American Empire

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History of U.S.
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List of military actions
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American Empire is a controversial term referring to the political, economic, military and cultural influence of the United States. The concept of an American Empire was first popularized in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The sources and proponents of this concept range from classical Marxist theorists of imperialism as a product of capitalism, to modern liberal and conservative theorists opposed to what they take to be aggressive U.S. policy.

Contents

[edit] Definition of empire

Further information: Modern empires,  History of the Philippines (1898-1946) , and  Philippine American War
The cover of Puck from April 6, 1901 Characterizes an Easter bonnet made out of a warship that alludes to the gains of the Spanish-American War.

The term imperialism was coined in the mid-1800s.[1] It was first widely applied to the US by the American Anti-Imperialist League, founded in 1898 to oppose the Spanish-American War and the subsequent post-war military occupation and brutalities committed by US forces in the Philippines.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives three definitions of imperialism: 1. An imperial system of government; the rule of an emperor, esp. when despotic or arbitrary. 2. The principle or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests. 3. Used disparagingly. 3a. In Communist writings: the imperial system or policy of the Western powers. 3b. Used conversely in some Western writings: the Imperial system or policy of the Communist powers.[2]

Debate exists over whether the U.S. is an empire in the politically-charged sense of the latter two definitions. Confusion also exists over the distinction between empire, a form of polity, and imperialism, a form of policy. Nevertheless, many polities that are not empires nonetheless behave imperialistically at times, and vice-versa.

However, the historians Archibald Paton Thorton and Stuart Creighton Miller argue against the very coherence of the concept. Miller argues that the overuse and abuse of the term "imperialism" makes it nearly meaningless as an analytical concept.[3] 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."[4] Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term "hegemony" is better than "empire" to describe the US's role in the world.[5]

William Jennings Bryan, Democratic Party presidential candidate in 1900, said:

“ Imperialism is the policy of an empire, and an empire is a nation composed of different races living under varying forms of government. A republic cannot be an empire, for a republic rests upon the theory that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and colonialism violate this theory….Our experiment in colonialism has been unfortunate. Instead of profit it has brought loss. Instead of strength it has brought weakness. Instead of glory it has brought humiliation.[6] ”

That same year, Mark Twain, a leader and founding member of the American Anti-Imperialist League, wrote:

“ I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.[7] ”

[edit] American exceptionalism

Main article: American exceptionalism
1900 Campaign poster for the Republican Party. "The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory but for humanity's sake.", president William McKinley, July 12, 1900. On one hand, we see how the situation was in 1896, before McKinley's victory during the elections: "Gone Democratic: A run on the bank, Spanish rule in Cuba". On the other hand, we see how the situation was in 1900, after four years of McKinley's rule: "Gone Republican: a run to the bank, American rule in Cuba" (the Spanish-American War took place in 1898).

Stuart Creighton Miller points out that the question of U.S. imperialism has been the subject of agonizing debate ever since the United States acquired formal empire at the end of the nineteenth century during the 1898 Spanish-American War. Miller argues that this agony is because of United States’ sense of innocence, produced by a kind of "immaculate conception" view of United States' origins. In Miller's view, when European settlers came to the United States, they saw themselves as miraculously shedding their old ways upon arrival in the New World, as one might discard old clothing, and fashioning new cultural garments based solely on experiences in a new and vastly different environment. Miller believes that school texts, patriotic media, and patriotic speeches on which Americans have been reared do not stress the origins of America's system of government, that these sources often omit or downplay that the "United States Constitution owes its structure as much to the ideas of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes as to the experiences of the Founding Fathers; that Jeffersonian thought to a great extent paraphrases the ideas of earlier Scottish philosophers; and that even the unique frontier egalitarian has deep roots in seventeenth century English radical traditions."[8]

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 U.S., uniquely, was "proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived."[9]

American exceptionalism is popular among people within the US,[10] but its validity and its consequences are disputed. Miller argues that U.S. citizens fall within three schools of thought about the question whether the United States is imperialistic:

  • Overly self-critical Americans tend to exaggerate the nation’s flaws, failing to place them in historical or worldwide contexts.
  • In the middle are Americans who assert that "Imperialism was an aberration."[11]
  • At the other end of the scale, the tendency of highly nationalist Americans is to deny such abuses and even assert that they could never exist in their country. As a Monthly Review editorial opines on the phenomenon, "in Britain, empire was justified as a benevolent 'white man’s burden'. And in the United States, empire does not even exist; 'we' are merely protecting the causes of freedom, democracy, and justice worldwide."[12]

[edit] Schools of thought

[edit] "Empire at the heart of US foreign policy"

Further information: Military history of the United States, Overseas interventions of the United States
1898 political cartoon: "Ten Thousand Miles From Tip to Tip" meaning the extension of U.S. domination (symbolized by a bald eagle) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. The cartoon contrasts this with a map of the smaller United States 100 years earlier in 1798.

Many Marxists, anarchists, members of the New Left, as well as some conservatives, tend to view US imperialism as both deep-rooted and amoral. Imperialism as US policy, in the view of historians like William Appleman Williams, Howard Zinn, and Gabriel Kolko, traces its beginning not to the Spanish-American War, but to Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory, or even to the displacement of Native Americans prior to the American Revolution, and continues to this day. Historian Sidney Lens argues that "the United States, from the time it gained its own independence, has used every available means—political, economic, and military—to dominate other nations."[13] Numerous U.S. foreign interventions, ranging from early actions under the Monroe Doctrine to 21st-century interventions in the Middle East, are typically described by these authors as imperialistic.

Historian D.W. Meinig argues at length for the use of the words "empire" and "imperial" for the United States, rooted as early as 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 Louisianans were suddenly annexed to the United States without the slightest gesture of interest on the part of either American or France as to how they might feel about it... Louisiana therefore became an unexpected experiment in empire... It began to give the word empire another and not altogether comfortable connotation for America: not just a theoretical term... but an America that included a bloc of captive peoples of foreign culture who had not chosen to be Americas." He also argues that U.S. policy toward Native American Indians was blatantly imperialistic, especially the Indian Removals under which entire peoples were moved to "specified reserves in an entirely different part of the empire" and resettled "under a program designed to remold them into into a people more appropriately conformed to imperial desires." Another example given is the military occupation and reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War.[14]

The conservative critique of US imperialism has been identified with historians such as Charles Beard and Andrew Bacevich, part of a tradition of non-interventionism, often referred to derogatorily as "isolationism". While Beard believed that American policy had been driven by self-interested expansionism as far back as the writing of the Constitution, many conservative critics of imperialism have a more positive view of America's early era. Writer and politician Patrick Buchanan argues that the modern United States' drive to empire is "far from what the Founding Fathers had intended the young Republic to become."[15] A conservative anti-imperialism is defended both by some on the Old Right, such as Buchanan, and by libertarians such as Justin Raimondo.

For both leftists and conservatives, a critical historical view is typically continued to present US foreign policy. 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.[16] 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.[17] Marxist sociologist John Bellamy Foster argues, in fact, that the United States' sole-superpower status makes it now the most dangerous world imperialist.[18]

Lens describes American exceptionalism as a myth, which allows any number of "excesses and cruelties, though sometimes admitted, usually [to be] regarded as momentary aberrations."[19] Linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky argues, like many, 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.[20] "Domination of the media", according to Chomsky, allows an elite to "fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the definition of what is newsworthy in the first place."[21]

[edit] U.S. military bases abroad as a form of empire

Further information: List of United States military bases
A map of key allies of the United States
     NATO and NORAD member states, including their colonies and overseas possessions      Major non-NATO allies, plus Republic of China (Taiwan)      Signatories of Partnership for Peace with NATO

After WWII, the US allowed many of its overseas territories or occupations to gain independence. The Philippines (1946), the Federated States of Micronesia (1986), Marshall Islands (1986), and Palau (1994) are examples. Some, such as Guam, and Puerto Rico, remain under U.S. control without all the rights and benefits of statehood. However, of those former possessions granted independence, most continue to have U.S. bases inside their territories, sometimes despite local popular opinion, as in the case of Okinawa.[22]

Proponents of the idea that the U.S. is an empire point to the multiplicity of United States military bases abroad as evidence. As of 2003, the United States had bases in over 36 countries worldwide.[23] Some see another sign of an empire in the Unified Combatant Command, a military group composed of forces from two or more services that has the entire world divided into six areas of military responsibility. Chalmers Johnson argues that America's version of the colony is the military base.[24] Chip Pitts argues similarly that enduring U.S. bases in Iraq suggest a vision of "Iraq as a colony".[25] In this context, it is interesting to note that certain historians of the British Empire have emphasised that, prior to 1850, official government policy was generally in favour of acquiring military (especially naval) bases overseas but opposed to the government-backed acquisition of new colonial territories. It is seldom doubted, however, that British policy pre-1850 was nevertheless essentially imperial in nature. [26]

[edit] Theories of U.S. empire

Though writers of diverse politics share a conception of the US as an empire, and describe many of the same policies and institutions as evidence of empire, even within the ranks of anti-imperialists explanations for US imperialism vary widely. Journalist Ashley Smith divides theories of the U.S. as an empire into 5 broad categories: "liberal" theories, "social-democratic" theories, "Leninist" theories, theories of "super-imperialism", and "Hardt-and-Negri-ite" theories.[27] Smith's categories follow.

A "liberal" theory asserts that imperial policies are the products of particular elected politicians (e.g. James K. Polk)[28] or political movements (e.g. neo-conservatism: the Bush Doctrine and other recent controversies[29][30][31][32]). It holds that these policies are not the natural result of U.S. political or economic structures, and are hostile and inimical to true US interests and values. This is the original position of Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League and is held today by a number of Democrats, who criticize the claimed imperialism and propose the election of officials opposed to it as a solution, notably Ramsey Clark among others.

A "social-democratic" theory asserts that imperialistic U.S. policies are the products of the excessive influence of certain sectors of U.S. 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 the looting of natural resources, often at the expense of the public interest.[33] The proposed solution is typically unceasing popular vigilance in order to apply counter-pressure.[34] The left-leaning Johnson holds a version of this view; other versions are typically held by conservative anti-interventionists, such as Beard, Bacevich, Buchanan, Raimondo, and, most notably, journalist John T. Flynn and Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler who wrote

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and 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 benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might 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."[35]

A "Leninist" theory asserts that imperialistic U.S. policies are the products of the unified interest of the predominant sectors of U.S. business, which need to ensure and manipulate export markets for both goods and capital.[36] Business, on this Marxist view, essentially controls government, and international military competition is simply an extension of international economic competition, both driven by the inherently expansionist nature of capitalism.[37] The proposed solution is typically revolutionary economic change.[38] The theory was first systematized during the World War I by Russian Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin and Nikolai Bukharin, although their work was based on that of earlier Marxists, socialists, and anarchists.[39] Chomsky, Foster, Kolko, Lens, Williams, Zinn, Marxist anthropologist David Harvey, and, most notably, Indian writer Arundhati Roy each hold some version of this view, as does Smith himself.

A theory of "super-imperialism" asserts that imperialistic U.S. policies driven not simply by the interests of American businesses, but by the interests of the economic elites of a global alliance of developed countries. Capitalism in Europe, the U.S., and Japan has become too entangled, in this view, to permit military or geopolitical conflict between these countries, and the central conflict in modern imperialism is between the global core and the global periphery rather than between imperialist powers. Political scientists Leo Panitch and Samuel Gindin hold versions of this view.[40][41][42][43] Lenin argued this view was wishful thinking.[44]

A "Hardt-and-Negri-ite" theory is closely related to the theory of "super-imperialism", but has a different conception of power. According to political theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the world has passed the era of imperialism and entered a new era. Hardt and Negri no longer hold that the world has already entered the new era of Empire, but only that it is emerging. According to Hardt, the Iraq War is a classically imperialist war, but represents the last gasp of a doomed strategy. [45] This new era still has colonizing power, but it has moved from national military forces based on an economy of physical goods to networked biopower based on an informational and affective economy. On this view, the U.S. is central to the development and constitution of a new global regime of international power and sovereignty, termed "Empire", but the "Empire" is decentralized and global, and not ruled by one sovereign state; "the United States 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."[46] Hardt and Negri draw on the theories of Spinoza, Foucault, Deleuze, and Italian autonomist marxists.[47][48] Many in the traditions of postcolonialism, postmodernism and globalization theory hold related views.

[edit] "US empire never existed"

This section requires expansion.

Many[weasel words] citizens of the United States, however, defend the historical role of the US against allegations of imperialism.[citation needed] This is especially common[citation needed] among prominent mainstream political figures such as former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for example, who said: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been."[49]

Stuart Creighton Miller states that this interpretation is no longer heard very often by historians.[50]

Claims that the US empire never existed can be considered a total fallacy since by definition "empire" directly means: A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority. The United States was created when a number of independent states were forced to align under one government, which is characteristic of many political units considered by current scholarship to be empires.

[edit] "The Benevolent Empire"

Military historian Max Boot defends US actions in the Philippines, claiming that the "atrocities" committed there were relatively insignificant in scope and circumstance, and defending the US motives, which he views as well-intentioned and ultimately beneficial for both America and the Philippines.

Boot argues that the United States altruistically went to war with Spain to liberate Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Filipinos from their tyrannical yoke. If US troops lingered on too long in the Philippines, it was to protect the Filipinos from European predators waiting in the wings for American withdrawal and to tutor them in American-style democracy. In the Philippines, the US followed its usual pattern:

"the United States would set up a constabulary, a quasi-military police force led by Americans and made up of local enlisted men. Then the Americans would work with local officials to administer a variety of public services, from vaccinations and schools to tax collection. American officials, though often resented, usually proved more efficient and less venal than their native predecessors... Holding fair elections became a top priority because once a democratically elected government was installed, the Americans felt they could withdraw."

Boot argues that this was far from "the old-fashioned imperialism bent on looting nations of their natural resources." Just as with Iraq and Afghanistan, "some of the poorest countries on the planet", in the early 20th century:

"The United States was least likely to intervene in those nations (such as Argentina and Costa Rica) where American investors held the biggest stakes. The longest occupations were undertaken in precisely those countries--Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic--where the United States had the smallest economic stakes... Unlike the Dutch in the East Indies, the British in Malaya, or the French in Indochina, the Americans left virtually no legacy of economic exploitation."[51]

But Boot in fact is willing to use the term "imperialism" to describe United States policy, not only in the early 20th century but "since at least 1803". This marks a difference in terminology rather than a difference of fundamental historical interpretation from observers who deny that the US has ever been an empire, since Boot still argues that US foreign policy has been consistently benevolent.[52] Boot is not alone; as columnist Charles Krauthammer puts it, "People are now coming out of the closet on the word 'empire.'" This embrace of empire is made by many 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 scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Michael Ignatieff.[53]

For example, British historian Niall Ferguson, a professor at Harvard University, argues that the United States is an empire, but believes that this is a good thing. Ferguson has drawn parallels between the British Empire and the imperial role of the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, though he describes the United States' political and social structures as more like those of the Roman Empire than of the British. Ferguson argues that all 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.[54]

[edit] "Empire was an aberration"

Another point of view admits United States expansion overseas as imperialistic, but sees this imperialism as a temporary phenomenon, a corruption of American ideals or the relic of a past historical 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.[55] Historian Walter LaFeber sees the Spanish-American War expansionism not as an aberration, but as a culmination of United States expansion westward.[56] But both agree that the end of the occupation of the Philippines marked the end of US empire - they deny that present United States foreign policy is imperialist.

The United States Information Agency writes:

"With the exception of the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, American territory had remained fixed since 1848. In the 1890s a new spirit of expansion took hold... Yet Americans, who had themselves thrown off the shackles of empire, were not comfortable with administering one. In 1902 American troops left Cuba... The Philippines obtained... complete independence in 1946. Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth... and Hawaii became a state in 1959."[57]

Historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the US does not pursue world domination, but maintains worldwide influence by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges:

"If we really are imperial, we rule over a very funny sort of empire... The United States hasn't annexed anyone's soil since the Spanish-American War... Imperial powers order and subjects obey. But in our case, we offer the Turks strategic guarantees, political support — and money... Isolationism, parochialism, and self-absorption are far stronger in the American character than desire for overseas adventurism."[58]

Liberal internationalists argue that even though the present world order is dominated by the United States, the form taken by that dominance is not imperial. International relations scholar John Ikenberry argues that international institutions have taken the place of empire;

"the United States has pursued imperial policies, especially toward weak countries in the periphery. But U.S. relations with Europe, Japan, China, and Russia cannot be described as imperial... the use or threat of force is unthinkable. Their economies are deeply interwoven... they form a political order built on bargains, diffuse reciprocity, and an array of intergovernmental institutions and ad hoc working relationships. This is not empire; it is a U.S.-led democratic political order that has no name or historical antecedent."[59]

I.R. 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 United States, the prestige and corresponding high proportion of foreign students at US universities, and the spread of US styles of popular music and cinema. Thus the US, no matter how hegemonic, is no longer an empire in the classic sense.

[edit] Factors unique to "age of imperialism"

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A variety of factors may have coincided during the "Age of Imperialism" (the later part of the nineteenth century, when the US and the other major powers rapidly expanded their territorial possessions) to spur on American expansion abroad:

[edit] Cultural imperialism

The controversy regarding the issue of US cultural imperialism is largely separate from the debate about US military imperialism; however, some critics of imperialism argue that cultural imperialism is not independent from military imperialism. Edward Said, one of the original scholars to study post-colonial theory, argues that,

“ 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.[61] ”

He believes non-US citizens, particularly non-Westerners, are usually thought of within the US in a tacitly racist manner, in a way that allows imperialism to be justified through such ideas as the White Man's Burden.[62]

Scholars who disagree with the theory of US cultural imperialism or the theory of cultural imperialism in general argue that what is regarded as cultural imperialism by many is not connected to any kind of military domination, which has been the traditional means of empire. International relations scholar David Rothkop argues that cultural imperialism is the innocent result of 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. A worldwide fascination with the United States has not been forced on anyone in ways similar to what is traditionally described as an empire, differentiating it from the actions of the British Empire--see the Opium Wars--and other more easily identified empires throughout history. Rothkop identifies the desire to preserve the "purity" of one's culture as xenophobic.[63] Matthew Fraser has a similar analysis, but argues further that the global cultural influence of the US is a good thing.[64]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary (1989). "imperialism". http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50112912?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=imperial&first=1&max_to_show=10. Retrieved on 2006-04-12. 
  2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary (1989). "empire". http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50112914?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=imperialism&first=1&max_to_show=10. Retrieved on 2006-04-12. 
  3. ^ Miller, Stuart Creighton (1982). "Benevolent Assimilation" The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02697-8. http://www.livejournal.com/users/bailey83221/4300.html#miller.  p. 3.
  4. ^ Thornton, Archibald Paton (September 1978). Imperialism in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-24848-1. 
  5. ^ Walzer, Michael. "Is There an American Empire?". www.freeindiamedia.com. http://www.freeindiamedia.com/america/5_jan_04_america2.htm. Retrieved on 2006-06-10. 
  6. ^ Robert McHenry (October 29th, 2008), The ‘08 Campaign, Part II (1908, that is), britannica.com, http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/the-08-campaign-part-ii/, retrieved on 2008-11-11 
  7. ^ Mark Twain (October 15, 1900.), letter to the editor, New York Herald 
  8. ^ Miller (1982), op. cit. p. 1.
  9. ^ Kellner, Douglas (2003-04-25). "American Exceptionalism". http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american-exceptionalism.htm. Retrieved on 2006-02-20. 
  10. ^ Edwords, Frederick (November/December 1987). "The religious character of American patriotism. It's time to recognize our traditions and answer some hard questions.". The Humanist (p. 20-24, 36). 
  11. ^ Miller (1982), op. cit. p. 1-3.
  12. ^ Magdoff, Harry; John Bellamy Foster (November 2001). "After the Attack...The War on Terrorism". Monthly Review 53 (6): 7. http://www.monthlyreview.org/1101edit.htm. 
  13. ^ Lens, Sidney (2003). The Forging of the American Empire. Haymarket Books and Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-2100-3.  Book jacket.
  14. ^ Meinig, D.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. ISBN 0-300-05658-3. 
  15. ^ Buchanan, Patrick (1999). A Republic, Not and Empire. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 0-89526-272-X.  p. 165.
  16. ^ Bacevich, Andrew (2004). American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01375-1. 
  17. ^ ERIC SCHMITT, "Washington at Work; Ex-Cold Warrior Sees the Future as 'Up for Grabs'" The New York Times December 23, 1991.
  18. ^ Foster, John Bellamy (July-August 2003). "The New Age of Imperialism". Monthly Review. http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703jbf.htm. 
  19. ^ Lens (2003), op. cit. Book jacket.
  20. ^ Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years' Crisis 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 1939.
  21. ^ Chomsky, Noam (1988). Manufacturing Consent. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-71449-9. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html. 
  22. ^ Patrick Smith, International Herald Tribune, March 6, 1998, http://www.iht.com/articles/1998/03/06/edsmith.t_0.php
  23. ^ "Base Structure Report" (PDF). USA Department of Defense. 2003. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2003/basestructure2003.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-01-23. 
  24. ^ America's Empire of Bases
  25. ^ Pitts, Chip (November 8, 2006). "The Election on Empire". The National Interest. http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=12930. 
  26. ^ See, for example, Bernard Porter The Lion's Share
  27. ^ Smith, Ashley (June 24, 2006). "The Classical Marxist Theory of Imperialism". Socialism 2006. 
  28. ^ who threatened war with Britain and caused the Mexican–American War by annexing Texas and all its territory disputed with Mexico
  29. ^ CNN: Putin accuses U.S. of orchestrating Georgian war, September 12, 2008
  30. ^ CNN: Bolivian president calls for ouster of U.S. ambassador, September 12, 2008
  31. ^ CNN: Venezuela to expel US ambassador over coup plot, September 12, 2008
  32. ^ TIME: U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy given 72 hours to leave Venezuela, September 12, 2008
  33. ^ C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War Three, Simon and Schuster, 1958, pp. 52, 111
  34. ^ Flynn, John T. (1944) As We Go Marching.
  35. ^ Butler, Common Sense, 1935.
  36. ^ Lenin, Vladimir (1916) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
  37. ^ "Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?" - Woodrow Wilson, September 11, 1919, St. Louis.The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), vol. 63, pp. 45–46.
  38. ^ Communist_Manifesto#10_Conditions_For_Transition_To_Communism
  39. ^ Ibid. Lenin.
  40. ^ Leo Panitch, "What you need to know about May Day"
  41. ^ Leo Panitch, "Whose Violence? Imperial State Security and the Global Justice Movement" Jan, 2005
  42. ^ Leo Panitch, "Putting the U.S. Economic Crisis in Perspective" Jan. 31, 2008
  43. ^ Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, "The Current Crisis: A Socialist Perspective" Sept. 30, 2008
  44. ^ BRIAN JONES, "Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism" International Socialist Review Issue 44, November–December 2005
  45. ^ Hardt, Michael (July 13, 2006). "From Imperialism to Empire". The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/hardt/3. 
  46. ^ Negri, Antonio; Hardt, Michael (2000). Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-00671-2. http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/negri/.  p. xiii-xiv.
  47. ^ Michael Hardt, Gilles Deleuze: an Apprenticeship in Philosophy, ISBN 0-8166-2161-6
  48. ^ Autonomist_marxism#Italian_autonomism
  49. ^ Bookman, Jay (June 25, 2003). "Let's just say it's not an empire". Atlanta Journal-Constitution. http://www.dailykos.net/archives/003167.html. 
  50. ^ Miller (1982), op. cit. p. 136.
  51. ^ Boot, Max (November 2003). "Neither New nor Nefarious: The Liberal Empire Strikes Back". Current History 102 (667). http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/boot.htm. [copyvio source?]
  52. ^ Boot, Max (May 6, 2003). "American Imperialism? No Need to Run Away From the Label". USA Today. http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=5934. 
  53. ^ Heer, Jeet (March 23, 2003). "Operation Anglosphere". Boston Globe. http://www.jeetheer.com/politics/anglosphere.htm. 
  54. ^ Ferguson, Niall (June 2, 2005). Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-101700-7. 
  55. ^ Miller (1982), op. cit. p. 3.
  56. ^ Lafeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9048-0. 
  57. ^ ed. George Clack (September 1997). "A brief history of the United States". A Portrait of the USA. United States Information Agency. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/factover/ch3.htm. Retrieved on 2006-03-20. 
  58. ^ Hanson, Victor Davis (November 2002). "A Funny Sort of Empire". National Review. http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson112702.asp. 
  59. ^ Ikenberry, G. John (March/April 2004). "Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order". Foreign Affairs. http://fullaccess.foreignaffairs.org/20040301fareviewessay83212a/g-john-ikenberry/illusions-of-empire-defining-the-new-american-order.html. 
  60. ^ Thomas Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", p. 381, and Manfred Steger, "Globalism: The New Market Ideology," and Jeff Faux, "Flat Note from the Pied Piper of Globalization," Dissent, Fall 2005, pp. 64-67.
  61. ^ Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism, speech at York University, Toronto, February 10, 1993.
  62. ^ Idem.
  63. ^ Rothkop, David (June 22, 1997). "Globalization and Culture". Foreign Policy. http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/globcult.htm. 
  64. ^ Fraser, Matthew (2005). Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire. St. Martin's Press. 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: American Imperialism
Sister project Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: American benevolence
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