boston University (April 7, 2010). "Noam Chomsky Lectures on Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond". Retrieved February 20, 2019– via YouTube.</ref>
The notion of manifest destiny was a popular rationale for US expansion in the 19th century.[11] The policy of extending westward was a foundational goal of the US. Discontent with British rule came in part from the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which barred settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains.[12]
Settlement of California accelerated, which led to the California genocide. Estimates of deaths in the genocide vary from 2,000[17] to 100,000.[18] The discovery of gold drew many miners and settlers who formed militias to kill and displace Native Americans.[19] The California government supported expansion and settlement through the passage of the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians which legalized the forced indenture (effectively enslavement) of Native Americans.[20][21] Some California towns offered and paid bounties for the killing of Native Americans.[22]
Indian land as defined by the Treaty of Fort Laramie
American expansion in the Great Plains resulted in conflict between many western tribes and the US. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie gave the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes territory from the North Platte River in present-day Wyoming and Nebraska southward to the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado and Kansas. The land was initially not wanted by settlers, but following the discovery of gold in the region, settlers came in volume. In 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Wise, costing them 90% of their land.[23] The refusal of various warriors to recognize the treaty resulted in settlers deciding that war was coming. The subsequent Colorado War included the Sand Creek Massacre in which up to 600 Cheyenne were killed, mostly children and women. On October 14, 1865, the chiefs of what remained of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapahos agreed to move south of the Arkansas, sharing land that belonged to the Kiowas,[24] and thereby relinquish all claims in Colorado territory.
Map showing the Great Sioux Reservation and current reservations
Following Red Cloud's victory in Red Cloud's War, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed. This treaty led to the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation. However, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills resulted in a settlement surge. The gold rush was profitable for settlers and the government: one Black Hill Mine produced $500 million in gold.[25] Attempts to purchase the land failed, triggering the Great Sioux War. Despite initial success by Native Americans in early battles, most notably the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the government won and carved the reservation into smaller tracts. The reservation system enriched local merchants. Traders often accepted payment via money from land sales, contributing to further poverty.[26]
In the southwest, settlements and communities were established using profits from the American Civil War. Settlers often waged war against native tribes.[27] By 1871, Tucson for example had a population of three thousand, including "saloon-keepers, traders and contractors who had profited during the Civil War". In the Camp Grant Massacre of 1871 up to 144 Apache were killed, mostly women and children. nUp to 27 Apache children were captured and sold into slavery in Mexico.[28]In the 1860s, the Navajo faced deportation, which became the Long Walk of the Navajo. The journey started at the beginning of spring 1864. Bands of Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner. Around 200 died during the march. New Mexican slavers, assisted by Utes attacked isolated bands, killing the men, taking the women and children, and capturing horses and livestock. As part of these raids, Navajo were sold throughout the region.[29]
The American Colossus (1880), shown connected to the US, Mexico, and Nicaragua
Historians claimed that while the Monroe Doctrine contained a commitment to resist European colonialism, it included no limiting principles on US action. Jay Sexton stated that the tactics implementing the doctrine were modeled after those employed by European imperial powers during the 17th and 18th centuries.[30]
In older historiography William Walker's filibustering represented the high tide of antebellum American imperialism. His brief seizure of Nicaragua in 1855 was a distorted reflection of manifest destiny, worsened by his attempt to expand slavery into Central America. Walker failed in his escapades and never had official US backing. Historian Michel Gobat instead claimed that Walker was invited by Nicaraguan liberals seeking modernization and liberalism. Walker's government included those liberals, as well as Yankee colonizers, and European radicals.[31]
The Indian Wars featured British (initially) and later US militaries battling Native American sovereign groups.[32] Their sovereignty was repeatedly undermined by US state policy (usually involving unequal or broken treaties) and the ever-expanding settlements.[33] Following the Dawes Act of 1887, Native American systems of land tenure ended in favor of private property.[34] This resulted in the loss of some 100 million acres of land from 1887 to 1934.[citation needed]
This cartoon reflects the view of Judge magazine regarding America's imperial ambitions following McKinley's quick victory in the Spanish–American War of 1898. The American flag flies from the Philippines and Hawaii in the Pacific to Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.
In the late 19th century, the US, Great Britain, France, Germany and Belgium rapidly expanded their territorial possessions, particularly in Africa.
One causal factor was racism, as shown by John Fiske's concept of "Anglo-Saxon" racial superiority and Josiah Strong's call to "civilize and Christianize." The concepts were manifestations of a growing Social Darwinism and racism in some schools of American political thought.[43][44][45] Scholars have noted the resemblance between US policies in the Philippines and European actions in their colonies in Asia and Africa during this period.[46]
Industry and trade were two other justifications. American intervention in Latin America and Hawaii supported investments, including Dole sugar, pineapple, and bananas. When the US annex a territory, they were granted trade access there. In 1898, Senator Albert Beveridge claimed that market expansion was necessary, "American factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil is producing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must and shall be ours."[47][48]
Stuart Creighton Miller says that the public's sense of innocence about Realpolitik impairs popular recognition of US imperial conduct.[49] The resistance to actively occupying foreign territory has led to policies of exerting influence via other means, including governing other countries via surrogates or puppet regimes, where domestically unpopular governments survive only through US support.[50]
Cuba
His 128th birthday, Puck magazine, 1904. Political cartoon illustrates a bald eagle standing on the "U.S.A." portion of North America, with its wings extending from "Panama" and "Porto Rico" (Puerto Rico) on the right side of the image to the "Philippines" on the left.
The US claimed to intervene in the name of freedom: "We are coming, Cuba, coming; we are bound to set you free! We are coming from the mountains, from the plains and inland sea! We are coming with the wrath of God to make the Spaniards flee! "(lyrics to "Cuba Libre", 1898). Cuba became independent in 1898 following the Spanish American War.[51] However, from 1898 until the Cuban revolution, the US influenced the Cuban economy. By 1906, up to 15% of Cuba was owned by Americans.[52]
Philippines
One of the New York Journal's most infamous cartoons, depicting Philippine–American War General Jacob H. Smith's order "Kill Everyone over Ten," from the front page on May 5, 1902
Filipino revolutionary General Emilio Aguinaldo remarked: "The Filipinos fighting for Liberty, the American people fighting them to give them liberty. The two peoples are fighting on parallel lines for the same object."[53]
After Philippine independence, the US continued to direct the country through Central Intelligence Agency operatives like Edward Lansdale. Lansdale controlled the career of President Ramon Magsaysay, physically beating him when the Philippine leader attempted to reject a speech the CIA had written for him.[citation needed] American agents drugged President Elpidio Quirino and prepared to assassinate Senator Claro Recto.[56][57] Filipino historian Roland G. Simbulan called the CIA "US imperialism's clandestine apparatus in the Philippines".[58]
A map of "Greater America" c.1900, including overseas territories
The US established dozens of military bases, including major ones. Philippine independence was qualified by legislation. For example, the Bell Trade Act provided a mechanism whereby US import quotas could be established on Philippine goods that competed with US products. It further required US citizens and corporations be granted equal access to Philippine natural resources.[59] In 1946, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William L. Clayton described the law as "clearly inconsistent with the basic foreign economic policy of this country" and "clearly inconsistent with our promise to grant the Philippines genuine independence."[60]
Hawaii
In the 1800s the US became concerned that Great Britain or France might have colonial ambitions on the Hawaiian Kingdom. In 1849 the US and the Kingdom signed a friendship friendship treaty, ended that concern. In 1885, King David Kalākaua, last king of Hawaii, signed a trade treaty with the US allowing tariff-free sugar trade to the On July 6, 1887, the Hawaiian League, an illegal secret society, threatened the king and forced him to enact a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power. King Kalākaua died in 1891 and was succeeded by his sister Lili'uokalani. In 1893 with support from marines from the USS Boston Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed in a bloodless coup. Hawaii became a US territory and became the 50th US state in 1959.
President Woodrow Wilson launched seven overseas armed interventions, more than any other president.[61] Reflecting on the Wilson administration, General Smedley Butler, the most-decorated Marine of that era, considered virtually all of the operations to have been economically motivated.[62] In a 1933 speech he said: {{blockquote|I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it...I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street... Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.[63] The US invaded Haiti on July 28, 1915, and administered it until 1934.[64] Haiti had been independent before the intervention. The Haitian government agreed to US terms, including American oversight. Historian Mary Renda claimed that the goal was to create political stability, rather than expansion or exploitation.[65]
The US began planning for the post-war world from the war's outset. This postwar vision originated in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an economic organization that worked closely with government leaders. CFR's War and Peace Studies group offered its services to the State Department in 1939 and a secret partnership for post-war planning developed. CFR leaders Hamilton Fish Armstrong and Walter H. Mallory saw World War II as a "grand opportunity" for the US to emerge as "the premier power in the world."[67]
In an October 1940 report to Roosevelt, geographer Isaiah Bowman, a key liaison between the CFR and the State Department, wrote, "the US government is interested in any solution anywhere in the world that affects American trade. In a wide sense, commerce is the mother of all wars." In 1942 this economic globalism was articulated as the "Grand Area" concept in secret documents. Under that policy the US would have sought control over the "Western Hemisphere, Continental Europe and Mediterranean Basin (excluding Russia), the Pacific Area and the Far East, and the British Empire (excluding Canada)." The Grand Area encompassed all known major oil-bearing areas outside the Soviet Union.[68] The US avoided territorial acquisition as too costly and complicated, choosing to convince countries to open to American business interests.[69]
Bowman proposed an "American economic Lebensraum." According to Bowman's biographer, Neil Smith:
Better than the American Century or the Pax Americana, the notion of an American Lebensraum captures the specific and global historical geography of U.S. ascension to power. After World War II, global power would no longer be measured in terms of colonized land or power over territory. Rather, global power was measured in directly economic terms. Trade and markets now figured as the economic nexuses of global power, a shift confirmed in the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, which not only inaugurated an international currency system but also established two central banking institutions—the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—to oversee the global economy. These represented the first planks of the economic infrastructure of the postwar American Lebensraum.[67]
FDR promised: Hitler will get lebensraum, a global American one.[67]:27–28
Cold War
Europe
Protest against the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe, The Hague, Netherlands, 1983
Prior to his death in 1945, President Roosevelt was planning to withdraw all US forces from Europe. Soviet actions in Poland and Czechoslovakia led his successor Harry Truman to reconsider. Heavily influenced by George Kennan, Washington policymakers believed that the Soviet Union was an expansionary dictatorship that threatened American interests. In their view, Moscow's weakness was that it had to keep expanding to survive; and that, by containing or stopping its growth, European stability could be achieved. The result was the Truman Doctrine (1947). Initially regarding only Greece and Turkey, NSC-68 (1951) extended it to the entire non-Communist world.[70] Hence, the Truman Doctrine was described as globalizing the Monroe Doctrine.[71][72]:1186
A second consideration was the need to restore the world economy, which required rebuilding and reorganizing Europe and Japan. This matter, more than the Soviet threat, was the main impetus behind the 1948 Marshall Plan.[citation needed]
The start of the Cold War increased US interest in Latin America. Following the Guatemalan Revolution, Guatemala expanded labor rights and land reforms that granted property to landless peasants.[74] Lobbying by the United Fruit Company, whose profits were damaged by these policies, as well as fear of Communist influence, culminated in US support for Operation PBFortune to overthrow Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The US provided weapons to exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua.[75] This culminated in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. The subsequent military junta assumed dictatorial powers, banned opposition parties and reversed the revolution's social reforms. The US continued to support Guatemala throughout the Cold War, including during the Guatemalan genocide in which up to 200,000 people were killed.[76] After the coup, American influence grew in the country, in the government and the economy.[77]
On March 15, 1951, the Iranian parliament passed legislation proposed by Mohammad Mosaddegh to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, whose revenues from Iranian oil were greater than the Iranian government budget. Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister by the Majlis. Mosadeggh's support by the Tudeh as well as a boycott by various businesses against the nationalized industry produced fears in the UK and the US that Iran would turn to Communism. America officially remained neutral, but the CIA covertly supported various candidates in the 1952 Iranian legislative election.[78]
In late 1952, with Mosaddegh in power, the CIA launched a coup via Operation Ajax with UK support.[79][80][81] The coup increased the monarchy's power. In the aftermath of the coup, Shah Reza Pahlavi agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a consortium—British Petroleum and eight European and American oil companies. In August 2013, the US formally acknowledged the US role in the coup by releasing previously classified documents that showed it was in charge of planning and executing the coup, including bribing Iranian politicians, security, and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.[82]
In Korea, after Japan surrendered the land they had ruled since 1910, the US and the USSR divided it along the 38th parallel, with the Southern end of the peninsula occupied by the US and the Northern end by the USSR. The two countries agreed to grant Korean independence in 1950. Kim Ku and Syngman Rhee led the anti-trusteeship movement against the US and the USSR.[83][84] The USAMGIK banned strikes on December 8 and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and People's Committees on December 12.[85] Following further unrest, the USAMGIK declared martial law.[86] The UN decided to hold an election to create an independent Korea. The Soviets and Korean communists refused to participate. Due to concerns about division caused by an election without North Korea's participation, many South Korean politicians boycotted it.[87][88] The 1948 South Korean general election was held in May.[89] The resultant South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on July 17 and elected Rhee as president July. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on August 15, 1948. The Jeju uprising in 1948 was violently suppressed and led to the deaths of 14,000-30,000 people, mostly civilians.[90][91][92][93]:139,193 The North invaded the South in June 1950, launching the bloody Korean War that killed millions of Koreans.[94][95] Based on National Security Council document 68 and the war, the US adopted a policy of "rollback" against communism in Asi.[96]
Vietnam
In Vietnam, the US initially supported France's counterinsurgency program, but not its continued rule. US support was in response to China's support for Vietnam's communists. After Điện Biên Phủ, the US pressured France to free the pro-French government.[97] The US assumed military and financial support for South Vietnam against the communists following France's defeat in the First Indochina War. The US and South Vietnam refused to sign agreements at the 1954 Geneva Conference arguing that fair elections weren't possible in North Vietnam.[98][99] Beginning in 1965, the US sent forces to protect the South from invasions by the North and local insurgents. In part the Vietnam War was a proxy war between the USSR and the US.[100] The Paris Peace accords triggered the departure of US troops by March 1973, while 150,000-200,000 NVA remained in the South in violation of the accords. Peace continued until the US slashed aid to the South by 70%. The North launched its final offensive in March 1975, and Saigon fell on April 30.[101]
Professor George Klay Kieh Jr. claimed that strategic factors such as a fear of subsequent invasion of Saudi Arabia and other local pro-American monarchies drove the US response in the Gulf War.[108] Iraqi control was feared to threaten a major corridor of international trade. Kieh also noted various economic factors. The Bush Administration calculated that Iraq's control of Kuwait would give it control of 45% of global oil production.[108][109] While the US gained direct control of no territory or assets, it strengthened relations with Kuwait and neighboring countries (save for Iran).
Iraq War
The American invasion of Iraq was cited by William Robinson as aiding transnational capitalist groups, a form of economic imperialism. He claimed that the goal was economic subjugation. Robinson noted Order 39 by which the US privatized the Iraqi economy and permitted 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi assets.[110] International oil companies, from the US, Europe, and China secured technical service contracts (but not ownership of reserves) starting in 2009, and invested billions that increased production from ~1.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2003 to ~4.6 mb/d by 2023. The majority of revenues went to the Iraqi National Oil Company.
Libya
President Barack Obama speaking about military intervention in Libya on March 28, 2011
Matteo Capasso claimed that the 2011 military intervention in Libya was US-led imperialism and the conclusion of a war begun in the 1970s fought via 'gunboat diplomacy, military bombings, international sanctions and arbitrary use of international law'.[112] Capasso argued that the war intended to strip Libya of its autonomy and resources and weaken and fragment the African/Arab political position.[113]
According to a February 2025 poll by YouGov, only 4% of Americans support American expansion if it requires military force, 33% of Americans support expansion without the use of military or economic force, and 48% of Americans oppose expansion altogether.[122]
Strategy
US military alliances
A map of America and its military alliances around the world
The architect of Containment, George Kennan, designed in 1948 a globe-circling system of alliances embracing non-Communist countries.[123] The design was met by the US administration with enthusiasm. Disregarding George Washington's dictum of avoiding entangling alliances, in the early Cold War the US established 44 formal alliances and many other commitments with nearly 100 countries.[124] Some observers described the process as "pactomania".[125] The enthusiasm was reciprocal. Most of the world was interested to ally with the US. In the early 1940s, observing the attitudes of other nations, Isaiah Bowman,[126]Henry Luce,[127] and Wendell Willkie[128] stressed the allying potential of the US. This unprecedented scale was enabled by the eagerness with which America was welcomed.[129]
According to Kenneth N. Waltz, these were not alliances in the Westphalian sense characterized by balance of power, equal relations among states,[130] and impermanence.[131][132] Scholars such as Layne, Art, Lundestad, and Tunander claimed that they were instruments through which the US perpetuated its "hegemonic" role.[133][134][135][136] Before he predicted the Clash of Civilizations, Huntington had generalized that since 1945 most democratic countries had become members of the "alliance system" within which the "position of the US was 'hegemonic.'"[137] On the eve of the Rio Treaty and NATO, James Burnham envisaged:
A federation however in which the federal units are not equal, in which one of them leads ... and holds the decisive instrument of material power, is in reality an empire. The word ... would in practice doubtless never be employed. Whatever the words, it is well also to know the reality. In reality, the only alternative to the Communist World Empire is an American Empire which will be, if not literally worldwide in formal boundaries, capable of exercising decisive world control.[138]
America already had an Empire, Burnham continued, and not just Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.[138]Zbigniew Brzezinski put the US Eurasian geostrategy "in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires" and outlined "three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy": "to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected and to keep the barbarians from coming together."[139]Lebow, Kelly, Robinson, and Münkler drew parallels between NATO and the Delian League, which evolved into the Athenian Empire.[140]:p 45-46[141][142]:163Toynbee and Ostrovsky associated US alliances with the Roman client system during the late Republic.[143][144]Cicero (Republic, II.34) claimed that by defending its allies, Rome gained the world dominion.
Scholars label the US network of alliances as "hub-and-spokes" system where the US is the "hub." Spokes do not directly interrelate between and among themselves, but all are bound to the same hub. [145][146]:258 The "hub-and-spokes" analogy is used in the comparative studies of empires.[147][148]:65 By contrast to earlier empires, however, the American "imperial" presence was largely welcome.[149][150][151] Ostrovsky claimed that although all earlier empires, especially persistent empires, were in a measure by bargain, cooperation and invitation, in the post-1945 world this took an extreme form.[152] In 1989, Huntington counted that most democratic states of the world entered "hegemonic" alliances[137] and Krauthammer summarized that "[Western] Europe achieved the single greatest transfer of sovereignty in world history."[153]:49[154][155] integrate their strategic forces,[156][157][158] contribute 1-2% of their GDP, and tip military, economic and humanitarian contributions in aid of the hegemonic operations worldwide.[159][160][161][162]:8Russell theorized about the "military unification of the world" led by the Anglo-American powers.[163] Contrary to economic globalization, military globalization, besides inter-relation and inter-connection, involved centralization—integration under a central command.[152]:299
Since Eisenhower, US administrations claimed that the US shared a disproportionate amount of the military and financial burden for maintaining NATO. In 2025, President Trump announced that he wanted NATO countries to raise their contributions from 2 to 5% of their respective GDPs.[164] The Trump administration pushed allies and others most notably around trade and investment, a shift from decades of free trade and multilateral alliances. Trump made (possibly chimerical) territorial claims on Greenland and Canada.[165][166][167][168]
US military presence around the world in 2007. As of 2013, the US had many bases and troops stationed globally. Their presence has generated controversy and opposition.
During World War II, Roosevelt promised that the American eagle will "fly high and strike hard." But he can only do so if he has safe perches around the world.[172] Initially, the Army and Navy disagreed. But the leading expert on "flying high and striking hard," Curtis LeMay, endorsed: "We needed to establish bases within reasonable range; then we could bomb and burn them until they quit."[173] After the War, a global network of bases emerged. NCS-162/2 of 1953 nstated: "The military striking power necessary to retaliate depends for the foreseeable future on having bases in allied countries." The bases were defined as nation's strategic frontier defining a sphere of American inviolate military predominance.[174]:349 The overseas network of bases in a one-sided affair, with no freestanding foreign bases on US soil.[175]</ref> Chalmers Johnson argued in 2004 that America's version of the colony is the military base.[176]Chip Pitts argued similarly in 2006 that enduring US bases in Iraq suggested a vision of "Iraq as a colony."[177]
In his New Frontier speech in 1960, John F. Kennedy noted that America's frontiers are on every continent. Circling the Sino-Soviet bloc with bases resulted in a network of global dimensions. Contemplating its genesis, an observer wondered: What two places in the world have less in common than the frozen Thule and tropical Guam half a way around the world? Both happened to be principal operating areas of the Strategic Air Command.[178]:71</ref> On Guam, a common joke had it that few people other than nuclear targeters in the Kremlin know where their island is.[179]
As of 2024, the US deploys approximately 160,000 of its active-duty personnel outside the US and its territories.[184] In 2015 the Department of Defense reported the number of bases that had any military or civilians stationed or employed was 587. This includes land only (where no facilities are present), facility or facilities only (where there the underlying land is neither owned nor controlled by the government), and land with facilities (where both are present).[185] Also in 2015, David Vine's book Base Nation, found 800 US military bases located outside of the US, including 174 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Some 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees inhabited the bases in Germany and Japan, with some bases, such as Rammstein Air Base, nhaving become city-sized, with schools, hospitals and power plants. The total cost was estimated at $100 billion a year.[186][175]
Similarly, associates American author Robert D. Kaplan, the Roman garrisons were established to defend the frontiers of the empire and for surveillance of the areas beyond.[187] For Historian Max Ostrovsky and International Law scholar Richard A. Falk, this is contrast rather than similarity: "this time there are no frontiers and no areas beyond. The global strategic reach is unprecedented in world history phenomenon."[152]:233 "The US is by circumstance and design an emerging global empire, the first in the history of the world."[188]Robert Kagan inscribed over the map of US global deployments: "The Sun never sets."[189]<
The global network of military alliances and bases is coordinated by the Unified combatant command (UCC).[190][191][192] As of 2025, the world is divided between six geographic "commands." The origins of the UCC is rooted in World War II with its global scale and two main theaters half-a-world apart. As in the case of military alliances and bases, the UCC was founded to wage the Cold War but long outlived this confrontation and expanded.[193]
Dick Cheney, who served as Secretary of Defense during the end of the Cold War, announced: "The strategic command, control and communication system should continue to evolve toward a joint global structure…"[194] The continuation of the strategic pattern implied for some that "the US would hold to its accidental hegemony."[195]</ref> In 1998, the UCC determined the Soviet "succession": the former Soviet Republics in Europe and the whole of Russia were assigned to the USEUCOM and those of the Central Asia to the USCENTCOM. USEUCOM stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.[196]
In 2002, for the first time, the entire surface of the Earth was divided among the US commands. The last unassigned region—Antarctica—entered the USPACOM which stretched from Pole to Pole and covered half of the globe; the rest of geographic commands covered the other half. Historian nChristopher Kelly asked in 2002: What America needs to consider is "what is the optimum size for a non-territorial empire."[197] His colleague, Max Ostrovsky, replied: "Precisely that year, the UCC supplied a precise answer: 510 million km2…"[152]:251 Canadian Historian, Michael Ignatieff, claims that the UCC map conveys the idea of the architecture underlying the entire global order and explaining how this order is sustained.[198] The US national defense evolves into global defense. The Quadrennial Defense Review of 2014 refers to "our global Combatant Commanders," that is "our" and "global" at the same time.[199] The idea of the map can be traced to the first year of World War II when it was proposed as a reaction on the "magic geography"[200] of Geopolitik:
American political geographers—Hartshorne... Bowman... and some of the rest of us—began studying Geopolitik seriously as long ago as the Germans did. Obviously if a German Geopolitiker can draw a map for an Axis-dominated Europe we should at once set our geographers to work designing a new world map to meet democratic specifications.[201]
One of the mentioned Geographers, Isaiah Bowman, was known as "Roosevelt's Geographer."[67] Prominent is the leap from regional (European) map to "world map." Such mapping is a symptom of universal empire. Its rulers need to know the extent of their rule. Coming from a city-state, Herodotes was puzzled why the Persian Kings are always "surveying potential conquests, as if nervous of their power, and as if mapping were the same as mastering."[202]:390[203]<:20 The etymological link between empire and command also appears in Persia. Xerxes the Great called himself "commander of many commanders."[204] Combatant Commanders exercise heavy international influence and sometimes are associated with the Roman proconsuls. Commander of US European Command holds a dual-hatted position with that of Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the Commander of NATO. "Command," translated into Latin, renders "imperium." The Romans used the word "command" for their sphere of rule containing nominally independent states. From the First century AD, the word "command" became "synonymous with the realm commanded,"[205] that is, imperium obtained the meaning of "empire,"[206]:1 and later lost its original meaning of "command."[152]:247
Former NSC employee, Cranes Lord, summarized the imperial features of the US strategy: No other nation has anything approaching the network of overseas bases, forward deployed forces and client relationship of the US; nor divides the whole world into Areas of Responsibility presided over by its commanders.[207]
On the cover of Puck published on April 6, 1901, in the wake of gainful victory in the Spanish–American War, Columbia—the National personification of the US—preens herself with an Easter bonnet in the form of a warship bearing the words "World Power" and the word "Expansion" on the smoke coming out of its stack.
On the ideological level, one motif for the global leadership is the notion of American exceptionalism. The US occupies a special position among the nations of the world[208] in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, and political and religious institutions and origins. Philosopher Douglas Kellner traces the identification of American exceptionalism as a distinct phenomenon back to 19th-century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who concluded by agreeing that the US, uniquely, was "proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived".[209] As a Monthly Review editorial opines on the phenomenon, "In Britain, empire was justified as a benevolent 'white man's burden.' And in the US, empire does not even exist; 'we' are merely protecting the causes of freedom, democracy and justice worldwide."[210]Fareed Zakaria stressed one element not exceptional for the American Empire—the concept of exceptionalism. All dominant empires thought they were special.[211]
Economic interests
1903 cartoon, "Go Away, Little Man, and Don't Bother Me", depicts President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone.In 1899, Uncle Sam balances his new possessions which are depicted as savage children. The figures are Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines and "Ladrone Island" (Guam, largest of the Mariana Islands, which were formerly known as the Ladrones Islands).
A "social-democratic" theory says that imperialistic US policies are the products of the excessive influence of certain sectors of US business and government—the arms industry in alliance with military and political bureaucracies and sometimes other industries such as oil and finance, a combination often referred to as the "military–industrial complex." The complex is said to benefit from war profiteering and looting natural resources, often at the expense of the public interest.[212] The proposed solution is typically unceasing popular vigilance in order to apply counter-pressure.[213]Chalmers Johnson holds a version of this view.[214]
Alfred Thayer Mahan, who served as an officer in the US Navy during the late 19th century, supported the notion of American imperialism in his 1890 book titled The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Mahan argued that modern industrial nations must secure foreign markets for the purpose of exchanging goods and, consequently, they must maintain a maritime force that is capable of protecting these trade routes.[215][216]
A theory of "super-imperialism" argues that imperialistic US policies are not driven solely by the interests of American businesses, but also by the interests of a larger apparatus of a global alliance among the economic elite in developed countries.[citation needed] The argument asserts that capitalism in the Global North (Europe, Japan, Canada, and the US) has become too entangled to permit military or geopolitical conflict between these countries, and the central conflict in modern imperialism is between the Global North (also referred to as the global core) and the Global South (also referred to as the global periphery), rather than between the imperialist powers.[citation needed] A conservative, anti-interventionist view as expressed by American journalist John T. Flynn:
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells.[217]
Security
President Kennedy's news conference in March 1961
The last period of the US Isolationist policy ended with World War II. Due to the progress of military technology, it was argued, the Oceans stopped protecting. Ever since, this War is invoked as a lesson for permanent involvement in world politics. Harry Truman,[218] John Kennedy[219] and Bill Clinton[220] repeated close versions of this lesson. If hostile powers are not checked from the beginning, the paradigm tells, they would gain control over vaster resources and eventually the US would have to fight them when they are stronger.
By the end of World War II, it had become a US strategic axiom that cumulatively the Old World vastly exceeds the Western Hemisphere in terms of manpower and resources, and hence the Old World must not be allowed to unify.[221] The focus of this policy is on Eurasia. Since Alfred Thayer Mahan and until Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American geopolitical school claims it vital to prevent the Eurasian land mass from coming under control of any single power or combination of powers.[222][223][224][139] Some scholars explain the Cold War by geopolitics rather than ideology.[225] They stress that the US grand strategy designed for the Cold War long outlived the Soviet Communism.[226]
According to Andrew Preston, American officials who oversaw victory in World War II and waged Cold War against the Soviet Union sought to create a world system which would ensure America's security in an interdependent world.[227] In 2005, the US Army War College, which provides graduate-level instruction to senior military officers and government officials, initiated a study of empires focusing on causes of their rise and fall. It classed the American Empire as accidental defensive, a result of the defense against Soviet Communism.[228] The Cold War for Michael Mandelbaum was self-defense against the Soviet Union. In the process the US acquired the role of world government but did not do so deliberately.[229]:XXIV
September 11 is another example of security crisis which triggered greater intervention as well as released mass publications[230] on the "American Empire" accompanied by heated debates (see "Post-September-11 debates" below). Widely associated with the Pearl Harbor attack, it could similarly "unleash the American Empire."[231] Analyzing the reaction on September 11, David C. Hendrickson warned that the quest for absolute security is the way towards universal empire.[232]</ref> Military analyst J. R. Dunn prefaced his 2007 article citing an ancient British anti-imperialist, Calgacus: The Romans "have made a desolation, and they call it peace" (Tacitus. Agricola. 30:5). Dunn warned modern anti-imperialists of the same outcome if they succeed to undermine the US security:
There have been rumblings, comments on the Net, voices on talk radio, arguing another alternative... That an effective response to terror is simply to start vaporizing cities, beginning with Tehran and working our way down until attacks cease. That, quite simply, the United States should transform itself into Rome... But how many Carthages would have to burn before we gained it? ... Would it take a dozen Hiroshimas? A hundred? ... But the critics should be wary of screaming too loud, of conspiring too well, of undermining us too thoroughly. Because if they succeed, if they do get what they insist they want, then the result may well be something they never conceived, and it will be their desolation, and our peace.[233]
For the first three centuries, explained Ammianus Marcellinus (14:6:3—6), Rome carried its wars about its city walls. Trying to remove the wars ever further away from the city walls, Rome reached "every region which the vast globe includes." The pattern of increasing involvement responding to security crises or threats is known as "defensive imperialism" in the Roman studies[234][235][236] and Historian Max Ostrovsky applied the concept also to Qin and the US. All three, he finds, began with isolationism using geographic barriers and gradually built their empires responding to growing external threats. The three strategic transformations are analogous—from isolationism to hegemony to empire—with the modern process being currently uncompleted.[237]
Annexation is a crucial instrument in the expansion of a nation, due to the fact that once a territory is annexed it must act within the confines of its superior counterpart. The US Congress' ability to annex a foreign territory is explained in a report from the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations, "If, in the judgment of Congress, such a measure is supported by a safe and wise policy, or is based upon a natural duty that we owe to the people of Hawaii, or is necessary for our national development and security, that is enough to justify annexation, with the consent of the recognized government of the country to be annexed."[238]
Prior to annexing a territory, the American government still held immense power through the various legislations passed in the late 1800s. The Platt Amendment was utilized to prevent Cuba from entering into any agreement with foreign nations and also granted the Americans the right to build naval stations on their soil.[51] Executive officials in the American government began to determine themselves the supreme authority in matters regarding the recognition or restriction of independence.[51]
Historian Donald W. Meinig says imperial behavior by the US dates at least to the Louisiana Purchase, which he describes as an "imperial acquisition—imperial in the sense of the aggressive encroachment of one people upon the territory of another, resulting in the subjugation of that people to alien rule." The US policies towards the Native Americans, he said, were "designed to remold them into a people more appropriately conformed to imperial desires."[239] Writers and academics of the early 20th century, like Charles A. Beard, in support of non-interventionism (sometimes referred to as "isolationism"), discussed American policy as being driven by self-interested expansionism going back as far as the writing of the Constitution. Many politicians today do not agree. Pat Buchanan claims that the modern US' drive to empire is "far removed from what the Founding Fathers had intended the young Republic to become."[240]
In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the political activist Noam Chomsky argues that exceptionalism and the denials of imperialism are the result of a systematic strategy of propaganda, to "manufacture opinion" as the process has long been described in other countries.[241] One of the earliest historians of American Empire, William Appleman Williams, wrote, "The routine lust for land, markets or security became justifications for noble rhetoric about prosperity, liberty and security."[242]
Andrew Bacevich argues that the US did not fundamentally change its foreign policy after the Cold War, and remains focused on an effort to expand its control across the world.[243] As the surviving superpower at the end of the Cold War, the US could focus its assets in new directions, the future being "up for grabs," according to former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz in 1991.[244]
Since 2001,[245]Emmanuel Todd assumes the US cannot hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic power, due to limited resources. Instead, the US is going to become just one of the major regional powers along with European Union, China, Russia, etc. Reviewing Todd's After the Empire, G. John Ikenberry found that it had been written in "a fit of French wishful thinking."[246]
Following September 11, publications on the "American Empire" grew exponentially, accompanied by heated debates.[247] Harvard historian Charles S. Maier states:
Since September 11, 2001... if not earlier, the idea of American empire is back... Now... for the first time since the early Twentieth century, it has become acceptable to ask whether the United States has become or is becoming an empire in some classic sense."[248]
It used to be that only the critics of American foreign policy referred to the American empire... In the past three or four years [2001–2004], however, a growing number of commentators have begun to use the term American empire less pejoratively, if still ambivalently, and in some cases with genuine enthusiasm.[249]:pp. 3–4
French political scientist Philip Golub argues:
U.S. historians have generally considered the late 19th century imperialist urge as an aberration in an otherwise smooth democratic trajectory... Yet a century later, as the U.S. empire engages in a new period of global expansion, Rome is once more a distant but essential mirror for American elites... Now, with military mobilisation on an exceptional scale after September 2001, the United States is openly affirming and parading its imperial power. For the first time since the 1890s, the naked display of force is backed by explicitly imperialist discourse.[250]
Following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the idea of American imperialism was re-examined. In November 2001, jubilant marines hoisted an American flag over Kandahar and in a stage display referred to the moment as the third after those on San Juan Hill and Iwo Jima. All moments, writes Neil Smith, express US global ambition. "Labelled a War on Terrorism, the new war represents an unprecedented quickening of the American Empire, a third chance at global power."[67]:XI–XII
On October 15, 2001, the cover of Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard carried the headline, "The Case for American Empire".[251]Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the National Review, called for "a kind of low-grade colonialism" to topple dangerous regimes beyond Afghanistan.[252] The columnist Charles Krauthammer declared that, given complete US domination "culturally, economically, technologically and militarily", people were "now coming out of the closet on the word 'empire'".[7] The New York Times Sunday magazine cover for January 5, 2003, read "American Empire: Get Used To It". The phrase "American empire" appeared more than 1000 times in news stories during November 2002 – April 2003.[253] Academic publications on general imperiology surged too.[254] In 2005, two notable Journals, History and Theory and Daedalus, devoted a special issue to empires.
A leading spokesman for America-as-Empire, British historian A. G. Hopkins,[255] argues that by the 21st century traditional economic imperialism was no longer in play, noting that the oil companies opposed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Instead, anxieties about the negative impact of globalization on rural and rust-belt America were at work, says Hopkins:
These anxieties prepared the way for a conservative revival based on family, faith and flag that enabled the neo-conservatives to transform conservative patriotism into assertive nationalism after 9/11. In the short term, the invasion of Iraq was a manifestation of national unity. Placed in a longer perspective, it reveals a growing divergence between new globalised interests, which rely on cross-border negotiation, and insular nationalist interests, which seek to rebuild fortress America.[256]:95
The CIA's extraordinary rendition and detention program – countries involved in the Program, according to the 2013 Open Society Foundation's report on torture
Harvard professor Niall Ferguson concludes that worldwide military and economic power have combined to make the US the most powerful empire in history. It is a good idea he thinks, because like the successful British Empire in the 19th century it works to globalize free markets, enhance the rule of law and promote representative government. He fears, however, that Americans lack the long-term commitment in manpower and money to keep the Empire operating.[249] Head of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, Stephen Peter Rosen, maintains:
A political unit that has overwhelming superiority in military power, and uses that power to influence the internal behavior of other states, is called an empire. Because the United States does not seek to control territory or govern the overseas citizens of the empire, we are an indirect empire, to be sure, but an empire nonetheless. If this is correct, our goal is not combating a rival, but maintaining our imperial position and maintaining imperial order.[258]
The US dollar is the de factoworld currency.[259] The term petrodollar warfare refers to the alleged motivation of US foreign policy as preserving by force the status of the US dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced. nThe term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title. The phrase oil currency war is sometimes used with the same meaning.[260]
When asked on April 28, 2003, on Al Jazeera whether the US was "empire building," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied, "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been."[261] Many–perhaps most–scholars[who?] have decided that the US lacks the key essentials of an empire. For example, while there are American military bases around the world, the American soldiers do not rule over the local people, and the US government does not send out governors or permanent settlers like all the historic empires did.[262] nHarvard historian Charles S. Maier has examined the America-as-Empire issue at length. nHe says the traditional understanding of the word "empire" does not apply, because the US does not exert formal control over other nations or engage in systematic conquest. The best term is that the US is a "hegemon." Its enormous influence through high technology, economic power, and impact on popular culture gives it an international outreach that stands in sharp contrast to the inward direction of historic empires.[263][264]
World historian Anthony Pagden asks, Is the US really an empire?
I think if we look at the history of the European empires, the answer must be no. It is often assumed that because America possesses the military capability to become an empire, any overseas interest it does have must necessarily be imperial....In a number of crucial respects, the United States is, indeed, very un-imperial.... America bears not the slightest resemblance to ancient Rome. Unlike all previous European empires, it has no significant overseas settler populations in any of its formal dependencies and no obvious desire to acquire any....It exercises no direct rule anywhere outside these areas, and it has always attempted to extricate itself as swiftly as possible from anything that looks as if it were about to develop into even indirect rule.[265]:p 52–53
A US soldier stands guard duty near a burning oil well in the Rumaila oil field, Iraq, April 2003.
In the book Empire (2000), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that "the decline of Empire has begun".[266][267] Hardt says the Iraq War is a classically imperialist war and is the last gasp of a doomed strategy.[268] They expand on this, claiming that in the new era of imperialism, the classical imperialists retain a colonizing power of sorts, but the strategy shifts from military occupation of economies based on physical goods to a networked biopower based on an informational and affective economies. They go on to say that the US is central to the development of this new regime of international power and sovereignty, termed "Empire", but that it is decentralized and global, and not ruled by one sovereign state: "The US does indeed occupy a privileged position in Empire, but this privilege derives not from its similarities to the old European imperialist powers, but from its differences."[269] nHardt and Negri draw on the theories of Baruch Spinoza, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Autonomism#Italian Italian autonomism.[270]
Geographer David Harvey says there has emerged a new type of imperialism due to geographical distinctions as well as unequal rates of development.[271] He says there have emerged three new global economic and political blocs: the US, the European Union, and Asia centered on China and Russia.[272][verification needed] He says there are tensions between the three major blocs over resources and economic power, citing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the motive of which, he argues, was to prevent rival blocs from controlling oil.[273] Furthermore, Harvey argues that there can arise conflict within the major blocs between business interests and the politicians due to their sometimes incongruent economic interests.[274] Politicians live in geographically fixed locations and are, in the US and Europe,[verification needed] accountable to an electorate. The 'new' imperialism, then, has led to an alignment of the interests of capitalists and politicians in order to prevent the rise and expansion of possible economic and political rivals from challenging America's dominance.[275]
In one point of view, US expansion overseas in the late 1890s has indeed been imperialistic, but that this imperialism is only a temporary phenomenon, a corruption of American ideals, or the relic of a past era. Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis argues that Spanish–American War expansionism was a short-lived imperialistic impulse and "a great aberration in American history," a very different form of territorial growth than that of earlier American history.[276] nHistorian Walter LaFeber sees the Spanish–American War expansionism not as an aberration, but as a culmination of US expansion westward.[277]
Thorton wrote that "[...] imperialism is more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves. Where colonization finds analysts and analogies, imperialism must contend with crusaders for and against."[278] nLiberal internationalists argue that even though the present world order is dominated by the US, the form taken by that dominance is not imperial. International relations scholar John Ikenberry argues that international institutions have taken the place of empire.[246]
Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term hegemony is better than empire to describe the US's role in the world.[279] Hegemony is distinguished from empire as ruling only external but not internal affairs of other states.[280] Political scientist Robert Keohane argues a "balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided... by the use of the word 'empire' to describe US hegemony, since 'empire' obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of governance between the US and other Great Powers, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the Soviet Union in the twentieth".[281]:435 Proponents of this definition regard the post-Cold War world order as hegemonic stability. Some identify recurrent cycle of such orders while others argue that what is identified as earlier cases were neither hegemony nor stability and the situation is unprecedented in history.
Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas Wright, argue that neither 'empire' nor 'hegemony' exclusively describes foreign relations of the US. The US can be, and has been, simultaneously an empire and a hegemonic power. They claim that the general trend in US foreign relations has been away from imperial modes of control.[282]:266–267
Max Boot defends US imperialism, writing, "US imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during the past century. It has defeated communism and Nazism and has intervened against the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing."[283] Boot used "imperialism" to describe US policy, not only in the early 20th century but "since at least 1803."[283][284] This embrace of empire is made by other neoconservatives, including British historian Paul Johnson, and writers Dinesh D'Souza and Mark Steyn. It is also made by some liberal hawks, such as political scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael Ignatieff.[285]
Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson argues that the US is an empire and believes that this is a good thing: "What is not allowed is to say that the US is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad."[249]:21 Ferguson has drawn parallels between the British Empire and the global role of the US in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, though he describes the US' political and social structures as more like those of the Roman Empire than of the British. Ferguson argues that all of these empires have had both positive and negative aspects, but that the positive aspects of the US empire will, if it learns from history and its mistakes, greatly outweigh its negative aspects.[249]:286–301
Within the US, women played important roles in both advocating for and protesting against American imperialism. Women's organizations and prominent figures actively supported and promoted the expansion of American influence overseas and saw imperialism as an opportunity to extend American values, culture, and civilization to other nations. These women believed in the superiority of American ideals and saw it as their duty to uplift and educate what they often perceived as 'lesser' peoples. By endorsing imperialist policies, women aimed to spread democracy, Christianity, and Western progress to territories beyond American borders: their domestic advocacy created a narrative that framed imperialism as a mission of benevolence, wherein the US had a responsibility to guide and shape the destiny of other nations.[286]
During the era of American imperialism, women played a significant role in missionary work. Missionary societies sent women to various parts of the world, particularly in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, with the aim of spreading Christianity and Western values. These women saw themselves as agents of cultural and religious transformation, seeking to "civilize" and "Christianize" indigenous populations. Their missionary efforts involved establishing schools, churches, hospitals, and orphanages in imperial territories; through these institutions, women aimed to improve the lives of local people, provide education, healthcare, and social services. Their work intertwined religious and imperialistic motives, as they believed that the spread of Christianity and Western values would uplift and transform the "heathen" populations they encountered.[287]
Women played a crucial role in educational and social reform initiatives within imperial territories during the era of American imperialism. They established schools, hospitals, and orphanages, aiming to improve the lives of indigenous populations – initiatives reflecting a belief in the superiority of Western values and a desire to assimilate native cultures into American norms. Women also sought to provide education, healthcare, and social services that aligned with American ideals of progress and civilization, and by promoting Western education and introducing social reforms, they hoped to shape the lives and future of the people they encountered in imperial territories. These efforts often entailed the imposition of Western cultural norms, as women saw themselves as agents of transformation and viewed indigenous practices as in need of improvement and "upliftment".[288]
Women also played important roles as nurses and medical practitioners during the era of American imperialism. Particularly during the Spanish–American War and subsequent American occupations, women provided healthcare services to soldiers, both American and local, and worked to improve public health conditions in occupied territories. These women played a vital role in caring for the wounded, preventing the spread of diseases, and providing medical assistance to communities affected by the conflicts. Their work as nurses and medical practitioners contributed to the establishment of healthcare infrastructure and the improvement of public health in imperial territories. These women worked tirelessly in often challenging conditions, dedicating themselves to the well-being and recovery of those affected by the conflicts.[289]
While some women supported American imperialism, others actively participated in anti-imperialist movements and expressed opposition to expansionist policies. Women, including suffragists and progressive activists, criticized the imperialist practices of the US. They challenged the notion that spreading democracy and civilization abroad could be achieved through the oppression and colonization of other peoples. These women believed in the principles of self-determination, sovereignty, and equality for all nations. They argued that true progress and justice could not be achieved through the subjugation of others, emphasising the need for cooperation and respect among nations. By raising their voices against imperialism, these women sought to promote a vision of global justice and equality.[290]
Ultimately women's activism played a significant role in challenging and shaping American imperialism. Throughout history, women activists have been at the forefront of anti-imperialist movements, questioning the motives and consequences of US expansionism. Women's organizations and prominent figures raised their voices against the injustices of imperialism, advocating for peace, human rights, and the self-determination of colonized peoples. They criticized the exploitation and oppression inherent in imperialistic practices, highlighting the disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. Women activists collaborated across borders, forging transnational alliances to challenge American dominance and promote global solidarity. By engaging in social and political activism, women contributed to a more nuanced understanding of imperialism, exposing its complexities and fostering dialogue on the ethical implications of empire.
Moreover, sexuality and attitudes towards gender roles and behavior played an important role in American expansionism. Regarding the war in Vietnam, the idea of American 'manliness' entered the conscience of those in support of ground involvement, pushing ideas of gender roles and that manly, American men shouldn't avoid conflict. These ideas of sexuality extended as far as President Johnson, who wanted to be presented as a 'hero statesman' to his people, highlighting further the effect of gender roles on both American domestic attitudes as well as foreign policy.[291]
American Empire and capitalism
Writers like William I. Robinson have characterized American empire since the 1980s and 1990s as one which is a front for the imperial designs of the American capitalist class, arguing that Washington D.C. has become the seat of the 'empire of capital' from which nations are colonized and re-colonized.[110]
In Mass Communication and American Empire, Herbert I. Schiller emphasized the significance of the mass media and cultural industry to American imperialism,[292] arguing that "each new electronic development widens the perimeter of American influence," and declaring that "American power, expressed industrially, militarily and culturally has become the most potent force on earth and communications have become a decisive element in the extension of US world power."[293]
In Communication and Cultural Domination, Schiller presented the premier definition of cultural imperialism as
the sum processes by which a society is brought into the modern [U.S.-centered] world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centres of the system.[294]
In Schiller's formulation of the concept, cultural imperialism refers to the American Empire's "coercive and persuasive agencies, and their capacity to promote and universalize an American 'way of life' in other countries without any reciprocation of influence."[295] According to Schiller, cultural imperialism "pressured, forced and bribed" societies to integrate with the US's expansive capitalist model but also incorporated them with attraction and persuasion by winning "the mutual consent, even solicitation of the indigenous rulers."
Newer research on cultural imperialism sheds light on how the US national security state partners with media corporations to spread US foreign policy and military-promoting media goods around the world. In Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry, Tanner Mirrlees builds upon the work of Herbert I. Schiller to argue that the US government and media corporations pursue different interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the latter, profit), but structural alliances and the synergistic relationships between them support the co-production and global flow of Empire-extolling cultural and entertainment goods.[296]
Some researchers argue that military and cultural imperialism are interdependent. Every war of Empire has relied upon a culture or "way of life" that supports nit, and most often, with the idea that a country has a unique or special mission to spread its way of life around the world. Edward Said, one of the founders of post-colonial theory, said,
...so influential has been the discourse insisting on American specialness, altruism and opportunity, that imperialism in the United States as a word or ideology has turned up only rarely and recently in accounts of the United States culture, politics and history. But the connection between imperial politics and culture in North America, and in particular in the United States, is astonishingly direct.[297]
International relations scholar David Rothkopf disagrees with the notion that cultural imperialism is an intentional political or military process, and instead argues that it is the innocent result of economic globalization, which allows access to numerous US and Western ideas and products that many non-US and non-Western consumers across the world voluntarily choose to consume.[298] Many countries with American brands have incorporated these into their own local culture. An example of this would be the self-styled "Maccas," an Australian derivation of "McDonald's" with a tinge of Australian culture.[299]
International relations scholar Joseph Nye argues that US power is more and more based on "soft power," which comes from cultural hegemony rather than raw military or economic force. This includes such factors as the widespread desire to emigrate to the US, the prestige and corresponding high proportion of foreign students at US universities, and the spread of US styles of popular music and cinema. Mass immigration into America may justify this theory, but it is hard to know whether the US would still maintain its prestige without its military and economic superiority.,[300] nIn terms of soft power, Giles Scott-Smith, argues that American universities:[301]
acted as magnets for attracting up-and-coming elites, who were keen to acquire the skills, qualifications and prestige that came with the 'Made in the US' trademark. This is a subtle, long-term form of 'soft power' that has required only limited intervention by the US government to function successfully. It conforms to Samuel Huntington's view that American power rarely sought to acquire foreign territories, preferring instead to penetrate them — culturally, economically and politically — in such a way as to secure acquiescence for US interests.[302]:344[303]
Matthew Fraser argues that the American "soft power" and American global cultural influence is a good thing for other countries, and good for the world as a whole.[304] Tanner Mirrlees argues that the discourse of "soft power" used by Matthew Fraser and others to promote American global cultural influence represents an "apologia" for cultural imperialism, a way of rationalizing it (while denying it).[305]
American expansion through artistic expression
The US' imperial mission was the subject of much critique and praise to the contemporary American, and this is evident through the art and media which emerged in the 1800s as a result of this expansion. The disparities in the art produced in this period show the differences in public opinion, thus allowing us to identify how different social spheres responded to US' imperial endeavors.
Landscape painting by Edward D. Nelson - A View to the River, 1861
The Hudson River School, a romantic-inspired art movement which emerged in 1826 at the height of nineteenth-century American expansion depicted sublime landscapes and grand natural scenes. These paintings which admired the marvels of unexplored American territory emphasized this idea of the US as a promised land.[306] Common themes explored among paintings within the Hudson River School include: discovery; exploration; settlement and promise.
These themes were recurrent in other displays of artistic expression at this time. John Gast, famously known for his 1872 painting titled American Progress similarly displays themes of discovery and the hopeful prospects of American expansion.[307] Notions of manifest destiny is also emulated in art created in this time, with art often used to justify this belief that the White Man was inevitably destined to spread across the American continent.[308]
↑"Manifest Destiny | History, Examples, & Significance". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved September 17, 2019. Despite disagreements about Manifest Destiny's validity at the time, O'Sullivan had stumbled on a broadly held national sentiment. Although it became a rallying cry as well as a rationale for the foreign policy that reached its culmination in 1845–46, the attitude behind Manifest Destiny had long been a part of the American experience.
↑Field, James A. Jr. (June 1978). "American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter i Almost Any Book". The American Historical Review. 83 (3): 644–668. doi:10.2307/1861842. JSTOR1861842.
↑Nazaryan, Alexander (August 17, 2016). "California Slaughter: The State-Sanctioned Genocide of Native Americans". Newsweek Magazine. Retrieved August 16, 2023. The foremost of these critics is Gary Clayton Anderson, a professor at the University of Oklahoma. Anderson insists that what happened to Native Americans during colonization was ethnic cleansing, not genocide. "If we get to the point where the mass murder of 50 Indians in California is considered genocide, then genocide has no more meaning," he says. Anderson tells me that, by his estimate, no more than 2,000 Native Americans were killed in California.
↑Williams, Walter L. (1980). "United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism". The Journal of American History. 66 (4): 810–831. doi:10.2307/1887638. JSTOR1887638.
↑Blansett, Kent (2015). Crutchfield, James A.; Moutlon, Candy; Del Bene, Terry (eds.). The Settlement of America: An Encyclopedia of Westward Expansion from Jamestown to the Closing of the Frontier. Routledge. pp.161–162. ISBN9780765619846.
At the start of World War II, the US administered multiple Pacific territories. The majority of these territories hosted military bases, such as Midway, Guam, Wake Island, and Hawaii. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war. Japan also launched attacks on Guam, Wake Island, and other American Territories. By early 1942 Japan conquered the Philippines. Many battles were needed to retake both allied territory as well as various other Japanese territories. In October 1944 the US started to liberate the Philippines. Japanese troops surrendered in August 1945. After the Japanese surrendered, the US occupied Japan until 1952. The maximum extension of American direct control came shortly after war, and included the occupations of Germany and Austria in May and later Japan and Korea in September 1945 and before Philippine independence on July 4, 1946.<ref> "Philippine Republic Day". www.gov.ph. Archived from the original on July 29, 2021. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
↑Lundestad, Geir (1986). "Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952". Journal of Peace Research. 23 (3): 263–277. CiteSeerX10.1.1.689.5556. doi:10.1177/002234338602300305. JSTOR423824. S2CID73345898. If this American expansion created what we could call an American empire, this was to a large extent an empire by invitation...In semi-occupied Italy the State Department and Ambassador James Dunn in particular actively encouraged the non-communists to break with the communists and undoubtedly contributed to the latter being thrown out of the government in May 1947. In more normal France the American role was more restrained when the Ramadier government threw out its communists at about the same time. After the communists were out, Washington worked actively, through overt as well as covert activities, to isolate them as well as leftist socialists... US economic assistance was normally given with several strings attached.
12Robinson, William (2006). "Gramsci and Globalisation: From Nation-State to Transnational Hegemony". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: 569.
↑ In 2003, a Department of Defense distribution found the US had bases in over 36 countries worldwide,<ref> "Base Structure Report"(PDF). USA Department of Defense. 2003. Archived from the original(PDF) on January 10, 2007. Retrieved January 23, 2007.
↑Preston, Andrew (2021). "America's global imperium". The Oxford World History of Empire. (Eds. Peter Fibiger Bang et al. Oxford University Press), p 1221.
↑{{Cite book |last=Immerman |first=Richard H. |authorlink=Richard H. Immerman|url=https://books.google.co.il/books?id=gTgEl8PN5PEC |title=Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz |date=November 1, 2024 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-3428-0 |language=en}|p=3}
↑Ostrovsky, Max. p.240. 9b0gn89Ep0gC.{{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |plainurl= ignored (help)|title=Y=Arctg X: The Hyperbola of the World Order |date=2007 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |isbn=978-0-7618-3499-1 |language=en|p =240-293}}
↑United States. Cong. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Annexation of Hawaii. Comp. Davis. 55th Cong., 2nd sess. S. Rept. 681. Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1898. Print.
↑Meinig, Donald W. (1993). The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2: Continental America, 1800–1867. Yale University Press. pp.22–23, 170–196, 516–517. ISBN0-300-05658-3.
↑Chomsky, Noam (1988). Manufacturing Consent. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-71449-9
↑William Appleman Williams, "Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America's Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts About an Alternative" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), S1.
↑Easton, Nina J. (December 2001). "Thunder on the Right". American Journalism Review. 23: 320.
↑Lake, David A. (2007). "Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics". International Security. 32: 47–79. doi:10.1162/isec.2007.32.1.47. S2CID57572519.
↑Vasunia, Phiroze (2011). "The Comparative Study of Empires." Journal of Roman Studies. Vol. 101: p. 222.
↑A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: a Global History (2019).
↑Hopkins, A. G. (2007). "Capitalism, Nationalism and the New American Empire". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 35 (1): 95–117. doi:10.1080/03086530601143412. S2CID143521756.
↑Schulmeister, Stephan (March 2000). "Globalization without Global Money: The Double Role of the Dollar as National Currency and World Currency". Journal of Post Keynesian Economics. 22 (3): 365–395. doi:10.1080/01603477.2000.11490246. ISSN0160-3477. S2CID59022899.
↑Clark, William R. Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar, New Society Publishers, 2005, Canada, ISBN0-86571-514-9
↑Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (2006).
↑Vuoto, Grace (2007). "The Anglo-American Global Imperial Legacy: Is There a Better Way?". Canadian Journal of History. 42 (2): 259–270. doi:10.3138/cjh.42.2.259.
↑Nexon, Daniel H.; Wright, Thomas (2007). "What's at Stake in the American Empire Debate". American Political Science Review. 101 (2): 253–271. doi:10.1017/S0003055407070220. S2CID17910808.
↑Hoganson, Kristin L. (2001). Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. Yale University Press.
↑Choi, Hyaeweol (2009). Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways. University of California Press.
↑Bashford, Alison (2004). Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism, and Public Health. Palgrave Macmillan London.
↑Mirrlees, Tanner (2016). Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry (1sted.). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN9780774830157.
↑See also Liping Bu, Making The World Like Us: Education, Cultural Expansion, and the American Century (2003).
↑Fraser, Matthew (2005). Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire. St. Martin's Press.
↑Mirrlees, Tanner. 2006. American Soft Power or American Cultural Imperialism. In Colin Mooers (ed.), The New Imperialists: Ideologies of Empire. Oxford: One World Press. 198-228,
{{cite book |last=Holton |first=Woody |author-link=Woody Holton |title=Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia |publisher=UNC Press Books |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8078-9986-1 |pages=3–38 |chapter=Land Speculators versus Indians and the Privy Council |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fV_qCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA3
Bacevich, Andrew J., "The Old Normal: Why we can't beat our addiction to war", Harper's Magazine, vol. 340, no. 2038 (March 2020), pp.25–32. "In 2010, Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that the national debt, the prime expression of American profligacy, had become 'the most significant threat to our national security.' In 2017, General Paul Selva, Joint Chiefs vice chair, stated bluntly that 'the dynamics that are happening in our climate will drive uncertainty and will drive conflict." (p.31.)
Bacevich, Andrew J., "The Reckoning That Wasn't: Why America Remains Trapped by False Dreams of Hegemony", Foreign Affairs, vol. 102, no. 2 (March/April 2023), pp.6–10, 12, 14, 16–21. "Washington... needs to... avoid needless war... and provide ordinary citizens with the prospect of a decent life.... The chimera of another righteous military triumph cannot fix what ails the United States." (p.21.)
Boot, Max (2002). The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Basic Books. ISBN0-465-00721-X.
Brown, Seyom (1994). Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Clinton. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN0-231-09669-0.
Gaddis, John Lewis (2005). Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (2nded.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-517447-X.
Hampf, Michaela (2019). Empire of Liberty (in German). De Gruyter Oldenbourg. ISBN978-3-11-065774-6.
Hansen, Suzy, "Twenty Years of Outsourced War" (review of Phil Klay, Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War, Penguin Press, 2022, 252 pp.; and Phil Klay, Missionaries, Penguin, 2020, 407 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXX, no. 16 (October 19, 2023), pp.26–28. "Klay remains transfixed by the idea that in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in all contemporary American wars, there have been not only no definable diplomatic or political objectives, but also no definable military objectives. No one has any clue what they're fighting for or even 'clear benchmarks of success.' That means that there is no obvious enemy, or that one's perception of the enemy keeps shifting. 'If you think the mission your country keeps sending you on is pointless or impossible and that you're only deploying to protect your brothers and sisters in arms from danger,' Klay writes, 'then it's not the Taliban or al-Qaeda or ISIS that's trying to kill you, it's America.'" (p.28.)
Immerwahr, Daniel, "Everything in Hand: the C.I.A.'s covert ops have mattered – but not in the way that it hoped", The New Yorker, June 17, 2024, pp. 53-57. "After the Second World War, the United States set out to direct politics on a global scale. This mission was unpopular, hence the cloak-and-dagger secrecy, and difficult, hence the regular fiascoes. [...] 'We knew nothing,' the onetime C.I.A. director Richard Helms remembered. [...] Ivy League professors were tasked with steering top students toward intelligence careers. [Particularly] literature students. [...] Something about sorting through ambiguity, paradox, and hidden meanings equipped students for espionage." (p. 54.) "[In the 1950s] hundreds of the CIA's foreign agents were sent to their deaths in [Albania,] Russia, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and the Baltic states... [I]ntelligence officers [then] shifted their attention to [...] the Third World, today more often called the Global South. [But t]he U.S. lacked the generations-deep, place-based colonial knowledge that Britain and France had." (p. 55.) "The Lawrencian fantasy was that U.S. agents would embed themselves in foreign lands. In reality [...] ambitious foreigners infiltrat[ed] the United States. [A long] list of world leaders [...] trained Stateside [...[. [...] The C.I.A. interfered constantly in foreign politics, but its typical mode wasn't micromanaging; it was subcontracting. [...] For all the heady talk of promoting democracy, more than two-thirds of U.S. covert interventions during the Cold War were in support of authoritarian regimes..." (p. 56.) "As the [1990s] wore on, U.S. leaders grew increasingly alarmed about [Iraq dictator] Saddam's continued military capacities. But intelligence was wanting. [...] The combination of scant knowledge and overweening concern created demand, and [Ahmad] Chalabi arrange[d] the supply. He promoted sources who [falsely] claimed that Saddam was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and had kept working toward nuclear ones. [...] In the end, the C.I.A. has the power to break things, but not the skill to build them. [...] The heart of the issue is the United States' determination to control global affairs." (p. 57.)
Immerwahr, Daniel, "Fort Everywhere: How did the United States become entangled in a cycle of endless war?" (review of David Vine, The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, University of California Press, 2020, 464 pp.), The Nation, December 14/21, 2020, pp.34–37.
Immerwahr, Daniel (2019). How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN978-0-374-17214-5.
Kerry, Richard J. (1990). The Star-Spangled Mirror: America's Image of Itself and the World. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-8476-7649-8.
Khalili, Laleh, "Collective Property, Private Control" (review of Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief and the Future of the West, Bodley Head, February 2025, 295 pp.; and Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff, Unit X: How the Pentagon and Silicon Valley Are Transforming the Future of War, Scribner, August 2024, 319 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 47, no. 10 (June 5, 2025), pp. 21–23. "The United States... has waged a war of some sort in every year of its existence. Silicon Valley knows that war is good for business. And many of its most powerful people want us to stop worrying about frivolities like ethics or ecology and love the bomb.... For the armchair techno-warriors of Silicon Valley, the barbarians at the gate are a useful solution." (p.23.)
Krugman, Paul, "The American Way of Economic War: Is Washington Overusing Its Most Powerful Weapons?" (review of Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, Henry Holt, 2023, 288 pp.), Foreign Affairs, vol. 103, no. 1 (January/February 2024), pp.150–156. "The [U.S.] dollar is one of the few currencies that almost all major banks will accept, and... the most widely used... As a result, the dollar is the currency that many companies must use... to do international business." (p.150.) "[L]ocal banks facilitating that trade... normally... buy U.S. dollars and then use dollars to buy [another local currency]. To do so, however, the banks must have access to the U.S. financial system and... follow rules laid out by Washington." (pp.151–152.) "But there is another, lesser-known reason why the [U.S.] commands overwhelming economic power. Most of the world's fiber-optic cables, which carry data and messages around the planet, travel through the United States." (p.152.) "[T]he U.S. government has installed 'splitters': prisms that divide the beams of light carrying information into two streams. One... goes on to the intended recipients, ... the other goes to the National Security Agency, which then uses high-powered computation to analyze the data. As a result, the [U.S.] can monitor almost all international communication." (p.154) This has allowed the US "to effectively cut Iran out of the world financial system... Iran's economy stagnated... Eventually, Tehran agreed to cut back its nuclear programs in exchange for relief." (pp.153–154.) "[A] few years ago, American officials... were in a panic about [the Chinese company] Huawei... which... seemed poised to supply 5G equipment to much of the planet [thereby possibly] giv[ing] China the power to eavesdrop on the rest of the world – just as the [U.S.] has done.... The [U.S.] learned that Huawei had been dealing surreptitiously with Iran – and therefore violating U.S. sanctions. Then, it... used its special access to information on international bank data to [show] that [Huawei]'s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou (... the founder's daughter), had committed bank fraud by falsely telling the British financial services companyHSBC that her company was not doing business with Iran. Canadian authorities, acting on a U.S. request, arrested her... in December 2018. After... almost three years under house arrest... Meng... was allowed to return to China... But by [then] the prospects for Chinese dominance of 5G had vanished..." (pp.154–155.) Farrell and Newman, writes Krugman, "are worried about the possibility of [U.S. Underground Empire] overreach. [I]f the [U.S.] weaponizes the dollar against too many countries, they might... band together and adopt alternative methods of international payment. If countries become deeply worried about U.S. spying, they could lay fiber-optic cables that bypass the [U.S.]. And if Washington puts too many restrictions on American exports, foreign firms might turn away from U.S. technology." (p.155.)
Lears, Jackson, "The Forgotten Crime of War Itself" (review of Samuel Moyn, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021, 400 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIX, no. 7 (April 21, 2022), pp.40–42. "After September 11 [2001] no politician asked whether the proper response to a terrorist attack should be a US war or an international police action. [...] Debating torture or other abuses, while indisputably valuable, has diverted Americans from 'deliberating on the deeper choice they were making to ignore constraints on starting war in the first place.' [W]ar itself causes far more suffering than violations of its rules." (p.40.)
Lears, Jackson, "Imperial Exceptionalism" (review of Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Empire in Retreat: The Past, Present, and Future of the United States, Yale University Press, 2018, ISBN978-0-300-21000-2, 459 pp.; and David C. Hendrickson, Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition, Oxford University Press, 2017, ISBN978-0190660383, 287 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 2 (February 7, 2019), pp. 8–10. Bulmer-Thomas writes: "Imperial retreat is not the same as national decline, as many other countries can attest. Indeed, imperial retreat can strengthen the nation-state just as imperial expansion can weaken it." (NYRB, cited on p. 10.)
Lundestad, Geir (1998). Empire by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-878212-8.
Shaw, Tamsin, "Ethical Espionage" (review of Calder Walton, Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West, Simon and Schuster, 2023, 672 pp.; and Cécile Fabre, Spying Through a Glass Darkly: The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence, Oxford University Press, 251 pp., 2024), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXI, no. 2 (February 8, 2024), pp. 32, 34–35. "[I]n Walton's view, there was scarcely a US covert action that was a long-term strategic success, with the possible exception of intervention in the Soviet–Afghan War (a disastrous military fiasco for the Soviets) and perhaps support for the anti-Soviet Solidarity movement in Poland." (p. 34.)
Shawn, Wallace, "The End of a Village", The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXI, no 15 (October 3, 2024), pp. 16–17. "[In 1967] Jonathan Schell published 'The Village of Ben Suc' in... The New Yorker, [describing U.S. troops' destruction of that Vietnamese village]. [p. 16.] [The soldiers had] been dropped... into a land that for them was alien [and] strange... where they were surrounded by people whose words, gestures, and expressions they couldn't interpret.... [T]hey had no idea why they were there, and they didn't really know what they were supposed to do there... The Vietnamese revolutionaries were fighting for their own country, for their own families. The Americans were not.... Schell's [subsequent] book could have... led American policymakers to realize that quasi-imperial American interventions [like this] could not succeed in the contemporary world... [M]aybe a million... Vietnamese lives could have been saved, along with the lives of 50,000 American soldiers, along with countless lives in Afghanistan and Iraq." (p. 17.)
Tobar, Héctor, "The Truths of Our American Empire" (review of Jonathan Blitzer, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis, Penguin Press, 523 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXI, no. 7 (April 18, 2024), pp. 43–44, 46. "Blitzer... illustrates the timidity and opportunism of the US political class, which has repeatedly blocked reforms that would allow an orderly and safe flow of workers and their families across the border. After all, our postpandemic economy remains desperately short of workers.... [E]ven if every unemployed person in [the US] found work, roughly three million jobs would go unfilled." (p. 44, 46.) "The use and abuse of immigrant labor as tools of nation building and race engineering is a long-established element of the American normal. Only if you step outside of history does it look like a 'crisis.'" (p. 46.)
Wertheim, Stephen, "The Price of Primacy: Why America Shouldn't Dominate the World", Foreign Affairs, vol. 99, no. 2 (March/April 2020), pp.19–22, 24–29. "The United States should abandon the quest for armed primacy in favor of protecting the planet and creating more opportunity for more people." (p. 20.) "The United States should [...] rally the industrialized world to provide developing countries with technology and financing to bypass fossil fuels." (p. 24.) "[T]he United States should cease acting as a partisan in disputes such as Yemen's civil war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [...]." (p. 27.)
Wertheim, Stephen, "Iraq and the Pathologies of Primacy: The Flawed Logic That Produced the War Is Alive and Well", Foreign Affairs, vol. 102, no. 3 (May/June 2023), pp.136–52. "Washington is still in thrall to primacy and caught in a doom loop, lurching from self-inflicted problems to even bigger self-inflicted problems, holding up the latter while covering up the former. In this sense, the Iraq war remains unfinished business for the United States." (p.152.)
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