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{{Short description|Expansion of American political, economic, and military influence}}
{{Other uses|American Empire (disambiguation){{!}}American Empire}}
{{Redirect|American hegemony|the most relevant time period|Hegemony#21st century}}
{{Original research|reason=Many of the sources do not refer to "imperialism".|date=August 2024}}
[[File:10000 Miles From Tip to Tip 1899 Cornell CUL PJM 1133 01 (enhanced).jpg|thumb|right|1898 [[political cartoon]]: "Ten thousand miles from tip to tip." referring to the expansion of American domination (symbolized by a [[Bald eagle#National bird of the United States|bald eagle]]) from [[Captaincy General of Puerto Rico|Puerto Rico]] to the [[Captaincy General of the Philippines|Philippines]] following the [[Spanish–American War]]; the cartoon contrasts this with a map showing the significantly smaller size of the [[United States]] in 1798, exactly 100 years earlier.]]
[[File:American Empire1.PNG|upright=1.5|thumb|Map of the United States and directly controlled territories at its greatest extent from 1898 to 1902, after the [[Spanish–American War]]]]
{{American imperialism}}
'''U.S. imperialism''' or '''American imperialism''' is the expansion of political, economic, cultural, media, and military influence beyond the boundaries of the [[United States]]. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright military conquest; military protection; [[gunboat diplomacy]]; [[unequal treaties]]; subsidization of preferred factions; [[United States involvement in regime change|regime change]]; economic or diplomatic support; or economic penetration through private companies, potentially followed by [[Interventionism (politics)|diplomatic or forceful intervention]] when those interests are threatened.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carson |first1=Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q6UYAAAAIAAJ |title=Gale encyclopedia of US economic history |last2=Bonk |first2=Mary |publisher=[[Gale (publisher)|Gale Group]] |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-7876-3888-7 |pages=467–469}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Xypolia |first=Ilia |url=https://link.springer.com/978-3-030-99815-8 |title=Human Rights, Imperialism, and Corruption in US Foreign Policy |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2022 |isbn=978-3-030-99815-8 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-99815-8|s2cid=248384134}}</ref>

The policies perpetuating American imperialism and expansionism are usually considered to have begun with "[[New Imperialism]]" in the late 19th century,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://theconversation.com/yes-the-us-had-an-empire-and-in-the-virgin-islands-it-still-does-73567|title=Yes, the US has an empire – and in the Virgin Islands, it still does|last=Bryne|first=Alex|website=The Conversation|date=30 March 2017 |language=en|access-date=2019-02-02}}</ref> though some consider [[American territorial expansion]] and [[settler colonialism]] at the expense of [[Indigenous peoples|Indigenous Americans]] to be similar enough in nature to be identified with the same term.<ref>{{cite book|last=Immerwahr|first=Daniel|title=How to Hide an Empire : A Short History of the Greater United States|url=https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Daniel_Immerwahr_How_to_Hide_an_Empire?id=GYtbDwAAQBAJ|year=2019|publisher=Vintage Publishing|isbn=978-1-84792-399-8|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=e16RDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24 24]}}</ref> While the United States has never officially identified itself and its territorial possessions as an empire, some commentators have referred to the country as such, including [[Max Boot]], [[Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.]], and [[Niall Ferguson]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/american-empire-not-if-but-what-kind/|title=American Empire, Not 'If' but 'What Kind'|first=Ivo H. Daalder and James M.|last=Lindsay|date=2001-11-30}}</ref> Other commentators have accused the United States of practicing [[neocolonialism]]—sometimes defined as a modern form of [[hegemony]]—which leverages economic power rather than military force in an [[informal empire]]; the term "neocolonialism" has occasionally been used as a contemporary synonym for [[Theories of imperialism|modern-day imperialism]].

The question of whether the United States should intervene in the affairs of foreign countries has been a much-debated topic in domestic politics for the country's entire history.
Opponents of interventionism have pointed to the country's origin as [[American Revolution|a former colony that rebelled against an overseas king]], as well as the American values of democracy, freedom, and independence.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}
Conversely, supporters of interventionism and of American presidents who have attacked foreign countries—most notably [[Andrew Jackson]], [[James K. Polk]], [[William McKinley]], [[Woodrow Wilson]], [[Theodore Roosevelt]], and [[William Howard Taft]]—have justified their interventions in (or whole seizures of) various countries by citing the necessity of advancing American economic interests, such as trade and debt management; preventing European intervention (colonial or otherwise) in the [[Western Hemisphere]], manifested in the anti-European [[Monroe Doctrine]] of 1823; and the benefits of keeping "good order" around the world.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

== History ==

=== Overview ===
[[File:U.S. Territorial Acquisitions.png|thumb|[[Territorial evolution of the United States|U.S. westward expansion]]{{endash}}portions of each territory were granted statehood since the 18th century.]]
[[File:Mitchell A New Map of Texas, Oregon, and California 1846 UTA.jpg|thumb|''A New Map of Texas, Oregon, and California'', [[Samuel Augustus Mitchell]], 1846]]

Despite periods of peaceful co-existence in the early 1600s, [[American Indian Wars|wars with Native Americans]] resulted in substantial territorial gains for American colonists who were expanding into native land. Wars with the Native Americans continued intermittently [[American Revolutionary War|after independence]], and an [[ethnic cleansing]] campaign known as [[Indian removal]] gained for [[European Americans|European American]] [[settler]]s more valuable territory on the eastern side of the continent.

[[George Washington]], a founding father and first president of the United States, began a policy of [[United States non-interventionism]] which lasted into the 1800s. The United States promulgated the [[Monroe Doctrine]] in 1823, in order to stop further European colonialism in the Latin America. Desire for territorial expansion to the Pacific Ocean was explicit in the idea of [[manifest destiny]]. The giant [[Louisiana Purchase]] was peaceful, but the [[Mexican Cession|annexation of {{convert|525,000|sqmi|km2}} of Mexican territory]] was the result of the [[Mexican–American War]] of 1846.

The [[Cold War]] reoriented American foreign policy towards opposing communism, and prevailing U.S. foreign policy embraced its role as a nuclear-armed global superpower. Through the [[Truman Doctrine]] and [[Reagan Doctrine]] the United States framed the mission as protecting free peoples against an undemocratic system, anti-Soviet foreign policy became coercive and occasionally covert. [[United States involvement in regime change]] included [[1953 Iranian coup d'état|overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran]], the [[Bay of Pigs invasion]] in Cuba, occupation of [[Grenada]], and interference in various foreign elections. The long and bloody [[Vietnam War]] led to widespread criticism of an "[[J. William Fulbright#Vietnam War|arrogance of power]]" and [[United States war crimes#Vietnam War|violations of international law]] emerging from an "[[imperial presidency]]," with [[Martin Luther King Jr.]], among others, accusing the US of a [[Martin Luther King Jr.#Opposition to the Vietnam War|new form of colonialism]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/beyond-vietnam|title=Beyond Vietnam|last1=University|first1=© Stanford|last2=Stanford|date=2017-04-25|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute|language=en|access-date=2019-05-09|last3=California 94305}}</ref>

In terms of territorial acquisition, the United States has integrated (with voting rights) all of its acquisitions on the North American continent, including the non-contiguous [[Alaska]]. Hawaii has also become a state with equal representation to the mainland, but other island jurisdictions acquired during wartime remain territories, namely [[Guam]], [[Puerto Rico]], the [[United States Virgin Islands]], [[American Samoa]], and the [[Northern Mariana Islands]]. (The federal government officially [[Apology Resolution|apologized for the overthrow of the Hawaiian government]] in 1993.) The remainder of acquired territories have become independent with varying degrees of cooperation, ranging from three [[freely associated states]] which participate in federal government programs in exchange for military basing rights, to Cuba which severed diplomatic relations during the Cold War. The United States was a public advocate for European [[decolonization]] after World War II (having started a ten-year independence transition for the Philippines in 1934 with the [[Tydings–McDuffie Act]]).  Even so, the US desire for an informal system of global [[Grand strategy#Primacy|primacy]] in an "[[American Century]]" often brought them into conflict with [[national liberation movements]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/ushistory2ay/chapter/decolonization-and-the-global-reach-of-the-american-century-2/|title=Decolonization and the Global Reach of the 'American Century' {{!}} US History II (American Yawp)|website=courses.lumenlearning.com|access-date=2019-04-29}}</ref> The United States has now [[Indian Citizenship Act|granted citizenship to Native Americans]] and recognizes some degree of [[Tribal sovereignty in the United States|tribal sovereignty]].

=== 1700s–1800s: Indigenous American Wars and manifest destiny ===
{{Further|American Indian Wars|Empire of Liberty|Monroe Doctrine|Manifest destiny}}
[[File:School Begins (Puck Magazine 1-25-1899).jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|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 U.S. 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 (historian)|Paul Kennedy]] has asserted, "From the time the first settlers arrived in [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia]] from [[Kingdom of England|England]] and started moving westward, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation."<ref name="Trends 2002">Emily Eakin "Ideas and Trends: All Roads Lead To DC" New York Times, March 31, 2002.</ref> Expanding on George Washington's description of the early United States as an "infant empire",<ref>[http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9118.pdf Contending with the American Empire  : Introduction].</ref> Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Hence the Prince that acquires new Territory, if he finds it vacant, or removes the Natives to give his own People Room; the Legislator that makes effectual Laws for promoting of Trade, increasing Employment, improving Land by more or better Tillage; providing more Food by Fisheries; securing Property, etc. and the Man that invents new Trades, Arts or Manufactures, or new Improvements in Husbandry, may be properly called Fathers of their Nation, as they are the Cause of the Generation of Multitudes, by the Encouragement they afford to Marriage."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.columbia.edu/~lmg21/ash3002y/earlyac99/documents/observations.html|title=Franklin's "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind... "|website=www.columbia.edu}}</ref> Thomas Jefferson asserted in 1786 that the United States "must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North & South is to be peopled. [...] The navigation of the Mississippi we must have. This is all we are as yet ready to receive.".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00071|title=Envisaging the West: Thomas Jefferson and the Roots of Lewis and Clark|website=jeffersonswest.unl.edu}}</ref> From the left [[Noam Chomsky]] writes that "the United States is the one country that exists, as far as I know, and ever has, that was founded as an empire explicitly".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://chomsky.info/20080424/|title=Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond|website=chomsky.info}}</ref><ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/7PdJ9TAdTdA Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20111216145412/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PdJ9TAdTdA Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PdJ9TAdTdA|title=Noam Chomsky Lectures on Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond|last=Boston University|date=7 April 2010|access-date=20 February 2019|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

A national drive for territorial acquisition across the continent was popularized in the 19th century as the ideology of manifest destiny.<ref>"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."{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Manifest-Destiny|title=Manifest Destiny {{!}} History, Examples, & Significance|website=Encyclopædia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2019-09-17}}</ref> The policy of settlement of land was a foundational goal of the United States of America, with one of the driving factors of discontent with British rule originating from the [[Royal Proclamation of 1763]], which barred settlement west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]].{{sfnp|Holton|1999|pages=3–38|loc=[https://archive.org/details/forcedfoundersin00holt/page/3]}} As part of the desire of Manifest Destiny to open up land for American settlement came campaigns in the Great Lakes region which saw the United States fight the [[Northwestern Confederacy]] resulting in the [[Northwest Indian War]]. Subsequent treaties such as the [[Treaty of Greenville]] and the [[Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809)]] resulted in a rise of Anti-American sentiment among the Native Americans in the Great Lakes region, which helped to create [[Tecumseh's Confederacy]] which was defeated by the end of the [[War of 1812]]. The [[Indian Removal Act]] of 1830 culminated in the deportation of 60,000 Native Americans in an event known as the [[Trail of Tears]], where up to 16,700 people died in an act of [[ethnic cleansing]]. The deportation of Natives West of the Mississippi, resulted in significant economic gains for settlers. For example, the [[Arkansas]] firm, Byrd and Belding earned up to $27,000 in two years through supplying food.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Manzo|first1=Joseph|date= 1984 |title= Economic Aspects of Indian Removal|journal=Southeastern Geographer |volume= 24 |issue=2 |pages= 117|doi=10.1353/sgo.1984.0012 |s2cid=129757742 }}</ref> The policy of Manifest Destiny would continue to be realized with the [[Mexican–American War]] of 1846, which resulted in the [[Mexican Cession|cession of {{convert|525,000|sqmi|km2}} of Mexican territory to the United States]], stretching up to the Pacific coast.<ref name="lens">{{cite book |last1=Lens|first1=Sidney|author-link1=Sidney Lens|last2=Zinn|first2=Howard |title=The Forging of the American Empire|publisher=Pluto Press|location=London|year=2003|orig-year=1971 |isbn=0-7453-2100-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qvLfIHqkOOAC}}</ref><ref name="Field 644–668">{{cite journal |title=American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter i Almost Any Book |last=Field | first=James A. Jr. |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=83 |issue=3 |date=June 1978 |pages=644–668 |doi=10.2307/1861842 |jstor=1861842}}</ref>  The [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig Party]] strongly opposed this war and expansionism generally.<ref>{{cite book|editor=Spencer Tucker|title=The Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War: A Political, Social, and Military History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FZVQcZpic-8C&pg=PA514|year=2012|publisher=ABC-CLIO|page=514|isbn=9781851098538}}</ref>

Following the American victory over Mexico, colonization and settlement of California would begin which would soon lead to the [[California genocide]]. Estimates of total deaths in the genocide vary greatly from 2,000<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.newsweek.com/2016/08/26/california-native-americans-genocide-490824.html |title= California Slaughter: The State-Sanctioned Genocide of Native Americans |last=Nazaryan |first=Alexander |date=17 August 2016 |website= Newsweek Magazine |access-date= 16 August 2023 |quote=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.}}</ref> to 100,000.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nahc.ca.gov/resources/california-indian-history/|title= SHORT OVERVIEW OF CALIFORNIA INDIAN HISTORY |last=Castillo |first=Edward |date=1 June 2019 |access-date=16 August 2023 |archive-date=1 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601001113/http://nahc.ca.gov/resources/california-indian-history/ |url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> The discovery of Gold in California resulted in an influx of settlers, who formed militias to kill and displace Indigenous peoples.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Gold Rush Impact on Native Tribes |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-value-land/ |access-date=16 August 2023 |publisher=PBS: The American Experience |archive-date=May 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003136/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-value-land/ |url-status=live}}</ref> The government of California supported expansion and settlement through the passage of the [[Act for the Government and Protection of Indians]] which legalized the enslavement of Native Americans and allowed settlers to capture and force them into labor.<ref>{{cite book |last=Madley |first=Benjamin |date=2016 |chapter=The Yuma Massacres, Western Genocide, and U.S. Colonization of Indigenous Mexico |title=An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8dYTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 |location=Yale |publisher=Yale University Press |page=147 |isbn=978-0-19-921140-1 |access-date=16 August 2023 |archive-date=April 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426065805/https://books.google.com/books?id=8dYTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="PBS-GR">{{cite web |title=The Gold Rush: Act for the Government and Protection of Indians |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-act-for-government-and-protection-of-indians/ |website=PBS: The American Experience |access-date=16 August 2023 |archive-date=June 5, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605203358/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/goldrush-act-for-government-and-protection-of-indians/ |url-status=live }}</ref> California further offered and paid bounties for the killing of Native Americans.<ref name="Madley">{{cite journal |last1=Madley |first1=Benjamin |title=California's Yuki Indians: Defining Genocide in Native American History |journal=Western Historical Quarterly |date=Autumn 2008 |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=303–332 |doi=10.1093/whq/39.3.303 |jstor=25443732 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25443732 |access-date=16 August 2023 |archive-date=February 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211133558/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25443732 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851), the Indian territories.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Indian land as defined by the Treaty of Fort Laramie]]

American expansion in the Great Plains resulted in conflict between many tribes West of the Mississippi and the United States. In 1851, the [[Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851|Treaty of Fort Laramie]] was signed, which 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 White settlers, but following the discovery of gold in the region, settlers began to pour into the territory. In 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the [[Treaty of Fort Wise]]  which saw the loss of 90% of their land.<ref name="greene-27">Greene, 2004, p. 27</ref> The refusal of various warriors to recognise the treaty resulted in white settlers starting to believe that war was coming. The subsequent [[Colorado War]] would result in the [[Sand Creek Massacre]] in which up to 600 Cheyenne were killed, most of whom were children and women. On October 14, 1865, the chiefs of what remained of the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos agreed to live south of the Arkansas, sharing land that belonged to the Kiowas,<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Dee |author-link= |date=1971 |title=Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee |url=https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Bury-My-Heart-at-Wounded-Knee.pdf|page=68 |isbn=}}</ref> and thereby relinquish all claims in the Colorado territory.

[[Image:Siouxreservationmap.png|thumb|350px|Map showing the Great Sioux Reservation and current reservations]]

Following the victory of [[Red Cloud]] in [[Red Cloud's War]] over the United States, the [[Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)]] 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 surge of White settlement in the region. The gold rush was very profitable for the White settlers and the American government, with just one of the Black Hill Mines yielding $500 Million in gold.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Dee |author-link= |date=1971 |title=Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee |url=https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Bury-My-Heart-at-Wounded-Knee.pdf|page=177 |isbn=}}</ref> Attempts to purchase the land failed, and the [[Great Sioux War]] began as a result. Despite initial success by Native Americans in the war's first few battles, most notably the [[Battle of the Little Bighorn]], the United States eventually won and ended the reservation, carving it up into smaller reservations. The reservation system did not just serve as a way to facilitate American settlement and expansion of land, but also enriched local merchants and businesses who held significant economic power over the Native tribes. Traders would often accept payment for goods via annuity money from land sales<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.mpm.edu/content/wirp/ICW-146 | title=The Fur Trade &#124; Milwaukee Public Museum }}</ref> contributing to further poverty.

In the South-West, various settlements and communities had been established thanks to profits from the [[American Civil War]]. In order to maintain revenue and profit, settlers often waged war against native tribes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Dee |author-link= |date=1971 |title=Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee |url=https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Bury-My-Heart-at-Wounded-Knee.pdf|page=130|isbn=}}</ref> By 1871, the settlement of [[Tucson]] for example had a population of three thousand, including saloon-keepers, traders and contractors who had made fortunes during the Civil War and were hopeful of continuing their profits with an Indian war. Desire to fight resulted in the [[Camp Grant Massacre]] of 1871 where up to 144 [[Apache]] were killed, most being women and children.  Up to 27 Apache children were captured and sold into slavery in [[Mexico]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Dee |author-link= |date=1971 |title=Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee |url=https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Bury-My-Heart-at-Wounded-Knee.pdf|page=131|isbn=}}</ref> In the 1860s, the [[Navajo]] faced deportation in an attempted act of [[ethnic cleansing]] under the [[Long Walk of the Navajo]]. The "Long Walk" started at the beginning of spring 1864. Bands of Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their traditional lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner. Around 200 died during the march. During the march, New Mexican slavers, assisted by the Ute often attacked isolated bands, killing the men, taking the women and children captive, and capturing horses and livestock. As part of these raids, a large number of slaves were taken and sold throughout the region.<ref>"Navajos [] were captured en route and sold off throughout New Mexico, Colorado, and northern Mexico." Reséndez, Andrés. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (p. 293). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.</ref>

Starting in 1820, the [[American Colonization Society]] began subsidizing free black people to colonize the west coast of Africa. In 1822, it declared the colony of [[Liberia]], which became independent in 1847.  By 1857, Liberia had merged with other colonies formed by state societies, including the [[Republic of Maryland]], [[Mississippi-in-Africa]], and [[Kentucky in Africa]].
[[File:The American Colossus by Kendrick.jpg|alt=A 19th-century political cartoon done in color depicting a colossal man straddling the Rio Grande river with one half labeled "MEXICO" and the other half labeled "UNITED STATES". The man's outfit is bisected down the middle; his "United States" half wears a a gold-buttoned blue-cloth military uniform resembling American military officers of the time period. His "Mexico" half wears a wide-brimmed hat and a tan (possibly leather?) jacket and pants with tassels. In one hand he carries papers labeled "RR BONDS" (possibly "railroad bonds") and "MINING SHARES". Tucked under his military belt is a paper labeled "CAPTAIN GENERAL PAY". In his other free hand he holds a smoking cigar. He wears a saber on his belt. A string ties him to a ship on the Mexico half of the image in a waterway labeled "NICARAGUA SHIP CANAL". Behind him is a train crossing a bridge over a river labeled "RIO GRANDE". Further behind the figure are buildings with smokestacks labeled "MINAS PRISTOS MINING CO." The image is signed "KENDRICK". It is captioned "THE AMERICAN COLOSSUS|thumb|346x346px|''The American Colossus'' (1880), shown connected to the United States, Mexico, and Nicaragua]]
President James Monroe presented his famous [[Monroe Doctrine|doctrine for the western hemisphere]] in 1823. Historians have observed that while the Monroe Doctrine contained a commitment to resist colonialism from Europe, it had some aggressive implications for American policy, since there were no limitations on the US's actions mentioned within it. Historian Jay Sexton notes that the tactics used to implement the doctrine were modeled after those employed by European imperial powers during the 17th and 18th centuries.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tmp4DQAAQBAJ&q=outside+in.+lord+canning&pg=PT35|title=Outside In: The Transnational Circuitry of US History|last1=Preston|first1=Andrew|last2=Rossinow|first2=Doug|date=2016-11-15|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780190459871|language=en}}</ref> From the left historian [[William Appleman Williams]] described it as "imperial anti-colonialism."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u4GVKXN8SWYC&pg=PA5 |title=The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America|last=Sexton|first=Jay|date=2011-03-15|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=9781429929288|pages=2–9|language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Wounded Knee aftermath5.jpg|thumb|Big Foot's camp three weeks after [[Wounded Knee Massacre]]; with bodies of four [[Sioux|Lakota Sioux]] wrapped in blankets in the foreground]]
In the older historiography [[William Walker (filibuster)|William Walker's filibustering]] represented the high tide of antebellum American imperialism. His brief seizure of Nicaragua in 1855 is typically called a representative expression of [[Manifest destiny]] with the added factor of trying to expand slavery into Central America. Walker failed in all his escapades and never had official U.S. backing. Historian Michel Gobat, however, presents a strongly revisionist interpretation. He argues that Walker was invited in by Nicaraguan liberals who were trying to force economic modernization and political liberalism. Walker's government comprised those liberals, as well as Yankee colonizers, and European radicals. Walker even included some local Catholics as well as indigenous peoples, Cuban revolutionaries, and local peasants. His coalition was much too complex and diverse to survive long, but it was not the attempted projection of American power, concludes Gobat.<ref>{{cite book |first=Michel |last=Gobat |title=Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America |url=https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737495 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2018 |isbn=9780674737495 }} See  [https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/4084046/h-diplo-roundtable-xx-38-empire-invitation-william-walker-and this roundtable evaluation by scholars at H-Diplo.]</ref>

The [[American Indian Wars|Indian Wars]] against the [[indigenous peoples of the Americas]] began in the [[Colonial history of the United States|colonial era]]. Their escalation under the federal republic allowed the US to dominate North America and carve out the 48 [[Contiguous United States|contiguous states]]. This can be considered to be an explicitly colonial process in light of arguments that Native American nations were sovereign entities prior to annexation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wilkins|first=David E.|title=American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court: The Masking of Justice|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8fmv_pJ-iAC|year=2010|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-77400-1|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8fmv_pJ-iAC&pg=PA19 19]}}</ref> Their sovereignty was systematically undermined by US state policy (usually involving unequal or [[List of United States treaties|broken treaties]]) and [[Settler colonialism|white settler-colonialism]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Williams|first=Walter L.|date=1980|title=United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism|jstor=1887638|journal=The Journal of American History|volume=66|issue=4|pages=810–831|doi=10.2307/1887638}}</ref> Furthermore, following the Dawes Act of 1887 native american systems of land tenure and communal ownership were ended, in favour of private property and [[capitalism]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Settlement of America: An Encyclopedia of Westward Expansion from Jamestown to the Closing of the Frontier|last=Blansett|first=Kent|publisher=Routledge|year=2015|isbn=9780765619846|editor-last=Crutchfield|editor-first=James A.|pages=161–162|editor-last2=Moutlon|editor-first2=Candy|editor-last3=Del Bene|editor-first3=Terry}}</ref> This resulted in the loss of around 100 Million acres of land from 1887 to 1934.

=== 1890s–1900s: New Imperialism and "The White Man's Burden" ===
{{Further|New Imperialism|Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom|History of the Philippines (1898–1946)|Philippine–American War|Big stick ideology|Roosevelt Corollary}}
[[File:Victor Gillam A Thing Well Begun Is Half Done 1899 Cornell CUL PJM 1136 01.jpg|upright=1|thumb|This cartoon reflects the view of [[Judge (magazine)|Judge magazine]] regarding America's imperial ambitions following McKinley's quick victory in the Spanish–American War of 1898.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:3293822|title=A Thing Well Begun Is Half Done|work=Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection|publisher=Cornell University}}</ref> The American flag flies from the Philippines and Hawaii in the Pacific to Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.]]

A variety of factors converged during the "[[New Imperialism]]" of the late 19th century, when the United States and the other [[great powers]] rapidly expanded their overseas territorial possessions. One of these factors was the prevalence of overt racism, notably [[John Fiske (philosopher)|John Fiske]]'s conception of "[[Anglo-Americans|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.<ref>Thomas Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", p. 381</ref><ref>Manfred Steger, "Globalism: The New Market Ideology"</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/flat-note-from-the-pied-piper-of-globalization |title=Flat Note from the Pied Piper of Globalization: Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat| pages= 64–67 |access-date=2020-01-23|first=Jeff |last=Faux |date=Fall 2005|magazine=Dissent}}</ref>

Early in his career, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, [[Theodore Roosevelt]] was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the [[Spanish–American War]]<ref>[[H. W. Brands|Brands, Henry William]]. (1997). ''T.R.: The Last Romantic.'' New York: Basic Books. Reprinted 2001, full biography [http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36954615?&ht=edition OCLC 36954615], ch 12</ref> and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."<ref name="PBS1">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/crucible/tl7.html |title=April 16, 1897: T. Roosevelt Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy |work=Crucible of Empire—Timeline|publisher=[[PBS Online]]|access-date=July 26, 2007}}</ref><ref name="PBS2">{{cite web |url=https://www-tc.pbs.org/crucible/Transcript.txt |title=Transcript For "Crucible Of Empire" |work=Crucible of Empire—Timeline|publisher=PBS Online|access-date=July 26, 2007}}</ref><ref>Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the [[British Empire]]: A Study in Presidential Statecraft (1997)</ref> Roosevelt claimed that he rejected imperialism, but he embraced the near-identical doctrine of [[expansionism]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Simons |first=Graham M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CQLoDwAAQBAJ&q=The+Secret+US+Plan+to+Overthrow+the+British+Empire%3A+War+Plan+Red |title=The Secret US Plan to Overthrow the British Empire: War Plan Red |date=2020-04-30 |publisher=Frontline Books |isbn=978-1-5267-1205-9 |language=en}}</ref> When [[Rudyard Kipling]] wrote the imperialist poem "[[The White Man's Burden]]" for Roosevelt, the politician told colleagues that it was "rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5478/|title="The White Man's Burden": Kipling's Hymn to U.S. Imperialism|website=historymatters.gmu.edu|access-date=2018-01-25}}</ref> Roosevelt proclaimed his own [[Roosevelt Corollary|corollary to the Monroe Doctrine]] as justification,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Imperialism-The-roosevelt-corollary.html|title=The roosevelt corollary – Imperialism|website=www.americanforeignrelations.com|language=en|access-date=2018-01-27}}</ref> although his ambitions extended even further, into the Far East. 
[[File:PuckMagazine29Jun1904.jpg|thumb|His 128th birthday, [[Puck (magazine)|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 "[[History of the Philippines (1898–1946)|Philippines]]" on the left.]]
Scholars have noted the resemblance between U.S. policies in the Philippines and European actions in their [[Western imperialism in Asia|colonies in Asia]] and [[Colonisation of Africa|Africa]] during this period.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K_Lx0KCui5IC&pg=PA509 |title=The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines|last=Kramer|first=Paul A.|date=2006-12-13|publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press|isbn=9780807877173|language=en}}</ref> By one contrast, however, the United States claimed to colonize in the name of anti-colonialism: "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! We are coming, Cuba, coming; coming now!"<ref name="Pérez, Louis A 1998" /> Filipino revolutionary General [[Emilio Aguinaldo]] wondered: "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."<ref>{{cite journal | author=Aguinaldo, Emilio |date=September 1899 | title=Aguinaldo's Case Against the United States | journal=North American Review | url= http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/empire/text9/filipino.pdf }}</ref> However, from 1898 until the [[Cuban revolution]], The United States of America had significant influence over the economy of Cuba. By 1950, US investors owned 44 of the 161 sugar mills in Cuba, and slightly over 47% of total sugar output.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE479|title=FE479/FE479: Cuban Agriculture Before 1959: The Political and Economic Situations|website=edis.ifas.ufl.edu}}</ref> By 1906, up to 15% of Cuba was owned by American landowners.<ref name="auto">{{cite journal |last1=Hitchman |first1=James |date=January 1970 |title=U. S. Control Over Cuban Sugar Production 1898-1902 |journal=Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs |volume= 1 |pages=97}}</ref> This consisted of 632,000 acres of sugar lands, 225,000 acres of tobacco, 700,000 of fruits and 2,750,000 acres of mining land, along with a quarter of the banking industry.<ref name="auto"/>

Industry and trade were two of the most prevalent justifications of imperialism. [[Banana Wars|American intervention in both Latin America and Hawaii]] resulted in multiple industrial investments, including the popular industry of [[Dole Food Company|Dole]] bananas. If the United States was able to annex a territory, in turn they were granted access to the trade and capital of those territories. In 1898, Senator [[Albert Beveridge]] proclaimed that an expansion of markets was absolutely 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."<ref>Zinn, Howard. ''A People's History of the United States: 1492–2001''. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVooDgAAQBAJ&q=theodore+roosevelt+imperialism+primary+sources|title=Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream|last=Jones|first=Gregg|date=2013|publisher=Penguin|isbn=9780451239181|pages=169–170|language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Editorial cartoon about Jacob Smith's retaliation for Balangiga.PNG|thumb|left|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]]
American rule of ceded Spanish territory was not uncontested. The [[Philippine Revolution]] had begun in August 1896 against Spain, and after the defeat of Spain in the [[Battle of Manila Bay]], began again in earnest, culminating in the [[Philippine Declaration of Independence]] and the establishment of the [[First Philippine Republic]]. The [[Philippine–American War]] ensued, with extensive damage and death, ultimately resulting in the defeat of the Philippine Republic.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schirmer|first1=Daniel B.|last2=Shalom|first2=Stephen Rosskamm|title=The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXE73VWcsEEC|year=1987|publisher=South End Press|isbn=978-0-89608-275-5|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=TXE73VWcsEEC&pg=PA18 18], [https://books.google.com/books?id=TXE73VWcsEEC&pg=PA40-41 40–41]}}</ref><ref>[[s:Secretary Root's Record:"Marked Severities" in Philippine Warfare|Secretary Root's Record: "Marked Severities" in Philippine Warfare]], Wikisource (multiple mentions)</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Zinn|first=Howard|title= A People's History of the United States 1492—Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V_h2BAAAQBAJ|year=2014|publisher=Time Apt. Group|isbn=978-615-5505-13-3|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=V_h2BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT204 unnumbered]}}</ref>

The United States' interests in Hawaii began in the 1800s with the United States becoming concerned that Great Britain or France might have colonial ambitions on the Hawaiian Kingdom. In 1849 the United States and The Kingdom of Hawaii signed a treaty of friendship removing any colonial ambitions Great Britain or France might have had. In 1885, King David Kalākaua, last king of Hawaii, signed a trade reciprocity treaty with the United States allowing for tariff free trade of sugar to the United States. The treaty was renewed in 1887 and with it came the overrunning of Hawaiian politics by rich, white, plantation owners. On July 6, 1887, the Hawaiian League, a non-native political group, threatened the king and forced him to sign a new constitution stripping him of much of his power. King Kalākaua would die in 1891 and be succeeded by his sister Lili'uokalani. In 1893 with support from marines from the USS ''Boston'' Queen Lili'uokalani would be deposed in a bloodless coup. Hawaii has been under US control ever since and became the 50th US state on August 21, 1959 in a joint resolution with Alaska.

[[Benevolent Assimilation (book)|Stuart Creighton Miller]] says that the public's sense of innocence about ''[[Realpolitik]]'' impairs popular recognition of U.S. imperial conduct.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zj6g2ag47TwC&q=to+exercise+future+domination.+mckinley&pg=PA52|title=Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903|last=Miller|first=Stuart Creighton|date=1982|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=030016193X|language=en}}</ref> 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 regime]]s, where domestically unpopular governments survive only through U.S. support.<ref>Johnson, Chalmers, ''Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire'' (2000), pp. 72–79</ref>

The Philippines is sometimes cited as an example. After Philippine independence, the US continued to direct the country through Central Intelligence Agency operatives like [[Edward Lansdale]]. As [[Raymond Bonner]] and other historians note, Lansdale controlled the career of President [[Ramon Magsaysay]], going so far as to physically beat him when the Philippine leader attempted to reject a speech the CIA had written for him.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} American agents also drugged sitting President [[Elpidio Quirino]] and prepared to assassinate Senator [[Claro M. Recto|Claro Recto]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/19/world/new-book-on-marcos-says-us-knew-of-his-72-martial-law-plans.html|title=New Book on Marcos Says U.S. Knew of His '72 Martial-Law Plans|last1=Butterfield|first1=Fox|date=1987-04-19|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-01-24|last2=Times|first2=Special to the New York|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ntEJR0FuNmoC&q=magsaysay.+lansdale.+speech&pg=PA33|title=Edward Lansdale's Cold War|last=Nashel|first=Jonathan|date=2005|publisher=Univ of Massachusetts Press|isbn=1558494642|pages=32|language=en}}</ref> Prominent Filipino historian Roland G. Simbulan has called the CIA "US imperialism's [[CIA activities in the Philippines|clandestine apparatus in the Philippines]]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/filipinas/doc/cia.html|title=Equipo Nizkor – Covert Operations and the CIA's Hidden History in the Philippines|last=Simbulan|first=Roland G.|date=August 18, 2000|website=www.derechos.org|access-date=2018-01-23}} Lecture at the University of the Philippines-Manila, Rizal Hall, Padre Faura, Manila</ref>

[[File:GreaterAmericaMap.jpg|thumb|A map of "Greater America" {{Circa|1900}}, including overseas territories]]The U.S. retained dozens of military bases, including a few major ones. In addition, Philippine independence was qualified by legislation passed by the [[U.S. Congress]]. For example, the [[Bell Trade Act]] provided a mechanism whereby U.S. import quotas might be established on Philippine articles which "are coming, or are likely to come, into substantial competition with like articles the product of the United States". It further required U.S. citizens and corporations be granted equal access to Philippine minerals, forests, and other natural resources.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chanrobles.com/commonwealthactno733.htm|title=Commonwealth Act No. 733|date=April 30, 1946|publisher=Chan Robles Law Library}}</ref> In hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance, 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."<ref>{{cite book|last=Jenkins|first=Shirley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x4qaAAAAIAAJ|title=American Economic Policy Toward the Philippines|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=0-8047-1139-9|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=x4qaAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA62 62]|year=1954}}</ref>

=== 1918: Wilsonian intervention ===
[[File:American troops in Vladivostok 1918 HD-SN-99-02013.JPEG|thumb|American troops marching in [[Vladivostok]] during the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]], August 1918]]

When [[World War I]] broke out in Europe, President [[Woodrow Wilson]] promised American neutrality throughout the war. This promise was broken when the United States entered the war after the [[Zimmermann Telegram]]. This was "a war for empire" to control vast raw materials in Africa and other colonized areas, according to the contemporary historian and civil rights leader [[W. E. B. Du Bois]].<ref>Zinn, Howard. ''A People's History of the United States''. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. p. 363</ref> More recently historian [[Howard Zinn]] argues that Wilson entered the war in order to open international markets to surplus US production. He quotes Wilson's own declaration that
{{blockquote|Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process... the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down.}}

In a memo to Secretary of State Bryan, the president described his aim as "an [[Open Door Policy|open door]] to the world".<ref>Zinn, pp. 359–376</ref> [[Lloyd Gardner]] notes that Wilson's original avoidance of world war was not motivated by anti-imperialism; his fear was that "[[White supremacy|white civilization and its domination in the world]]" were threatened by "the great white nations" destroying each other in endless battle.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k6x0DgAAQBAJ&q=%22the+first+cold+war%22.+1917&pg=PT194|title=Beyond 1917: The United States and the Global Legacies of the Great War|last1=Zeiler|first1=Thomas W.|last2=Ekbladh|first2=David K.|last3=Garder|first3=Lloyd C.|date=2017-03-27|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780190604035|language=en}}</ref>

Despite President Wilson's official doctrine of [[moral diplomacy]] seeking to "make the world safe for democracy," some of his [[United States occupation of Haiti|activities at the time]] can be viewed as imperialism to stop the advance of democracy in countries such as [[Haiti]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wilsonianidealis00stei/page/30|title=Wilsonian Idealism in America|last=Steigerwald|first=David|date=1994|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0801429366|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wilsonianidealis00stei/page/30 30–42]|language=en}}</ref> The United States invaded [[Haiti]] on July 28, 1915, and American rule continued until August 1, 1934. The historian Mary Renda in her book, ''Taking Haiti'', talks about the American invasion of Haiti to bring about political stability through U.S. control. The American government did not believe Haiti was ready for self-government or democracy, according to Renda. In order to bring about political stability in Haiti, the United States secured control and integrated the country into the international capitalist economy, while preventing Haiti from practicing self-governance or democracy. While Haiti had been running their own government for many years before American intervention, the U.S. government regarded Haiti as unfit for self-rule. In order to convince the American public of the justice in intervening, the United States government used [[paternalism|paternalist]] propaganda, depicting the Haitian political process as uncivilized. The Haitian government would come to agree to U.S. terms, including American overseeing of the Haitian economy. This direct supervision of the Haitian economy would reinforce U.S. propaganda and further entrench the perception of Haitians' being incompetent of self-governance.<ref>Renda, "Introduction," in ''Taking Haiti: Military Occupation & the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940'', pp. 10–22, 29–34</ref>

In World War I, the US, Britain, and Russia had been allies for seven months, from April 1917 until the [[Bolshevik]]s seized power in Russia in November. Active distrust surfaced immediately, as even before the [[October Revolution]] British officers had been involved in the [[Kornilov Affair]], an attempted ''coup d'état'' by the Russian Army against the Provisional Government.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbxwAwAAQBAJ&q=general+buchanan,+moscow,+kornilov&pg=PA285|title=Strategy and Supply (RLE The First World War): The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914–1917|first=Keith|last=Neilson|date=April 24, 2014|publisher=Routledge|via=Google Books|isbn=9781317703457}}</ref> Nonetheless, once the Bolsheviks took Moscow, the British government began talks to try and keep them in the war effort. British diplomat [[R. H. Bruce Lockhart|Bruce Lockhart]] cultivated a relationship with several Soviet officials, including [[Leon Trotsky]], and the latter approved the initial Allied military mission to secure the [[Eastern Front of World War I|Eastern Front]], which was collapsing in the revolutionary upheaval. Ultimately, Soviet head of state [[V.I. Lenin]] decided the Bolsheviks would settle peacefully with the [[Central Powers]] at the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]. This separate peace led to Allied disdain for the Soviets, since it left the [[Allies of World War I|Western Allies]] to fight Germany without a strong Eastern partner. The [[Secret Intelligence Service]], supported by US diplomat Dewitt C. Poole, sponsored an attempted coup in Moscow involving Bruce Lockhart and [[Sidney Reilly]], which involved an attempted assassination of Lenin. The Bolsheviks proceeded to shut down the British and U.S. embassies.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9X5a1fgKqewC&q=savinkov,+reilly%5C&pg=PT113|title=A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century|first=Jeffery T.|last=Richelson|date=July 17, 1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780199880584}}</ref><ref>[[Martin Sixsmith]], "Fanny Kaplan's Attempt to Kill Lenin" in [https://books.google.com/books?id=-L_XDQAAQBAJ&q=much+more+closely+with+Reilly+than+he+had+publicly+indicated&pg=PA192 ''Was Revolution Inevitable?: Turning Points of the Russian Revolution'', edited by Tony Brenton (Oxford University Press, 2017 ), pp. 185–192]</ref>

Tensions between Russia (including its allies) and the West turned intensely ideological. Horrified by mass executions of White forces, land expropriations, and widespread repression, the Allied military expedition now [[North Russia Campaign|assisted]] the anti-Bolshevik Whites in the [[Russian Civil War]], with the US covertly giving support<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-doughboys-who-died-fighting-russian-civil-war-180971470/|title=The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War|last=Trickey|first=Erick|website=Smithsonian|language=en|access-date=2019-04-05}}</ref> to the autocratic and antisemitic [[Kolchak, Alexander|General Alexander Kolchak]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zArfBAAAQBAJ&q=pogroms.+kolchak&pg=PA187|title=Russia's Frozen Frontier: A History of Siberia and the Russian Far East 1581 – 1991|last=Wood|first=Alan|date=2011-05-15|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781849664387|pages=187|language=en}}</ref> [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Over 30,000 Western troops]] were deployed in Russia overall.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/spotlights/allies.htm|title=The National Archives &#124; Exhibitions & Learning online &#124; First World War &#124; Spotlights on history|website=www.nationalarchives.gov.uk}}</ref> This was the first event that made Russian–American relations a matter of major, long-term concern to the leaders in each country. Some historians, including [[William Appleman Williams]] and [[Ronald Powaski]], trace the origins of the [[Cold War]] to this conflict.<ref>Powaski, "The United States and the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1933", in ''The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1991'', pp. 5–34</ref>

Wilson launched seven armed interventions, more than any other president.<ref>{{Cite journal |journal=White House Studies|volume =10| issue= 4|year=2011|title=The Wilsonian Chimera: Why Debating Wilson's Vision Can't Save American Foreign Relations|first=  Stephen |last=Wertheim|url=http://www.columbia.edu/~saw2156/TheWilsonianChimera.pdf|pages=343–359|issn=1535-4768}}</ref> Looking back on the Wilson era, General [[Smedley Butler]], a leader of the Haiti expedition and the highest-decorated Marine of that time, considered virtually all of the operations to have been economically motivated.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=drU3HlesN5kC&q=smedley.+haiti&pg=PA396|title=Haiti: The Aftershocks of History|last=Dubois|first=Laurent|date=2012-01-03|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|isbn=9780805095623|pages=240–249|language=en}}</ref> In a [[War Is a Racket|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&nbsp;... 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://fas.org/man/smedley.htm|title=Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.|website=Federation of American Scientists|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980524133805/http://www.fas.org/man/smedley.htm|archive-date=1998-05-24|url-status=dead}}</ref> }}

=== 1920s–1930s ===

Following World War I, the British maintained occupation of the Middle East, most notably Turkey and portions of formerly Ottoman territory following the empire's collapse.<ref name=":0">Quinn, J. W. (2009). ''American imperialism in the Middle East: 1920-1950'' (dissertation). Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC.</ref> The occupation led to rapid industrialization, which resulted in the discovery of crude oil in Persia in 1908, sparking a boom in the Middle Eastern economy.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24711057 |jstor=24711057 |title=Britain and the Middle East |last1=Woodhouse |first1=C. M. |journal=Pakistan Horizon |year=2009 |volume=62 |issue=1 | pages=81–106}}</ref>

By the 1930s, the United States had cemented itself in the Middle East via a series of acquisitions through the [[Standard Oil of California|Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)]], which saw US control over Saudi oil.<ref name=":0" />

It was clear to the US that further expansion in Middle Eastern oil would not be possible without diplomatic representation. In 1939, CASOC appealed to the US State Department about increasing political relations with [[Saudi Arabia]]. This appeal was ignored until Germany and Japan made similar attempts following the start of [[World War II]].<ref name=":0" />

=== 1941–1945: World War II ===
At the start of [[World War II]], the US had multiple territories in the Pacific. The majority of these territories were military bases like Midway, Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii. Japan's surprise attack on [[Pearl Harbor]] was what ended up bringing the United States into the war. Japan also launched multiple attacks on other American Territories like Guam and Wake Island. By early 1942 Japan also was able to take over the Philippine islands. At the end of the Philippine island campaign the general [[Douglas MacArthur|MacArthur]] stated "I came through and I shall return" in response to the Americans losing the island to the Japanese.<ref>{{Cite web |last=fdrlibrary |date=2015-10-20 |title="I Have Returned!" – General MacArthur and FDR |url=https://fdr.blogs.archives.gov/2015/10/20/i-have-returned-general-macarthur-and-fdr/ |access-date=2022-03-28 |website=Forward with Roosevelt |language=en-US}}</ref> The loss of American territories ended the decisive [[Battle of Midway]]. The Battle of Midway was the American offensive to stop Midway Island from falling into Japanese control. This led to the pushback of American forces and the recapturing of American territories. There were many battles that were fought against the Japanese which retook both allied territory as well as took over Japanese territories. In October 1944 American started their plan to retake the Philippine islands. Japanese troops on the island ended up surrendering in August 1945. After the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, the United States occupied and reformed Japan up until 1952. The maximum geographical extension of American direct political and military control happened in the [[aftermath of World War II]], in the period after the surrender and occupations of [[Allied-occupied Germany|Germany]] and [[Allied-occupied Austria|Austria]] in May and later [[Occupation of Japan|Japan]] and [[United States Army Military Government in Korea|Korea]] in [[Japanese Instrument of Surrender|September 1945]] and before the United States granted the Philippines independence on [[Treaty of Manila (1946)|July 4, 1946]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/republic-day/|title=Philippine Republic Day|work=www.gov.ph|access-date=2020-05-22|archive-date=2021-07-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210729160345/https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/republic-day/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====The Grand Area====
In an October 1940 report to Franklin Roosevelt, Bowman wrote that "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. The US would have to have control over the "Western Hemisphere, Continental Europe and Mediterranean Basin (excluding Russia), the Pacific Area and the Far East, and the [[British Empire in World War II|British Empire]] (excluding Canada)." The Grand Area encompassed all known major oil-bearing areas outside the Soviet Union, largely at the behest of corporate partners like the Foreign Oil Committee and the Petroleum Industry War Council.<ref>George A. Gonzalez, ''Urban Sprawl, Global Warming, and the Empire of Capital'' (SUNY Press, 2009), p. 69-110</ref> The US thus avoided overt territorial acquisition, like that of the European colonial empires, as being too costly, choosing the cheaper option of forcing countries to open their door to American business interests.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MfhpXT5mQoEC&q=cheaper+alternative+of+forcing+countries+to+open+up+their+economies&pg=PA95|title=Neoliberal Australia and US Imperialism in East Asia|first=Erik|last=Paul|date=October 23, 2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|via=Google Books|isbn=9781137272775}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Although the United States was the last major belligerent to join the [[Second World War]], it began planning for the post-war world from the conflict's outset. This postwar vision originated in the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] (CFR), an economic elite-led organization that became integrated into the government leadership. 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 U.S. to emerge as "the premier power in the world."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/americanempirero0000smit|url-access=registration|quote=grand opportunity.|title=American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization|first=Neil|last=Smith|date=October 29, 2004|publisher=University of California Press|via=Internet Archive|isbn=9780520243385}}</ref>

This vision of empire assumed the necessity of the US to "police the world" in the aftermath of the war. This was not done primarily out of altruism, but out of economic interest. [[Isaiah Bowman]], a key liaison between the CFR and the State Department, proposed an "American economic [[Lebensraum]]." This built upon the ideas of [[Time-Life]] publisher [[Henry Luce]], who (in his "[[American Century]]" essay) wrote, "Tyrannies may require a large amount of living space [but] freedom requires and will require far greater living space than Tyranny." According to Bowman's biographer, [[Neil Smith (geographer)|Neil Smith]]:
{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/americanempirero0000smit|url-access=registration|quote=lebensraum.|title=American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization|first=Neil|last=Smith|date=October 29, 2004|publisher=University of California Press|via=Internet Archive|isbn=9780520243385}}</ref> }}
FDR promised: Hitler will get lebensraum, a global American one.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/americanempirero0000smit|url-access=registration|quote=lebensraum.|title=American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization|first=Neil|last=Smith|date=October 29, 2004|publisher=University of California Press|via=Internet Archive|isbn=9780520243385}}, p 27-28.</ref>

=== 1947–1952: Cold War in Western Europe===
[[File:Anti kernwapendemonstratie in Den Haag ( 550 duizend deelnemers ) overzichten, Bestanddeelnr 253-8821.jpg|thumb|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 U.S. forces from Europe as soon as possible. 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 theory, Moscow's weakness was that it had to keep expanding to survive; and that, by containing or stopping its growth, stability could be achieved in Europe. The result was the [[Truman Doctrine]] (1947). Initially regarding only Greece and Turkey, the [[NSC-68]] (1951) extended the Truman Doctrine to the whole non-Communist world. The United States could no longer distinguish between national and global security.<ref>[[Stephen E. Ambrose|Ambrose, Stephen E.]] & [[Douglas Brinkley|Brinkley, Douglas G.]] (1997). ''Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938'', (New York: Penguin Books), p 111-112.</ref> Hence, the Truman Doctrine was described as "globalizing" the Monroe Doctrine.<ref>Whitaker, Arthur P. (1954). ''The Western Hemisphere Idea: Its Rise and Decline'', (New York: Cornell University Press), p 174.</ref><ref>[[Anatol Lieven|Lieven, Anatol]] (2004). "America right or wrong: An anatomy of American nationalism," ''The Geopolitics Reader'', (eds [[Gerard Toal|Toal, Gerard]] et al, London & New York: Routeledge), p 171-172.</ref>

A second equally important consideration was the need to restore the world economy, which required the rebuilding and reorganizing of Europe for growth. This matter, more than the Soviet threat, was the main impetus behind the [[Marshall Plan]] of 1948.

A third factor was the realization, especially by Britain and the three [[Benelux]] nations, that American military involvement was needed.{{clarify|date=July 2019}} [[Geir Lundestad]] has commented on the importance of "the eagerness with which America's friendship was sought and its leadership welcomed.... In Western Europe, America built an empire 'by invitation'"<ref>{{cite book|author=John Darwin|title=After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400–2000|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0z12AiODd8kC&pg=PA470|year=2010|page=470|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=9781596917606}}</ref> According to Lundestad, the [[1948 Italian general election|U.S. interfered in Italian]] and French politics in order to [[May 1947 crises|purge elected communist officials]] who might oppose such invitations.<ref>"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." {{Cite journal |jstor = 423824|title = Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952|journal = Journal of Peace Research|volume = 23|issue = 3|pages = 263–277|last1 = Lundestad|first1 = Geir|year = 1986|doi = 10.1177/002234338602300305|citeseerx = 10.1.1.689.5556|s2cid = 73345898}}</ref>

===1950–1959: Cold War outside Europe===
The end of the Second World War and start of the Cold War saw increased US interest in [[Latin America]]. Since the [[Guatemalan Revolution]], Guatemala saw the expansion of labour rights and [[Decree 900|land reforms]] which granted property to landless peasants.{{sfn|Handy|1994|p=4}} Lobbying by the [[United Fruit Company]], whose profits were affected by these policies, as well as fear of Communist influence in Guatemala culminated in the USA supporting  [[Operation PBFortune]] to overthrow Guatemalan President [[Jacobo Árbenz]] in 1952. The plan involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer [[Carlos Castillo Armas]], who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua.{{sfn|Moulton|2013|pp=47–49}}
This culminated in the [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état]]. The subsequent military junta assumed dictatorial powers, banned opposition parties and reversed the social reforms of the revolution. The USA would continue to support Guatemala through the Cold War, including during the [[Guatemalan genocide]]<ref>{{cite news |first=Elisabeth |last=Malkin |title=Trial on Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/americas/trial-on-guatemalan-civil-war-carnage-leaves-out-us-role.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=16 May 2013|access-date=July 7, 2023|quote=The U.S. played a very powerful and direct role in the life of this institution, the army, that went on to commit genocide}}</ref> in which up to 200,000 people were killed. After the coup, American enterprises saw a return of influence in the country, in both the public level of government but also in the economy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Paiz |first1= Alfonso |date= 1970 |title= The "Third Government of the Revolution" and Imperialism in Guatemala |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40401478 |journal= Science & Society |volume= 34 |issue= 2 |pages= 151 |jstor= 40401478 |access-date= 31 July 2023}}</ref>

On the March 15, 1951 the Iranian parliament, passed legislation that was proposed by [[Mohammad Mosaddegh]] to nationalize the [[Anglo-Persian Oil Company]], which gained significant revenues from Iranian oil, more so than the Iranian government itself. Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister by the Majlis later in 1952. Mosadeggh's support by the [[Tudeh]]  as well as a boycott by various businesses against the nationalised industry resulted in fears by the [[United Kingdom]] and the United States that Iran would turn to Communism. America would officially remain neutral, but the CIA supported various candidates in the [[1952 Iranian legislative election]].<ref>{{cite interview|last=Abrahamian|first=Ervand|interviewer=Amy Goodman and Juan González|title=Newly Declassified Documents Confirm U.S. Backed 1953 Coup in Iran Over Oil Contracts|url=https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/24/newly_declassified_documents_confirm_us_backed|publisher=Democracy Now!|date=24 July 2017|access-date=24 July 2017}}</ref>

In late 1952, with Mosaddegh remaining in power, the CIA launched [[Operation Ajax]] with support by the United Kingdom to overthrow Mosaddegh.<ref>''Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran'', Mar. 1954: p. iii.</ref><ref name="CN-IC-01">{{cite book |title=Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization |year=2007 |publisher=I.B.Tauris |isbn=978-1-84511-347-6 |pages=775 of 1082 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NQnpQNKeKKAC&pg=PA775}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|work=The New York Times|date=2000|title=Secrets of History: The United States in Iran|url=https://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130125113825/http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html|archive-date=January 25, 2013|first=James|last=Risen}}</ref> The coup saw an increase in power of the monarchy, which went from a constitutional monarchy to an authoritarian nation. In the aftermath of the coup, the Shah agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a consortium—British Petroleum and eight European and American oil companies. In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/ |title=CIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup|date=19 August 2013 |website=nsarchive2.gwu.edu |publisher=The National Security Archive |access-date=1 August 2023}}</ref>

===1945–1970: Asia-Pacific===
In Korea, the U.S. occupied the Southern half of the peninsula in 1945 and dissolved the Socialist [[People's Republic of Korea]]. After which, the USA quickly allied with [[Syngman Rhee]], leader of the fight against the [[People's Republic of Korea]] that proclaimed a provisional government. There was a lot of opposition to the [[division of Korea]], including rebellions by communists such as the [[Jeju uprising]] in 1948 and further [[Communist partisans in the Korean War]]. The Jeju Uprising was violently suppressed and led to the deaths of 30,000 people, the majority of them civilians. North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, starting the [[Korean War]].<ref name="Blowback">{{cite book| first = Chalmers| last = Johnson| author-link = Chalmers Johnson| title = Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire| date = January 23, 2001| edition = 2000, rev. 2004| pages = [https://archive.org/details/blowback00chal/page/99 99–101]| publisher = Owl Book| isbn = 0-8050-6239-4| url = https://archive.org/details/blowback00chal/page/99}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1093/ia/iix240 |url=https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/ia/us-led-liberal-order-imperialism-another-name |title=The US-led liberal order: Imperialism by another name? |year=2018 |last1=Parmar |first1=Inderjeet |journal=International Affairs |volume=94 |pages=151–172 }}</ref> With [[NSC 68|National Security Council document 68]] and the subsequent Korean War, the U.S. adopted a policy of "[[rollback]]" against communism in Asia. [[John Tirman]], an American political theorist has claimed that this policy was heavily influenced by America's imperialistic policy in Asia in the 19th century, with its goals to [[Christianization|Christianize]] and [[Americanization|Americanize]] the peasant masses.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Tirman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x3n3Eq1eiBEC&pg=PA78 |title=The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |pages=78–82 |isbn=9780199831494 }}</ref> In the following conflict, the USA oversaw a large bombing campaign over [[Bombing of North Korea|North Korea]]. A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea.<ref name="Armstrong 2010">{{cite journal|last=Armstrong|first=Charles K.|url=https://apjjf.org/-Charles-K--Armstrong/3460/article.pdf|title=The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950-1960|journal=The Asia-Pacific Journal|volume=8|issue=51|page=1|date=20 December 2010|access-date=13 September 2019}}</ref>

[[Vietnam War|In Vietnam]], the U.S. eschewed its anti-imperialist rhetoric by materially supporting the [[French Union|French Empire]] in a colonial [[counterinsurgency]]. However, the United States helped the French colonialists to fight communism, not to support France's continued rule of Vietnam after winning the war. The United States' support was in response to communist China's support for Vietnam's communist independence movement. The United States put pressure on France to negotiate with the indigenous anti-communist nationalists and gradually return independence to the [[State of Vietnam|pro-French government]] in the context of global [[decolonization]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent5.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110806004651/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent5.htm|url-status=dead|title=The Pentagon Papers, Chapter 2, "U.S. Involvement in the Franco-Viet Minh War, 1950-1954", MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT - Harry S. Truman President|archivedate=August 6, 2011}}</ref> Influenced by the Grand Area policy, the U.S. eventually assumed military and financial support for the [[South Vietnam]]ese state against the [[Viet Minh|Vietnamese communists]] following French defeat in the [[First Indochina war]]. The US and South Vietnam feared [[Ho Chi Minh]], a communist, would win nationwide elections. They both refused to sign agreements at the [[1954 Geneva Conference]] arguing that fair elections weren't possible in North Vietnam.<ref>{{cite book |first=Woodruff |last=Mark |url= |title=Unheralded Victory: The Defeat of The Viet Cong and The North Vietnamese. |publisher=Presidio Press |year=2005 |page=6 |isbn=978-0-89141-866-5}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |doi=10.25148/CRCP.2.1.16092111 |title=The Council on Foreign Relations and the Grand Area: Case Studies on the Origins of the IMF and the Vietnam War |journal=Class, Race and Corporate Power |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=2014 |last1=Domhoff |first1=G. William |url=https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://web.archive.org/&httpsredir=1&article=1019&context=classracecorporatepower |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190614140836/https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2F&httpsredir=1&article=1019&context=classracecorporatepower |archive-date=2019-06-14 |doi-access=free |access-date=2020-06-15 |url-status=live}}</ref> Beginning in 1965, the US sent many combat units to fight [[Viet Cong]] and North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam, with fighting extending to [[North Vietnam]], [[Laos]], and [[Cambodia]]. During the war [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] called the American government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."<ref>{{cite book |first=Chris J. |last=Magoc |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMEnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1233 |title=Imperialism and Expansionism in American History |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2015 |pages=1233, 1278–81 |isbn=9781610694308}}</ref> Initially based on stopping the spread of Communism into South Vietnam, the war and its motivations slowly began to lose its momentum in justifying the damage the war was causing to both sides. Particularly on the home front, where by 1970, two thirds of the American public advocated against the war. The communist government of North Vietnam propagated that their war was anti-colonial and equated the US with France, although in essence the [[Vietnam War]] was completely a proxy war and civil war.<ref name=X>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history|title=Vietnam War History|website=History.com|publisher=A&E Television Networks, LLC.|access-date=9 July 2015}}</ref>

The Vietnam War also saw expansion of conflict into neighbouring [[Laos]] and [[Cambodia]]. Both of which saw extensive bombing campaigns under [[Operation Barrel Roll]], which made Laos "the most heavily bombed nation in history",<ref>{{Cite news |last=Bolingbroke-Kent |first=Antonia |date=2023-04-27 |title='I don't want more children to suffer what I did': the 50-year fight to clear US bombs from Laos |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/27/i-dont-want-more-children-to-suffer-what-i-did-the-50-year-fight-to-clear-us-bombs-from-laos |access-date=2023-07-12 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> [[Operation Menu]] and [[Operation Freedom Deal]].

After the deaths of six generals in the Indonesian Army, which [[Suharto]] blamed on the [[Communist Party of Indonesia]] and a failed coup attempt by the [[30 September Movement]], an Anti-Communist purge began across the country led by Suharto and the army. The subsequent killings resulted in the deaths of up to 1,000,000 people. Though some estimates claim a death toll of 2 or 3 Million. Ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, activists, artists, ethnic Javanese [[Abangan]], [[Chinese Indonesians|ethnic Chinese]], [[Atheism|atheists]], so-called "[[Kafir|unbelievers]]", and alleged [[Left-wing politics|leftists]] were also among targeted groups in the killings.
Geoffrey B. Robinson, professor of history at [[UCLA]], argued that powerful foreign states, in particular the United States, Great Britain and their allies, were instrumental in facilitating and encouraging the Indonesian Army's campaign of mass killing, and without such support, the killings would not have happened.<ref name="auto4">{{cite book |last=Robinson |first= Geoffrey |date= 2018 |title= The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-1966}}</ref> The political changes that came with the mass-killings not only resulted in the purge of the Communist Party, but also a shift in Indonesia's foreign policy towards the West and capitalism.<ref name="auto4"/> Furthermore, the mass-killings resulted in the expansion of American markets into Indonesia. By 1967, companies such as [[Freeport-McMoRan|Freeport Sulphur]], [[Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company]], [[General Electric]], [[American Express]], [[Caterpillar Inc.]], [[StarKist]], [[Raytheon Technologies]] and [[Lockheed Martin]], began to explore business opportunities in Indonesia.<ref>{{cite book|author=Good, Aaron |title=American Exception|location = New York|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing |year=2022|page=290 |isbn=978-1-5107-6913-7}}</ref>
Declassified documents released by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in October 2017 stated that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of the massacres from the start. The documents revealed that the U.S. government actively encouraged and facilitated the Indonesian Army's massacres to further its geopolitical interests in the region.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2017-10-15/indonesia-mass-murder-1965-us-embassy-files |title=U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965 |last=Simpson |first=Brad |date=17 October 2017 |website=[[National Security Archive]] |access-date=18 October 2017}}</ref>

===1970s–1980s: Latin American regime change===
From 1968 until 1989, the United States of America supported a campaign of [[political repression]] and [[state terrorism]] involving [[Intelligence (information gathering)|intelligence]] operations, [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-backed [[coup d'état]]s, and assassinations of [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] and [[Socialism|socialist]] leaders in [[South America]] as part of [[Operation Condor]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bevins |first1=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Bevins |title=[[The Jakarta Method]]: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World|pages=200–206 |date=2020 |publisher= [[PublicAffairs]] |isbn=978-1-5417-4240-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Good, Aaron |title=American Exception |location=New York |publisher=Skyhorse Publishing |year=2022 |pages=231–232, 237 |isbn=978-1510769137}}</ref> It was officially implemented in November 1975 by the [[right-wing dictatorship]]s of the [[Southern Cone]] of South America in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Conde|first=Arturo|title=New movie explores global complicity in Argentina's 'dirty war'|date=10 September 2021 |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-movie-explores-global-complicity-argentinas-dirty-war-rcna1964|access-date=2021-10-06|publisher=NBC News|language=en}}</ref>

===1990 onward===

==== Gulf War ====

Professor [[George Klay Kieh Jr.]] argued that part of the motivation for the [[Gulf War]] was derived from a desire to distract from the various crisis' in America at the time, such as the [[Keating Five]], national debt rising to $3 Trillion, an increasing trade deficit, unemployment, rising crime and growing wealth inequality.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kieh |first1=George |title=Western Imperialism in the Middle East: The Case of the United States' Military Intervention in the Persian Gulf |date=1992 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858004 |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=7–8|jstor=41858004 |access-date=26 August 2023}}</ref> He also argued that other very significant motivating factors for the war were strategic factors, such as a fear of subsequent invasion of [[Saudi Arabia]] and other Pro-American monarchies in Arabia.<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal |last1=Kieh |first1=George |title=Western Imperialism in the Middle East: The Case of the United States' Military Intervention in the Persian Gulf |date=1992 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858004 |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=10|jstor=41858004 |access-date=26 August 2023}}</ref> Iraqi control over the Gulf region was also feared to harm access to the United States to a major corridor of international trade. Professor Kieh also argued for various economic factors behind the invasion. The Bush Administration calculated that Iraq's annexation of Kuwait would result in it controlling up to 45% of global oil production<ref name="jstor.org"/> and since major banks such as [[Bank of America]] had significant stakes in the oil industry (various Gulf states saved more than $75 Billion in American banks), there were fears of a potential economic crisis due to the annexation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kieh |first1=George |title=Western Imperialism in the Middle East: The Case of the United States' Military Intervention in the Persian Gulf |date=1992 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41858004 |journal=Arab Studies Quarterly |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=11|jstor=41858004 |access-date=26 August 2023}}</ref>

==== Iraq War ====

The American [[2003 invasion of Iraq|invasion of Iraq]] has been cited by William Robinson as an instance of imperialism in which the beneficiaries of imperial conquest were transnational [[capitalist]] groups where the goal of the Iraq war was not political annexation, but rather the economic subjugation of Iraq and its incorporation into the global economy. Robinson draws specific attention to [[Economic reform of Iraq|Order 39]] where after taking control of Iraq in 2003, the America occupation force dismantled the previous Iraqi economy in favour of full privatization in Iraq and the permitting of 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi assets thereby strengthening the positions of foreign businesses and investors.<ref name="auto1">{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=William  |date=2006 |title=Gramsci and Globalisation: From Nation-State to Transnational Hegemony |journal=Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy|pages=569}}</ref>  

====2011 Intervention in Libya====
 
In 2011, as part of the wider [[Arab Spring]], protests erupted in [[History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi|Libya]] against [[Muammar Gaddafi]], which soon spiralled into a civil war. In the ensuing conflict, a NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement [[United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973]]. While the effort was initially largely led by [[France]] and the [[United Kingdom]], command was shared with the United States, as part of [[Operation Odyssey Dawn]]. According to the Libyan Health Ministry, the attacks saw 114 civilians killed and 445 civilians wounded.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/9436749.stm|title=Mid-East crisis as it happened: 25 March|date=25 March 2011|work=BBC News|access-date=26 March 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110327143813/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/9436749.stm|archive-date=27 March 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Matteo Capasso]] argued that the [[2011 military intervention in Libya]] was "US-led imperialism" and the final conclusion in a wider war on Libya since the 1970s via '[[gunboat diplomacy]], [[1986 United States bombing of Libya|military bombings]], international sanctions and arbitrary use of international law'.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Capasso |first1=Matteo |date= 2020|title=The war and the economy: the gradual destruction of Libya|journal=Review of African Political Economy|pages=15}}</ref> Capasso argued that the war in Libya acted to strip Libya of its autonomy and resources and the 'overall weakening and fragmentation of the African and Arab political position, and the cheapening and/or direct annihilation of human lives in Third World countries'.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Capasso |first1=Matteo |date= 2020|title=The war and the economy: the gradual destruction of Libya|journal=Review of African Political Economy|pages=16}}</ref>

====American expansionism under Donald Trump====
{{Excerpt|American expansionism under Donald Trump}}

== Strategy ==
=== US military alliances ===
The architect of [[Containment]], [[George Kennan]], designed in 1948 a globe-circling system of anti-Russian alliances embracing all non-Communist countries of the Old World.<ref>[[John Lewis|Gaddis, John Lewis]] (1977), "Containment: A reassessment," ''Foreign Affairs'', vol 55 (4): p 882.</ref> 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 United States contracted 44 formal alliances and many other forms of commitment with nearly 100 countries, most of the world countries.<ref>Pierre, Andrew J. (1972). "The future of America's commitments and alliances," ''Orbis'', vol 16 (3): p 696.</ref> Some observers described the process as "pactomania."<ref>[[Walter Clemens|Clemens, Walter C.]] (2000). ''America and the World, 1898-2025: Achievements, Failures, Alternative Futures'', (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan), p 134.</ref> The enthusiasm was reciprocal. Most of the world were interested to ally with the United States. Already in the early 1940s, observing the attitude of other nations, [[Isaiah Bowman]],<ref>Wertheim, Stephen Alexander, (2015). “Tomorrow, the world: The birth of US global supremacy in World War II,” PhD thesis, (Columbia University), p 215, https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8DB814F</ref> [[Henry Luce]]<ref>Luce, Henry (17 February 1941). “[[The American Century]],” ''Life'', p 65, https://books.google.co.il/books?id=I0kEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=century&f=false </ref> and [[Wendell Willkie]]<ref>Willkie, Wendell L. (1943). ''[[One World (Willkie book)|One World]]''. (London: Cassell and Company), p 130-133.</ref> stressed the allying potential of the United States. The "imperium" of an unprecedented scale was partly made possible by the eagerness with which America’s alliance was sought and welcomed.<ref>[[John Darwin (historian)|Darwin, John]] (2008). ''After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405''. (New York: Bloomsbury Press), p 470.</ref>

According to [[Kenneth N. Waltz]], these are not alliances in the Westphalian sense characterized by [[Balance of power (international relations)|balance of power]], equal interdependence of member states,<ref>Waltz, Kenneth N. (2002). “Structural Realism after the Cold War.” ''America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power''. (Ed. [[John Ikenberry|Ikenberry, John G]]. Ithaka & London: Cornell University Press), p 42-43.</ref> and impermanence.<ref>[[Condoleezza Rice|Rice, Condoleezza]] (July/August 2008). “Rethinking the national interest.” ''Foreign Affairs'', vol 87 (4), p 2-26, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080701faessay87401/condoleezza-rice</ref><ref>[[Glenn Diesen|Diesen, Glenn]] (2024). ''The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order''. (Clarity Press), chapter “Balance of power vs permanent alliances.”</ref> Many scholars regard them as instruments through which the United States perpetuates its "hegemonic" role.<ref>[[Christopher Layne|Layne, Christopher]] (2000). “US hegemony and the perpetuation of NATO.” ''Journal of Strategic Studies'', vol 23 (3), p 59-91.</ref><ref>[[Robert J. Art|Art, Robert J]]. (2003). ''A Grand Strategy for America''. (Ithaka: Cornell University Press), p 106.</ref><ref>[[Geir Lundestad|Lundestad, Geir]] (2005). ''The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From 'Empire' by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift''. (Oxford University Press), p 70.</ref><ref>[[Ola Tunander|Tunander, Ola]] (2005). “Swedish geopolitics: From Rudolf Kjellen to a Swedish 'Dual State,'” ''Geopolitics'', vol 10 (3), p 551.</ref> Before he predicted [[Clash of Civilizations]], [[Samuel P. Huntington]] had generalized that since 1945 most democratic countries have become members of the “alliance system” within which the “position of the United States was ‘hegemonic.’”<ref>Huntington, Samuel (1989). “No exit—the error of Endism.” ''National Interest'', vol 17 p 7.</ref> Since the beginning, US alliances were associated with imperial organization. On the eve of the [[Rio Treaty]] and NATO, [[James Burnham]] envisaged:
{{quote|
A federation however in which the federal units are not equal, in which one of them leads all others ... 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.<ref>Burnham, James (1947). ''Struggle for the World''. (New York: The John Day Company), p 182, 211, https://ia800504.us.archive.org/25/items/struggleforworld00burn/struggleforworld00burn.pdf</ref>}}
There is already an American Empire, Burnham continued, and it is not just about Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.<ref>Burnham, James (1947). ''Struggle for the World''. (New York: The John Day Company), p 183, https://ia800504.us.archive.org/25/items/struggleforworld00burn/struggleforworld00burn.pdf</ref> Some later experts describe US alliances as regional ''imperia'' "run and operated" by the United States.<ref>[[Robert J. Art|Art, Robert J]]. (1998/99). “Geopolitics updated: The Strategy of selective engagement.” ''International Security'', vol 23 (3): p 102.</ref><ref>[[Robert Jervis|Jervis, Robert]] (2002). “Theories of war in an era of leading-power peace.” ''American Political Science Review'', vol 96 (1), p 1-14.</ref> [[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" which "are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”<ref>Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997). ''The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives''. (New York: Perseus Books), p 40.</ref> [[Eric W. Robinson]] and [[Herfried Münkler]] drew parallel between NATO and the [[Delian League]] which turned into the [[Athenian Empire]].<ref>Robinson, Eric W. (Autumn 2005). "American Empire? Ancient Reflections on Modern American Power." ''The Classical World'', vol 99 (1): p 45-46.</ref><ref>Muenkler, Herfried (2007). ''Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States''. (Cambridge, Polity Press), p 163.</ref> Historians [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] and Max Ostrovsky associated US alliances with the [[Client kingdoms in ancient Rome|Roman client system]] during the late Republic.<ref>Toynbee, Arnold (1962). ''America and the World Revolution''. (New York, Oxford University Press), p 105-106, https://archive.org/details/americaworldrevo0000toyn/page/104/mode/2up?view=theater&q=annexation</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ostrovsky |first=Max |url=https://archive.org/details/yarctgxhyperbola0000ostr/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Y = Arctg X : the hyperbola of the world order |date=2007 |publisher=Lanham, Md. : University Press of America |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-7618-3499-1}}</ref> By defending the allies, says [[Cicero]] (''[[De re publica|Republic]]'', II.34), Rome has gained the world dominion.

Scholars label the US network of alliances as "hub-and-spokes" system where the United States is the "hub." Spokes do not directly interrelate between and among themselves, but all are bound to the same hub.<ref>[[Josef Joffe|Joffe, Josef]] (1995). "Toward an American grand strategy after bipolarity," ''International Security'', vol 19 (4): p 111, 117.</ref><ref>[[Daniel Nexon|Nexon, Daniel H.]] & Wright, Thomas (2007). "What is at stake in the American Empire debate?" ''American Political Science Review'', vol 101 (2): p 258.</ref> The "hub-and-spokes" analogy is used in the comparative studies of empires.<ref>[[Alexander J. Motyl|Motyl, Alexander John]] (2001). ''Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires'', (New York: Columbia University Press), p 16.</ref><ref>[[Peter Fibiger Bang|Bang, Peter Fibiger]] (2000). "Between Asoka and Antiochus: an essay in world history on universal kingship and cosmopolitan culture in the Hellenistic ecumene," ''Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History'', (eds. Bang, Peter Fibiger & Kolodziejczyk, Dariusz. New York: Cambridge University Press), p 65.</ref> By contrast to earlier empires, however, the American "imperial" presence was largely welcome.<ref>[[Geir Lundestad|Lundestad, Geir]] (1986). "Empire by invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945-1952," ''Journal of Peace Research'', vol 23 (3): p 263-267.</ref><ref>[[Michael Ignatieff|Ignatieff, Michael]] (2003). "The challenge of American imperial power," ''Naval War College Review'', vol 56 (2): p 53.</ref><ref>[[Günter Bischof|Bischof, Günter]] (2009). "Empire discourses: The 'American Empire' in decline?" ''Kurswechsel'', vol 2: p 17.</ref> Ostrovsky says 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.<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 286-287, 291, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/285/mode/2up?view=theater</ref> In 1989, Samuel Huntington counted that most democratic states of the world entered “hegemonic” alliances<ref>Huntington, Samuel (1989). “No exit—the error of Endism.” ''National Interest'', vol 17 p 7.</ref> and [[Charles Krauthammer]] summarized that “Europe achieved the single greatest transfer of sovereignty in world history.”<ref>Krauthammer, Charles, (Winter 1989/90). “Universal Dominion: Towards a unipolar world.” ''National Interest'', vol 18, p 49.</ref> Krauthammer meant West Europe. Just as he published this summary, East Europe followed suit. Disregarding national pride, concludes Ostrovsky, large number of states, some of them recent great powers, "surrender their strategic sovereignty ''en mass[sic]''."<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 286-287, 291, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/285/mode/2up?view=theater</ref> They host hegemonic bases, partly cover the expenses for running them,<ref>Yoda, Tatsuro, (2006). “Japan’s Host Nation Support Program for the US-Japan Security Alliance.” Asian Survey, vol 46 (4), p 938-939, 942, http://www.ifeng.or.jp/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/AS460608_yoda.pdf</ref> integrate their strategic forces under the hegemonic command,<ref>[[Celeste A. Wallander|Wallander, Celeste A]]. (2000). “Institutional assets and adaptability: NATO after the Cold War.” ''International Organization'', vol 54 (4), p 725, https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/9292080.pdf</ref><ref>House of Commons, (2008). “The future of NATO and European defense,” Ninth Report of Session 2007–08. (London: Defense Committee), p 25, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmdfence/111/111.pdf </ref><ref>Cody, Edward (12 March 2009). “After 43 years: France to rejoin NATO as a full member.” ''Washington Post'', p 1-2, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100547.html</ref>contribute 1-2% of their GDP to those forces, and tip military, economic and humanitarian contributions in case of the hegemonic operations worldwide.<ref>Committee on Armed Services (28 January 2014). “Rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region: Examining its implementations,” Congress 113/74, House of Representatives, (Washington: Government Printing Office), p 53, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg86964/pdf/CHRG-113hhrg86964.pdf</ref><ref>Yoda, Tatsuro, (2006). “Japan’s Host Nation Support Program for the US-Japan Security Alliance.” ''Asian Survey'', vol 46 (4), p 938, 942, 960, http://www.ifeng.or.jp/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/AS460608_yoda.pdf </ref><ref>Chanlett-Avery, Emma, & Rinehart, Ian E., (9 February 2016). “The US-Japan Alliance,” (Washington: Congressional Research Service), p 3, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33740.pdf</ref><ref>Eiichi, Katahara (2013). “Japan's strategic options?” ''Asian Scientist'', p 8, http://www.asianscientist.com/books/wp/content/uploads/2013/05/8281_chap01.pdf</ref> [[Bertrand Russell]] theorized about “military unification of the world” led by the Anglo-American powers.<ref>Russell, Bertrand (March 1951). “The future of man.” ''The Atlantic'', https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1951/03/the-future-of-man/305193/</ref> Later, Ostrovsky developed the subject as “[[military globalization]].” Contrary to economic globalization, military globalization, besides inter-relation and inter-connection, involves centralization—integration under the central command. The larger part of the world has strategically converged.<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 299, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/299/mode/2up?view=theater</ref>

Since the term of Dwight Eisenhower, US administrations believed that the United States shares the alliance burden disproportionally. In 2025, Donald Trump announced that NATO countries should raise their contributions from 2 to 5% of GDP.<ref>Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, (2025). “Trump says NATO countries are 'taking advantage' and should contribute 5% of GDP.” ''USA Today'', https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/07/nato-5-percent-gdp-defense-trump/77514412007/</ref> In addition, Trump adopted a more aggressive attitude towards allies with the new [[Tariffs in the second Trump administration|tariff policy]] and [[American expansionism under Donald Trump |expansionist proposals]]. The change from the traditional US policy is significant and so was the reaction. In 2010, [[John Mearsheimer]] could say: “No European leader over the past two decades has uttered the words: ‘Yankee, go home!’ And there is no indication that is likely to happen anytime soon.”<ref>Mearsheimer, John (2010). “Why is Europe peaceful today?” ''European Political Science'', vol 9, p 389, http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/A0055.pdf</ref> Trump made it soon and better. In 2025, he was told to “f… off” by a Danish official in the EU parliament.<ref>Creitz, Charles (22 January 2025). “Danish lawmaker addressing EU tells Trump to ‘f--- off’ over Greenland bid,” ''Fox News'', https://www.foxnews.com/politics/danish-lawmaker-addressing-eu-tells-trump-f-off-over-greenland-bid?msockid=1ab86121362562d50a2b75df37b563f8</ref> Not less dramatic was the reaction of former [[Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada]], [[Michael Ignatieff]]. He used to praise the US preponderance of power and its “inflexible resolve to defend its way of life—and those of other nations as well, who, like Canada (I happen to be a Canadian citizen), are happy to shelter under American imperial protection.”<ref>Ignatieff, Michael (Spring 2003) “The Challenges of American Imperial Power.” ''Naval War College Review'', vol 56 (2), https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2291&context=nwc-review</ref> In 2025, he had an uneasy feeling that Canada just possibly faces the most serious challenge as a country, looking at "[[Anschluss]]". The United States suddenly treats Canada as an enemy and engages Canada with threats. No longer “happy to shelter under American imperial protection,” Ignatieff engaged in designing an anti-hegemonic “common front” with the Europeans, particularly the Danes, and the Latin Americans, particularly the Mexicans and the Panamanians, because the hemispheric policy of Trump requires a “hemispheric response.”<ref>Ignatieff, Michael & Rachman, Gideon (16 January 2025). “Transcript: Does the Trump administration pose an existential threat to Canada?” ''Financial Times'', https://www.ft.com/content/ec972fb6-0c66-4fbe-bbaa-e79df0ea2d3c</ref> If the United States used to be known as the “Empire of trust,”<ref>[[Thomas F. Madden|Madden, Thomas F]]. (2008). ''Empires of Trust: How Rome Built—and America Is Building—a New World''. (Dutton Adult).</ref> in 2025 at least to the Ukrainians it looked as the Empire of “betrayal.”<ref>Editorial (13 February 2025). “The betrayal of Ukraine is also a betrayal of America’s friends and allies in Europe.” ''Independent'', https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/ukraine-trump-putin-europe-war-zelensky-b2697737.html</ref>

=== US military bases ===
{{seealso|United States military deployments}}
[[File:US military bases in the world 2007.svg|thumb|upright=2|U.S. military presence around the world in 2007. {{as of|2013}}, the U.S. had many [[List of United States military bases|bases and troops stationed globally]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/Base%20Structure%20Report%202013_Baseline%2030%20Sept%202012%20Submission.pdf|title=Base Structure Report : FY 2013 Baseline|publisher=United States Department of Defense|access-date=2017-04-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221030636/http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/bsr/Base%20Structure%20Report%202013_Baseline%2030%20Sept%202012%20Submission.pdf|archive-date=2015-02-21|url-status=dead}}</ref> Their presence has generated controversy and opposition.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/protesters-accuse-us-of-imperialism-as-obama-rekindles-military-deal-with-philippines/|title=Protesters Accuse US of 'Imperialism' as Obama Rekindles Military Deal With Philippines|work=VICE News|date=2014-04-28}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.popularresistance.org/anti-us-base-candidate-wins-okinawa-governor-race/|title=Anti-US Base Candidate Wins Okinawa Governor Race|work=PopularResistance.Org|date=17 November 2014}}</ref>
{{legend|#0000ff|More than 1,000 U.S. troops}}
{{legend|#9ccbe1|100–1,000 U.S. troops}}
{{legend|#f7931d|Use of military facilities}}]]
{{further|List of United States military bases}}
[[File:Combined Air Operations Center 151007-F-MS415-022.jpg|thumb|Combined [[Air and Space Operations Center]] (CAOC) at [[Al Udeid Air Base]] in Qatar, 2015]]
During World War II, Franklin 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.<ref>[[David Reynolds (historian)|Reynolds, David]] (2006). ''From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s'', (London: Oxford University Press), p 304.</ref> 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."<ref>LeMay, Curtis & MacKinlay, Kantor (1965). ''Mission with LeMay: My Story'', (New York: Doubleday & Com)), p 381.</ref> After the War, a global network of bases emerged. NCS-162/2 of 1953  stated: "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.<ref>[[Melvyn P. Leffler|Leffler, Melvyn]] (1984). "The American conception of national security and the beginning of the Cold War," ''The American Historical Review'', vol 89 (2): p 349.</ref> The overseas network of bases in a one-sided affair, with no freestanding foreign bases on US soil.<ref name="auto3">Burns, Adam (2017). ''American Imperialism: The Territorial Expansion of the United States, 1783-2013''. (Edinburgh University Press), p 170-171.</ref> [[Chalmers Johnson]] argued in 2004 that America's version of the colony is the military base.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1181/chalmers_johnson_on_garrisoning_the_planet |title=America's Empire of Bases| website=TomDispatch |access-date=2020-01-23|first=Chalmers |last=Johnson|date=January 15, 2004}}</ref> [[Chip Pitts]] argued similarly in 2006 that enduring U.S. bases in [[Iraq]] suggested a vision of "[[Iraq War#Iraqi opinion|Iraq as a colony]]."<ref>{{cite news | author=Pitts, Chip | title=The Election on Empire | url=https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-election-on-empire-1280 |publisher=The National Interest | date =November 8, 2006 | access-date =October 8, 2009}}</ref>

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 [[Pituffik Space Base|Thule]] and tropical [[Guam]] half a way around the world? Both happened to be principal operating areas of the [[Strategic Air Command]].<ref>[[Townsend Hoopes|Hoopes, Townsend]] (1958). "Overseas bases in American strategy," ''Foreign Affairs'', vol 37 (1): p 71.</ref> On Guam, a common joke had it that few people other than nuclear targeters in the Kremlin know where their island is.<ref>Lutz, Catherine (March 16, 2009). "US bases and empire: Global perspective on the Asia-Pacific," ''The Asia-Pacific Journal'', vol 7 (12), https://apjjf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/article-2487.pdf</ref>

While territories such as [[Guam]], the [[United States Virgin Islands]], the [[Northern Mariana Islands]], [[American Samoa]], and [[Puerto Rico]] remain under U.S. control, the U.S. allowed many of its overseas territories or occupations to gain independence after [[World War II]]. Examples include the [[Philippines]] (1946), the [[Panama Canal Zone]] (1979), [[Palau]] (1981), the [[Federated States of Micronesia]] (1986), and the [[Marshall Islands]] (1986). Most of them still have U.S. bases within their territories. In the case of [[Okinawa Prefecture|Okinawa]], which came under U.S. administration after the [[Battle of Okinawa]] during the Second World War, this happened despite local popular opinion on the island.<ref>Patrick Smith, [http://www.iht.com/articles/1998/03/06/edsmith.t_0.php<!-- also at https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/06/opinion/06iht-edsmith.t_0.html --> Pay Attention to Okinawans and Close the U.S. Bases], International Herald Tribune (Opinion section), March 6, 1998.</ref> In 2003, a [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] distribution found the United States had bases in over 36 countries worldwide,<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2003/basestructure2003.pdf
|title = Base Structure Report
|access-date =January 23, 2007
|year=2003
|publisher=USA Department of Defense| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070110080620/http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2003/basestructure2003.pdf| archive-date= January 10, 2007 | url-status= dead }}</ref> including the [[Camp Bondsteel]] base in the disputed territory of [[Kosovo]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Clandestine Camps in Europe: "Everyone Knew What Was Going On in Bondsteel"|date=5 December 2005 |work=[[Der Spiegel]] |location=Hamburg |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/clandestine-camps-in-europe-everyone-knew-what-was-going-on-in-bondsteel-a-388556.html }}</ref> Since 1959, [[Cuba]] has regarded the U.S. presence in [[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base|Guantánamo Bay]] as illegal.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31059030 |title=US rejects Cuba demand to hand back Guantanamo Bay base |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207183342/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31059030 |archive-date=7 December 2016 |work=BBC News |date=30 January 2015 }}</ref>

As of 2024, the [[United States military deployments|United States deploys]] approximately 160,000 of its active-duty personnel outside the United States and its territories.<ref name=dmdc.osd.mil>{{cite web|title=Number of Military and DoD Appropriated Fund (APF) Civilian Personnel By Assigned Duty Location and Service/Component (as of March 31, 2024) |url=https://dwp.dmdc.osd.mil/dwp/api/download?fileName=DMDC_Website_Location_Report_2403.xlsx&groupName=milRegionCountry |publisher=[[Defense Manpower Data Center]] |date=May 9, 2024}}</ref> 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).<ref>{{
cite web|url=https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/Downloads/BSI/Base%20Structure%20Report%20FY15.pdf|title=Department of Defense, Base Structure Report FY 2015 Baseline|access-date=2017-09-04|work=[[Office of the Secretary of Defense]]}}</ref> Also in 2015, David Vine's book ''Base Nation'', found 800 U.S. military bases located outside of the U.S., 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]],  having become city-sized, with schools, hospitals and power plants. The total cost was estimated at $100 billion a year.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vine |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Ww5BgAAQBAJ&q=%22$100+billion%22 |title=Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World |date=2015-08-25 |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |isbn=978-1-62779-170-0 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="auto3"/>

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.<ref>Kaplan, Robert (2005). ''Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond'', (New York: Vintage), p 13.</ref> 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."<ref>Max Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 233, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/233/mode/2up?view=theater</ref> "The United States is by circumstance and design an emerging global empire, the first in the history of the world."<ref>Falk, Richard (2003). "Will the Empire be Fascist?" ''Global Dialogue'', vol 5 (1): p 22-23.</ref> [[Robert Kagan]] inscribed over the map of US global deployments: "[[The empire on which the sun never sets|The Sun never sets]]."<ref>Kagan, Robert (1998). "The benevolent Empire," ''Foreign Policy'', vol 11: p 29.</ref>

===Unified combatant command===
{{Main|Unified combatant command}}
[[File: Unified Combatant Commands map.PNG|upright=1.5|thumb| Unified combatant command map]]
The global network of military alliances and bases is coordinated by the Unified combatant command (UCC).<ref>Iadicola, Peter, (2008). "Globalization and Empire," ''International Journal of Social Inquiry'', vol 1 (2): p 12, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/47230635.pdf</ref><ref>Dufour, Jules (July 1, 2007). "The worldwide network of US military bases," Global Research: Center for Research on Globalization.</ref><ref>Reveron, Derek S. (2007). America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy. (Palgrave Macmillan), p 4.</ref> 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.<ref>Drea, Edward et al (2013). "History of the Unified Command Plan, 1946-2012," ''Joint History Office'', (Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff) , p 69, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Institutional/Command_Plan.pdf</ref>

[[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…"<ref>Cheney, Dick (January 1993). "Defense strategy for the 1990s: The regional defense strategy," (Washington: Department of Defense), p 11, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA268979.pdf</ref> The continuation of the strategic pattern implied for some that "the United States would hold to its accidental hegemony."<ref>[[Barry Posen|Posen, Barry]] (2003). "Command of the commons: The military foundation of US  hegemony," ''International Security'', vol 28 (1): p 19.</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.<ref>Drea, Edward et al (2013). "History of the Unified Command Plan, 1946-2012," ''Joint History Office'', (Washington: Joint Chiefs of Staff) , p 5, 75, 84, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Institutional/Command_Plan.pdf</ref>

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 [[Christopher Kelly (historian)| Christopher Kelly]] asked in 2002: What America needs to consider is "what is the optimum size for a non-territorial empire."<ref>Freedland, Jonathan (September 18, 2002). "Rome, AD ... Rome, DC," ''The Guardian'', https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/18/usa.comment</ref> His colleague, Max Ostrovsky, replied: "Precisely that year, the UCC supplied a precise answer: [[Earth|510 million km<sup>2</sup>]]…"<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 251, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/251/mode/2up?view=theater&q=posen</ref>

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.<ref>Ignatieff, Michael (2003). "The challenges of American imperial power," ''Naval War College Review'', vol 56 (2): p 54.</ref> 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.<ref>[[Chuck Hagel|Hagel, Chuck]] (March 4, 2014). ''Quadrennial Defense Review'', (Washington: Department of Defense), p 39, https://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/docs/2014_Quadrennial_Defense_Review.pdf</ref> 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."<ref>Harrison, Thomas (2009). "Herodotus on the American Empire." ''Classical World'', vol 102 (4): p 390.</ref><ref>Harrison, Thomas (2008). "Ancient and modern imperialism." ''Greece & Rome'', vol 55 (1): p 20.</ref>

Combatant Commanders exercise heavy international influence and sometimes are associated with the [[Proconsul|Roman proconsuls]] (chapter "'Empire' and alternative terms" below). Commander of [[United States 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. Later, the word "imperium" lost its original meaning of "command" and obtained the meaning of "empire."<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2018). ''Military Globalization: Geography, Strategy, Weaponry'', (New York: Edwin Mellen Press), p 247, https://archive.org/details/military-globalization/page/247/mode/2up?view=theater</ref>

Former [[United States National Security Council|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 United States; nor divides the whole world into [[Area of Responsibility|Areas of Responsibility]] presided over by its commanders.<ref>Lord, Cranes (2012). ''Proconsuls: Delegated Political-Military Leadership from Rome to America Today''. (New York: Cambridge University Press), p 234.</ref>

==Factors==
===American exceptionalism===
{{Main|American exceptionalism}}
[[File:Puck cover2.jpg|upright|thumb|On the cover of ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'' published on April 6, 1901, in the wake of gainful victory in the [[Spanish–American War]], [[Columbia (name)|Columbia]]—the [[National personification]] of the U.S.—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 [[American exceptionalism#Global leadership and activism|global leadership]] is the notion of [[American exceptionalism]]. The United States occupies a special position among the nations of the world<ref name="sagehistory.net">Frederick Jackson Turner, {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080521064528/http://www.sagehistory.net/gildedage/documents/TurnerFT.html |date=May 21, 2008 |title=Significance of the Frontier }}, sagehistory.net (archived from [http://www.sagehistory.net/gildedage/documents/TurnerFT.html the original] on May 21, 2008).</ref> 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 U.S., uniquely, was "proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived".<ref>{{cite web | author=Kellner, Douglas | url=http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american-exceptionalism.htm | title=American Exceptionalism | date=April 25, 2003 | access-date=February 20, 2006 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060217113947/http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/american-exceptionalism.htm |archive-date = February 17, 2006}}</ref> As a ''[[Monthly Review]]'' editorial opines on the phenomenon, "In Britain, empire was justified as a benevolent [[The White Man's Burden|'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."<ref>{{cite journal| first =Harry| last =Magdoff|author2=John Bellamy Foster|date=November 2001 | title =After the Attack ... The War on Terrorism| journal=[[Monthly Review]]| volume =53| issue =6| page =7| url =https://monthlyreview.org/2001/11/01/after-the-attack-the-war-on-terrorism |access-date=October 8, 2009}}</ref> [[Fareed Zakaria]] stressed one element not exceptional for the American Empire—the concept of exceptionalism. All dominant empires thought they were special.<ref>Zakaria, Fareed (March 24, 2003). "The arrogant Empire," ''Newsweek'', https://www.newsweek.com/arrogant-empire-132751</ref>

===Economic interests===
[[File:Go Away Little Man Charles Green Bush.jpg|thumb|upright|1903 cartoon, ''"Go Away, Little Man, and Don't Bother Me"'', depicts President [[Theodore Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] intimidating Colombia to acquire the [[Panama Canal Zone]].]]

[[File:1899BalanceCartoon.jpg|thumb|left|upright|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 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 looting [[natural resource]]s, often at the expense of the public interest.<ref>[[C. Wright Mills]], ''The Causes of World War Three'', Simon and Schuster, 1958, pp. 52, 111</ref> The proposed solution is typically unceasing popular vigilance in order to apply counter-pressure.<ref>Flynn, John T. (1944) ''As We Go Marching.''</ref> [[Chalmers Johnson]] holds a version of this view.<ref>{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Chalmers |title=The sorrows of empire: Militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic |url=https://archive.org/details/sorrowsofempirem00john_0 |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Metropolitan Books |year=2004|isbn=9780805070040 }}</ref>

[[Alfred Thayer Mahan]], who served as an officer in the [[U.S. 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]].<ref>{{ws|{{cite book |year=1890 |first=Alfred Thayer |last=Mahan |title=The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 |location=Boston, MA |publisher=Little, Brown, and Company |oclc=2553178 |at=[[s:The Influence of Sea Power upon History/Chapter I|Chapter I: Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power]]|title-link=s:The Influence of Sea Power upon History }}}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 26396746|last1 = Sumida|first1 = Jon Tetsuro|title = Geography, technology, and British naval strategy in the ''dreadnought'' era|journal = Naval War College Review|volume = 59|issue = 3|pages = 89–102|year = 2006|url=http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a573630.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140305122735/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a573630.pdf|url-status=live|archive-date=March 5, 2014}}</ref>

A theory of "super-imperialism" argues that imperialistic U.S. 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|date=May 2024}} The argument asserts that [[capitalism]] in the [[North–South divide in the World|Global North]] (Europe, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.) 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 [[core countries|global core]]) and the Global South (also referred to as the [[Third World|global periphery]]), rather than between the imperialist powers.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}} A conservative, anti-interventionist view as expressed by American journalist [[John T. Flynn]]:
{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.mises.org/books/aswegomarching.pdf|title=Books|work=Mises Institute|date=2014-08-18}}</ref>}}

=== Security ===
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,<ref>[[Samuel Eliot Morison|Morison, Samuel Eliot]] (1979). ''A Concise History of the American Republic'', (New York: Oxford University Press), p 182.</ref> John Kennedy<ref>White, Mark J. (1996). ''The Cuban Missile Crisis'', (London: Macmillan), p 188.</ref> and Bill Clinton<ref>''Jerusalem Post'' (February 18, 1998), p 1.</ref> 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 United States would have to fight them when they are stronger.

The focus of this policy is on Eurasia. Since [[Alfred Thayer Mahan]] and until [[Henry Kissinger]] and [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]], the [[Geopolitics#United States|American geopolitical school]] claims it vital to prevent the Eurasian land mass from coming under control of any single power or combination of powers.<ref>Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1920). ''The Problem of Asia and the Effects upon International Politics'', (Washington & London: Kennikat Press), p 26–27.</ref><ref>[[Nicholas Spykman|Spykman, Nicholas]] (1942). ''America's Strategy in World Politics'', p 179-180, 457.</ref><ref>Kissinger, Henry (1994). ''Diplomacy'', (New York: Simon & Schuster), p 804-822.</ref><ref>Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997). ''[[The Grand Chessboard|The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives]]''. (New York: Basic Books).</ref> Some scholars explain the Cold War by geopolitics rather than ideology.<ref>[[Colin S. Gray|Gray, Colin S.]] (1988). ''The Geopolitics Of Super Power'', (New York: University Press of Kentucky).</ref><ref>Kissinger, Henry (1994). ''Diplomacy'', (New York: Simon & Schuster), p. 804.</ref> They stress that the US grand strategy designed for the Cold War long outlived the Soviet Communism.<ref>[[Andrew Bacevich|Bacevich, Andrew]] (2004). ''American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy'', (New York: Harvard University Press).</ref>

In 2005, the [[United States 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.<ref>Douglas V. Johnson (5 April 2005). “The rise and fall of empires.” (USAWC Press), p 3, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=articles_editorials
</ref> September 11 is another example of security crisis which triggered greater intervention as well as unleashed mass publications<ref>[[Richard H. Immerman|Immerman, Richard H]]. (2010). ''Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz''. (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p 3, https://books.google.co.il/books?id=gTgEl8PN5PEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref> on the "American Empire" accompanied by heated debates (see "Post-September-11 debates" below). 

The pattern of increasing involvement responding to security crises or threats is known as "[[defensive imperialism]]" in the Roman studies<ref>[[William V. Harris|Harris, William Vernon]] (1979). ''War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327-70 BC'', (New York: Oxford University Press), p 4, https://archive.org/details/warimperialismin0000harr/page/4/mode/2up</ref><ref>Adler, Eric (December 2008). " Post-9/11 Views of Rome and the nature of 'defensive imperialism,'" ''International Journal of the Classical Tradition'', vol 15 (4): p. 587-610.</ref><ref>Castignani, Hugo (2012). "Can one speak of defensive imperialism? On the Roman theory of the just war and in its posterity," ''Raisons politiques'', vol 45 (1): p 35-57.</ref> and Historian Max Ostrovsky applied the concept also to [[Qin (state)|Qin]] and the United States. 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.<ref>Ostrovsky, Max (2007). ''The Hyperbola of the World Order'', (Lanham: University Press of America), p 240-293, https://archive.org/details/yarctgxhyperbola0000ostr/page/240/mode/2up?view=theater</ref>

==Views of American imperialism==
===U.S. foreign policy debate===
{{further|Military history of the United States|Overseas interventions of the United States}}[[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 United States 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."<ref>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.</ref>

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.<ref name="Pérez, Louis A 1998">Pérez, Louis A. ''The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1998. Print.</ref> Executive officials in the American government began to determine themselves the supreme authority in matters regarding the recognition or restriction of independence.<ref name="Pérez, Louis A 1998" />

Historian [[Donald W. Meinig]] says imperial behavior by the United States 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 U.S. policies towards the Native Americans, he said, were "designed to remold them into a people more appropriately conformed to imperial desires."<ref>{{cite book |last= Meinig |first= Donald W. |author-link= Donald W. Meinig|title= The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2: Continental America, 1800–1867 |year= 1993 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn= 0-300-05658-3 |pages= 22–23, 170–196, 516–517}}</ref>

[[File:BigStickinLAmerica.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|A map of Central America, showing the places affected by [[Theodore Roosevelt]]'s [[Big Stick ideology|Big Stick policy]]]]
Writers and academics of the early 20th century, like [[Charles A. Beard]], in support of [[non-interventionism]] (sometimes referred to as "[[American isolationism|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 United States' drive to empire is "far removed from what the Founding Fathers had intended the young Republic to become."<ref>{{cite book | author=Buchanan, Pat |author-link=Pat Buchanan| title=A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny| publisher=Regnery Publishing|location=Washington, DC | year=1999 | isbn=0-89526-272-X|title-link=A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=eJSJw6GT5VYC&pg=PA165 165] }}</ref>

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.<ref>Chomsky, Noam (1988). ''Manufacturing Consent''. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-71449-9</ref> 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."<ref>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.</ref>

[[Andrew Bacevich]] argues that the U.S. did not fundamentally change its [[Foreign policy of the United States|foreign policy]] after the [[Cold War]], and remains focused on an effort to expand its control across the world.<ref>{{cite book| author=Bacevich, Andrew | title=American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy | publisher=Harvard University Press | year=2004 | isbn=0-674-01375-1 | url=https://archive.org/details/americanempire00andr }}</ref> As the surviving superpower at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. 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.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/23/us/washington-at-work-ex-cold-warrior-sees-the-future-as-up-for-grabs.html |title=Washington at Work; Ex-Cold Warrior Sees the Future as 'Up for Grabs' |last=Schmitt |first=Eric |date=1991-12-23 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2020-01-22 |language=en-US }}</ref>

Since 2001,<ref>Emmanuel Todd, ''After the Empire. The Breakdown of the American Order'', 2001, (tr. Delogu, C. Jon, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).</ref> [[Emmanuel Todd]] assumes the U.S. cannot hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic power, due to limited resources. Instead, the U.S. 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."<ref name=Ikenberry2004>{{Cite journal |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/20040301fareviewessay_v83n2_ikenberry.html |title=Illusions of Empire: Defining the New American Order |access-date=2020-01-22|last=Ikenberry|first= G. John| date=2004 | journal=Foreign Affairs|volume=83|issue=2 |jstor = 20033908|doi = 10.2307/20033908|pages = 144–154|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

===Debate after September 11, 2001===
[[File:Carl Nebel - Genl. Scott's entrance into Mexico, Plate 45.jpg|thumb|American occupation of [[Mexico City]] in 1847]]
[[File:Raising of American flag at Iolani Palace with US Marines in the foreground (detailed).jpg|thumb|Ceremonies during the [[Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii#Annexation|annexation of the Republic of Hawaii]], 1898]]

Following September 11, publications on the "American Empire" grew exponentially, accompanied by heated debates.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1017/S1740022807002343|title = Comparing British and American empires|journal = Journal of Global History|volume = 2|issue = 3|pages = 395–404|year = 2007|last1 = Hopkins|first1 = A. G.|s2cid = 162871393}}</ref>
Harvard historian [[Charles S. Maier]] states:
{{blockquote|
Since September 11, 2001&nbsp;... if not earlier, the idea of American empire is back&nbsp;... Now&nbsp;... 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."<ref>[[Charles S. Maier]], ''Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors'', (Massachusetts & London: Harvard University Press, 2006), p 2-24.</ref>}}
Harvard professor [[Niall Ferguson]] states:
{{blockquote|
It used to be that only the critics of American foreign policy referred to the American empire&nbsp;... 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.<ref>[[Niall Ferguson]], ''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'', (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), pp. 3–4.</ref>}}

French political scientist Philip Golub argues:
{{blockquote|
U.S. historians have generally considered the late 19th century imperialist urge as an aberration in an otherwise smooth democratic trajectory&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... 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.<ref>Philip S. Golub, "[http://mondediplo.com/2002/09/03westward Westward the Course of Empire]", ''Le Monde Diplomatique'', (September 2002)</ref>}}

Following the [[United States invasion of Afghanistan|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 [[Battle of San Juan Hill|San Juan Hill]] and [[Battle of Iwo Jima|Iwo Jima]]. All moments, writes [[Neil Smith (geographer)|Neil Smith]], express U.S. global ambition. "Labelled a [[War on Terror]]ism, the new war represents an unprecedented quickening of the American Empire, a third chance at global power."<ref>Neil Smith, ''American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization'', (Berkeley & Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2003), p XI-XII.</ref>

On October 15, 2001, the cover of [[Bill Kristol]]'s ''[[Weekly Standard]]'' carried the headline, "The Case for American Empire".<ref>[[Max Boot]], "[http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/boot.htm The Case for American Empire]," ''Weekly Standard'' 7/5, (October 15, 2001)</ref> [[Rich Lowry]], editor in chief of the [[National Review]], called for "a kind of low-grade [[colonialism]]" to topple dangerous regimes beyond Afghanistan.<ref>Nina J. Easton, "Thunder on the Right," American Journalism Review 23 (December 2001), 320.</ref> The columnist [[Charles Krauthammer]] declared that, given complete U.S. domination "culturally, economically, technologically and militarily", people were "now coming out of the closet on the word 'empire{{'"}}.<ref name="Trends 2002" /> The ''[[The New York Times|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.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1162/isec.2007.32.1.47|title = Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics|journal = International Security|volume = 32|pages = 47–79|year = 2007|last1 = Lake|first1 = David A.|s2cid = 57572519}}</ref>

A leading spokesman for America-as-Empire, British historian [[A. G. Hopkins]],<ref>A. G. Hopkins, ''American Empire: a Global History'' (2019).</ref> 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:
{{blockquote|
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.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1080/03086530601143412|title = Capitalism, Nationalism and the New American Empire|journal = The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History|volume = 35|issue=1|pages = 95–117|year = 2007|last1 = Hopkins|first1 = A. G.|s2cid = 143521756}} Quoting page 95.</ref>}}

[[File:CIA Secret Prisons.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|The [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]'s [[extraordinary rendition]] and detention program – countries involved in the Program, according to the 2013 Open Society Foundation's report on [[torture]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/globalizing-torture|title=CIA Secret Detention and Torture|publisher=opensocietyfoundations.org|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130220112418/http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/globalizing-torture|archive-date=February 20, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref>]]

Harvard professor Niall Ferguson concludes that worldwide military and economic power have combined to make the U.S. 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.<ref>Niall Ferguson, ''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'' (2004), [https://www.amazon.com/Colossus-Rise-Fall-American-Empire/dp/0143034790 excerpt]</ref> Head of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, [[Stephen Peter Rosen]], maintains:
{{blockquote|
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.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Rosen |first=Stephen Peter |date=May–June 2002 |title=The Future of War and the American Military: Demography, technology, and the politics of modern empire |url=https://harvardmagazine.com/2002/05/the-future-of-war-and-th.html |language=en|magazine=Harvard Magazine|access-date=2020-01-22}}</ref>}}
The U.S. dollar is the ''de facto'' [[world currency]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schulmeister|first=Stephan|s2cid=59022899|date=March 2000|title=Globalization without Global Money: The Double Role of the Dollar as National Currency and World Currency|journal=Journal of Post Keynesian Economics|volume=22|issue=3|pages=365–395|doi=10.1080/01603477.2000.11490246|issn=0160-3477}}</ref> The term [[petrodollar warfare]] refers to the alleged motivation of U.S. foreign policy as preserving by force the status of the United States dollar as the world's dominant [[reserve currency]] and as the currency in which [[Petroleum|oil]] is priced.  The 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.<ref>Clark, William R. ''Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar'', New Society Publishers, 2005, Canada, {{ISBN|0-86571-514-9}}</ref>

When asked on April 28, 2003, on [[Al Jazeera Arabic|Al Jazeera]] whether the United States was "empire building," Secretary of Defense [[Donald Rumsfeld]] replied, "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-05-05-boot_x.htm|title= American imperialism? No need to run away from label|work=USA Today |first1=Max |last1=Boot |date=May 5, 2003 |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231118114033/http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-05-05-boot_x.htm |archive-date= Nov 18, 2023 }}</ref> Many{{snd}}perhaps most{{snd}}scholars{{who|date=April 2021}} have decided that the United States 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 United States government does not send out governors or permanent settlers like all the historic empires did.<ref>Nugent, ''Habits of Empire'' p 287.</ref>  Harvard historian [[Charles S. Maier]] has examined the America-as-Empire issue at length.  He says the traditional understanding of the word "empire" does not apply, because the United States does not exert formal control over other nations or engage in systematic conquest. The best term is that the United States 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.<ref>Charles S. Maier, ''Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors'' (2006).</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.3138/cjh.42.2.259 |title = The Anglo-American Global Imperial Legacy: Is There a Better Way?|journal = Canadian Journal of History|volume = 42|issue = 2|pages = 259–270|year = 2007|last1 = Vuoto|first1 = Grace}}</ref>

World historian [[Anthony Pagden]] asks, Is the United States really an empire?
{{blockquote|
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.&nbsp;...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.&nbsp;...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.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1162/0011526053887301|title = Imperialism, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace|journal = Daedalus|volume = 134|issue = 2|pages = 46–57|year = 2005|last1 = Pagden|first1 = Anthony|s2cid = 57564158| url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249559701|doi-access = free}} Quoting pp 52–53.</ref>}}

[[File:US Navy 030402-N-5362A-004 U.S. Army Sgt. Mark Phiffer stands guard duty near a burning oil well in the Rumaylah Oil Fields in Southern Iraq.jpg|thumb|A U.S. soldier stands guard duty near a burning oil well in the [[Rumaila oil field]], [[Iraq]], April 2003.]]
In the book ''[[Empire (Negri and Hardt book)|Empire]]'' (2000), [[Michael Hardt]] and [[Antonio Negri]] argue that "the decline of Empire has begun".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jul/15/globalisation.highereducation |title=Empire hits back |work=[[The Observer]] |date=July 15, 2001 |access-date=April 6, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.evnreport.com/politics/the-2020-artsakh-war-what-the-world-lacks-now-is-leadership |first1=Daniel|last1=Tahmazyan|title=The 2020 Artsakh War: What the World Lacks Now Is Leadership -- evnreport.com|website=evnreport.com|date=30 November 2020 |access-date=5 January 2021}}</ref> Hardt says the [[Iraq War]] is a classically imperialist war and is the last gasp of a doomed strategy.<ref>{{cite journal | first=Michael | last=Hardt | date=July 13, 2006 | title=From Imperialism to Empire | journal=[[The Nation]] | url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/imperialism-empire/ }}</ref> 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 [[Affect (philosophy)|affective]] economies. They go on to say that the U.S. is central to the development of this new regime of [[Power in international relations|international power]] and [[sovereignty]], termed "Empire", but that it 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."<ref>{{cite book | author=Negri, Antonio | author2=Hardt, Michael | year=2000 | title=Empire | publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] | url=https://archive.org/details/empire0000hard | isbn=0-674-00671-2 | access-date=October 8, 2009 | url-access=registration }} p. xiii–xiv.</ref>  Hardt and Negri draw on the theories of [[Baruch Spinoza]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Gilles Deleuze]], and Italian [[Autonomism|Autonomist Marxists]].<ref>Michael Hardt, ''[[Gilles Deleuze]]: an Apprenticeship in Philosophy'', {{ISBN|0-8166-2161-6}}</ref><ref>[[Autonomism#Italian autonomism]]</ref>

Geographer [[David Harvey (geographer)|David Harvey]] says there has emerged a new type of imperialism due to geographical distinctions as well as unequal rates of development.<ref>{{cite book|last=Harvey|first=David|title=The new imperialism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA-OhoC|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-927808-4|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA–OhoC&pg=PA101 101]}}</ref> He says there have emerged three new global economic and political blocs: the United States, the [[European Union]], and Asia centered on China and Russia.<ref>{{harvnb|Harvey|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA-OhoC&pg=PA31 31]}}.</ref>{{Verify source|date=February 2013|reason=The edit at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_imperialism&curid=215140&diff=539849336&oldid=539669263 changed "East Asia centered around China and Japan" to "Asia centered around China and Russia" with no explanatory edit summary. The cited supporting source is not previewable online.}} 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Harvey|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA-OhoC&pg=PA77 77–78]}}.</ref> 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Harvey|2005|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA-OhoC&pg=PA187 187]}}.</ref> Politicians live in geographically fixed locations and are, in the U.S. and Europe,{{Verify source|date=September 2016|reason=can't see the book so I'm not sure he said this. This is a very 'imperialist' view (only U.S. and Europe democratic) which would appear to be a departure from the rest of his analysis}} 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.<ref>{{Harvnb|Harvey|2005|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=N3VZWhA-OhoC&pg=PA76 76–78]}}</ref>

[[File:USS Salt Lake City (SSN-716) and USS Frank Cable (AS-40) at Apra Harbor, Guam, on 23 May 2002 (6640652).jpg|thumb|left|[[Naval Base Guam]] in the U.S. territory of [[Guam]]]]

=== "Empire" and alternative terms ===
In one point of view, United States 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.<ref name="miller">{{cite book | last=Miller |first=Stuart Creighton | title="Benevolent Assimilation" The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903 | publisher=Yale University Press | year=1982 | isbn=0-300-02697-8 | url=http://www.livejournal.com/users/bailey83221/4300.html#miller }} p. 3.</ref>  Historian [[Walter LaFeber]] sees the Spanish–American War expansionism not as an aberration, but as a culmination of United States expansion westward.<ref>{{cite book| author=Lafeber, Walter| title=The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898| publisher=Cornell University Press| isbn=0-8014-9048-0| year=1975| url=https://archive.org/details/newempireinterpr00lafe_0}}</ref>

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."<ref name="thor">{{cite book | author=Thornton, Archibald Paton| title= Imperialism in the Twentieth Century | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |date=September 1978| isbn=0-333-24848-1}}</ref>  [[Neoliberalism in international relations|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.<ref name=Ikenberry2004/> 

Classics professor and war historian [[Victor Davis Hanson]] argues that the U.S. does not pursue [[world domination]], but maintains worldwide influence by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges.<ref name=Hanson2002/> He dismisses the notion of an American Empire altogether, with a mocking comparison to historical empires: "We do not send out proconsuls to reside over client states, which in turn impose taxes on coerced subjects to pay for the legions. Instead, American bases are predicated on contractual obligations&nbsp;— costly to us and profitable to their hosts. We do not see any profits in Korea, but instead accept the risk of losing almost 40,000 of our youth to ensure that Kias can flood our shores and that shaggy students can protest outside our embassy in Seoul."<ref name=Hanson2002>{{cite journal | last=Hanson|first= Victor Davis |date=November 2002 | title = A Funny Sort of Empire | journal=National Review | url = http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson112702.asp | access-date =October 8, 2009|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080511233845/http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson112702.asp |archive-date= 2008-05-11 }}</ref>

The existence of "proconsuls", however, has been recognized by many since the early Cold War. In 1957, French Historian [[Amaury de Riencourt]] associated the American "proconsul" with "the Roman of our time."<ref>Cited in [[Geir Lundestad]], ''The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From 'Empire' by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p 112.</ref> Expert on recent American history, [[Arthur M. Schlesinger]], detected several contemporary imperial features, including "proconsuls." Washington does not directly run many parts of the world. Rather, its "informal empire" was one "richly equipped with imperial paraphernalia: troops, ships, planes, bases, proconsuls, local collaborators, all spread wide around the luckless planet."<ref>Schlesinger, Arthur Meier. ''The Cycles of American History'', (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), p 141. {{OCLC|13455179}}</ref> "The [[Supreme Allied Commander]], always an American, was an appropriate title for the American proconsul whose reputation and influence outweighed those of European premiers, presidents, and chancellors."<ref>[[Lawrence Kaplan]], "Western Europe in 'The American Century{{'"}}, ''Diplomatic History'', 6/2, (1982): p 115.</ref> U.S. "[[Unified Combatant Command|combatant commanders]]&nbsp;... have served as its proconsuls. Their standing in their regions has usually dwarfed that of ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state."<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 20034046|title = History and the Hyperpower|journal = Foreign Affairs|volume = 83|issue = 4|pages = 49–63|last1 = Cohen|first1 = Eliot A.|year = 2004|doi = 10.2307/20034046|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2004-07-01/history-and-hyperpower|author-link1=Eliot A. Cohen|url-access = subscription}} pp. 60-61</ref><ref>Reveron, Derek S. (2007). ''America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy''. (Palgrave Macmillan), p 4.</ref><ref>Wrage, Stephen D. (2007). “US Combatant Commander: The man in the middle,” ''America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy''. (Ed. Reveron, Derek S. Palgrave Macmillan), p 193.</ref>

[[File:History of NATO enlargement.svg|thumb|[[Enlargement of NATO]]]]
[[Andrew J. Bacevich]] in his 2002 book about American Empire titled a chapter “Rise of the proconsuls,” where he identifies a new class of uniformed proconsuls presiding over vast “quasi-imperial” domains who emerged in the 1990s.<ref>Bacevich, Andrew J. (2002). ''American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy''. (Harvard university Press), chapter 7, p 167.</ref> In September 2000, ''Washington Post'' reporter [[Dana Priest]] published a series of articles whose central premise was Combatant Commanders' inordinate amount of political influence within the countries in their areas of responsibility. They "had evolved into the modern-day equivalent of the Roman Empire's proconsuls—well-funded, semi-autonomous, unconventional centers of U.S. foreign policy."<ref>Cited in Andrew Feickert, "[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42077.pdf The Unified Command Plan and Combatant Commands: Background and Issues for Congress]", (Congressional Research Service, Washington: White House, 2013), p 59.</ref> A book, titled ''America's Viceroys'', responds to Priest, claiming that US Combatant Commanders pose no threat of marching on Washington while Roman proconsuls “always presented” such threat.<ref>Reveron, Derek S. (2007). ''America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy''. (Palgrave Macmillan), p 2.</ref><ref>Wrage, Stephen D. (2007). “US Combatant Commander: The man in the middle.” ''America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy''. (Ed. Reveron, Derek S. Palgrave Macmillan), p 185.</ref> Many Roman historians however reduce the period of the threat from “always” to the last century of the Republic (133-31 BC). One of most honorable Roman proconsuls who won for Rome supremacy over the Mediterranean, [[Scipio Africanus]], was unsuccessful in the 184 BC campaign for the censorship and retired from politics. Founded c. 509 BC, the Republic still firmly controlled its proconsuls. Stephen Wrage precludes future complications with Combatant Commanders,<ref>Wrage, Stephen D. (2007). “US Combatant Commander: The man in the middle.” ''America's Viceroys: The Military and US Foreign Policy''. (Ed. Reveron, Derek S. Palgrave Macmillan), p 185.</ref> while some Roman historians are more cautious, supposing that the United States might be in the Roman sequence "somewhere between the great wars of conquest [202-146 BC] and the rise of the Caesars."<ref>[[Mike Duncan (podcaster)|Duncan, Mike]] (2017). ''The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic''. (Public Affairs), p XXIII.</ref><ref>[[Thomas F. Madden|Madden, Thomas F]]. (2008). ''Empires of Trust: How Rome Built—and America Is Building—a New World''. (Dutton Adult), p 201, 210, 250.</ref>

Carnes Lord observes that since the 2000s, the notion that the Combatant Commanders are in effect the “proconsuls” of a new American Empire has become a standard trope in the literature on American foreign policy.<ref name="auto2">Lord, Cranes (2012). ''Proconsuls: Delegated Political-Military Leadership from Rome to America Today''. (New York: Cambridge University Press), p 2, 6, 167.</ref> Harvard professor Niall Ferguson calls the regional combatant commanders, among whom the whole globe is divided, the "pro-consuls" of this "imperium."<ref>Niall Ferguson, ''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'', (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), p 17.</ref> [[Günter Bischof]] calls them "the all powerful proconsuls of the new American empire. Like the proconsuls of Rome they were supposed to bring order and law to the unruly and anarchical world."<ref>Günter Bischof, "[http://www.beigewum.at/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009_2_014-23.pdf Empire Discourses: The 'American Empire' in Decline?]" ''Kurswechsel'', 2, (2009): p 18</ref> The Romans often preferred to exercise power through friendly client regimes, rather than direct rule: "Until Jay Garner and L. Paul Bremer became U.S. proconsuls in Baghdad, that was the American method, too".<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/06/14/bushs-amazing-achievement/ |url-status=live |title=Bush's Amazing Achievement |last=Freedland |first=Jonathan |date=June 14, 2007 |language=en |issn=0028-7504|magazine=The New York Review of Books|author-link1=Jonathan Freedland|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151210200739/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/06/14/bushs-amazing-achievement/ |archive-date=2015-12-10 }}</ref>

Carnes Lord devoted a book to comparison between the Roman proconsuls, British colonial officials and US Combatant Commanders. The latter for him also associate with the Persian [[Satrap|satraps]] and Spanish [[Viceroy|viceroys]]. He found the American version most similar to the Roman proconsular model. As they contributed importantly to the policy on the marches of empire, all of them qualify as proconsuls in proper sense of the term. With all due qualification, he confessed, his study is about imperial governance in the imperial periphery.<ref name="auto2"/>

Another distinction of [[Victor Davis Hanson]]—that US bases, contrary to the legions, are costly to America and profitable for their hosts—expresses the American view. The hosts express a diametrically opposite view. Japan pays for 25,000 Japanese working on US bases. 20% of those workers provide entertainment: a list drawn up by the Japanese Ministry of Defense included 76 bartenders, 48 vending machine personnel, 47 golf course maintenance personnel, 25 club managers, 20 commercial artists, 9 leisure-boat operators, 6 theater directors, 5 cake decorators, 4 bowling alley clerks, 3 tour guides and 1 animal caretaker. Shu Watanabe of the [[Democratic Party of Japan]] asks: "Why does Japan need to pay the costs for US service members' entertainment on their holidays?"<ref>Cited in {{Cite journal |jstor = 20699853|title = The United States–Japan Security Treaty at 50: Still a Grand Bargain?|journal = Foreign Affairs|volume = 89|issue = 2|pages = 92–103|last1 = Packard|first1 = George R.|year = 2010|url=https://documents.pub/amp/document/the-united-statesjapan-security-treaty-at-50-still-a-grand-bargain.html}} pp. 98–99</ref> One research on host nations support concludes:
[[File:Us troops in syria.jpg|thumb|right|A convoy of U.S. soldiers during the [[American intervention in the Syrian civil war]], December 2018]]
{{Blockquote|
At an alliance-level analysis, case studies of South Korea and Japan show that the necessity of the alliance relationship with the U.S. and their relative capabilities to achieve security purposes lead them to increase the size of direct economic investment to support the U.S. forces stationed in their territories, as well as to facilitate the US global defense posture. In addition, these two countries have increased their political and economic contribution to the U.S.-led military operations beyond the geographic scope of the alliance in the post-Cold War period&nbsp;... Behavioral changes among the U.S. allies in response to demands for sharing alliance burdens directly indicate the changed nature of unipolar alliances. In order to maintain its power preponderance and primacy, the unipole has imposed greater pressure on its allies to devote much of their resources and energy to contributing to its global defense posture&nbsp;... [It] is expected that the systemic properties of unipolarity–non-structural threat and a power preponderance of the unipole–gradually increase the political and economic burdens of the allies in need of maintaining alliance relationships with the unipole.<ref>Sung Woo Kim, "[https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/doctoral/System-polarities-and-alliance-politics/9983777286802771 System Polarities and Alliance Politics]", (PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2012), pp. 149–151</ref>}}
Increasing the "economic burdens of the allies" is one of the major priorities of President [[Donald Trump]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/03/aipac-and-foreign-policy |title=AIPAC and foreign policy |newspaper=The Economist |date=March 22, 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/politics/donald-trump-issues.html |title=Donald Trump Sets Conditions for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack |last1=Sanger |first1=David E. |date=July 20, 2016 |last2=Haberman |first2=Maggie |newspaper=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331|access-date=July 31, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-nato/ |first= D'Angelo |last=Gore |title=What's Trump's Position on NATO? |publisher=factcheck.org|access-date=July 31, 2016|date=2016-05-11 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330142431/http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/29/full-rush-transcript-donald-trump-cnn-milwaukee-republican-presidential-town-hall/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 30, 2016 |title=Full Rush Transcript: Donald Trump, CNN Milwaukee Republican Presidential Town Hall |publisher=CNN |access-date=June 26, 2016}}</ref> Classicist Eric Adler notes that Hanson earlier had written about the decline of the classical studies in the United States and insufficient attention devoted to the classical experience. "When writing about American foreign policy for a lay audience, however, Hanson himself chose to castigate Roman imperialism in order to portray the modern United States as different from—and superior to—the Roman state."<ref name=Adler2008>{{Cite journal |jstor = 25691268|title = Post-9/11 Views of Rome and the Nature of "Defensive Imperialism"|journal = International Journal of the Classical Tradition|volume = 15|issue = 4|pages = 587–610|last1 = Adler|first1 = Eric|s2cid = 143223136|year = 2008|doi = 10.1007/s12138-009-0069-7|url=https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/1442670/IJCT.15.4.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DPost-9_11_Views_of_Rome_and_the_Nature.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200121%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200121T193424Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=092808f15515bd339c803262e576ae506c9dd7f25b0e800c45f34a52ae21b66f|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200121193546/https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/1442670/IJCT.15.4.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DPost-9_11_Views_of_Rome_and_the_Nature.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200121%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200121T193424Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=092808f15515bd339c803262e576ae506c9dd7f25b0e800c45f34a52ae21b66f|archive-date = 2020-01-21}} Quoting p. 593.</ref> As a supporter of a hawkish unilateral American foreign policy, Hanson's "distinctly negative view of Roman imperialism is particularly noteworthy, since it demonstrates the importance a contemporary supporter of a hawkish American foreign policy places on criticizing Rome."<ref name=Adler2008/>

Political theorist [[Michael Walzer]] argues that the term [[hegemony]] is better than empire to describe the U.S.'s role in the world.<ref>{{cite web| author=Walzer, Michael | title =Is There an American Empire?| work=www.freeindiamedia.com| url =http://www.freeindiamedia.com/america/5_jan_04_america2.htm| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20061021013321/http://www.freeindiamedia.com/america/5_jan_04_america2.htm| archive-date =October 21, 2006| access-date=June 10, 2006}}</ref> Hegemony is distinguished from empire as ruling only external but not internal affairs of other states.<ref>[[Jack Snyder (political scientist)| Snyder, Jack]] (2002) "The myths of empire and strategies of hegemony," ''Lessons of Empire: Imperial Histories and American Power'', (eds. Craig Calhoun, Frederick Cooper and Kevin Moore, New York: The New Press), p 270.</ref> Political scientist [[Robert Keohane]] argues a "balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided&nbsp;... by the use of the word 'empire' to describe United States hegemony, since 'empire' obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of governance between the United States and other Great Powers, such as [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Great Britain]] in the 19th century or the [[Soviet Union]] in the twentieth".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Keohane |first=Robert O. |date=1991 |title=The United States and the Postwar Order: Empire or Hegemony? |journal=Journal of Peace Research |language=en |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=435–439 |doi=10.1177/0022343391028004010|jstor=424129|s2cid=108760853 }} Page 435.</ref> Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas Wright, argue that neither term exclusively describes [[foreign relations of the United States]]. The U.S. can be, and has been, simultaneously an empire and a hegemonic power. They claim that the general trend in U.S. foreign relations has been away from imperial modes of control.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1017/S0003055407070220| title=What's at Stake in the American Empire Debate| journal=American Political Science Review| volume=101| issue=2| pages=253–271| year=2007| last1=Nexon| first1=Daniel H.| last2=Wright| first2=Thomas| s2cid=17910808}} Pages 266–267.</ref>

=== Proponents===
{{Main|Neoconservatism}}
{{See|American Century|One World (Willkie book)}}
[[File:Roosevelt monroe Doctrine cartoon.jpg|thumb|upright|Political cartoon depicting [[Theodore Roosevelt]] using the [[Monroe Doctrine]] to keep European powers out of the [[Dominican Republic]]]]
[[Max Boot]] defends U.S. imperialism, writing, "U.S. 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."<ref name="maxboot_2003-05-06">{{cite news |author=Max Boot |url=http://www.cfr.org/iraq/american-imperialism-no-need-run-away-label/p5934 |title=American Imperialism? No Need to Run Away from Label |newspaper=USA Today |date=May 6, 2003 |department=Op-Ed |via=Council on Foreign Relations |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110404232140/http://www.cfr.org/iraq/american-imperialism-no-need-run-away-label/p5934 |archive-date=2011-04-04}}</ref> Boot used "imperialism" to describe United States policy, not only in the early 20th century but "since at least 1803."<ref name="maxboot_2003-05-06" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/boot.htm |title=Max Boot, "Neither New nor Nefarious: The Liberal Empire Strikes Back," November 2003 |work=mtholyoke.edu |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080515133938/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/boot.htm |archive-date=2008-05-15 }}</ref> This embrace of empire is made by other [[neoconservatism|neoconservatives]], including British historian [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]], and writers [[Dinesh D'Souza]] and [[Mark Steyn]]. It is also made by some [[liberal hawk]]s, such as political scientists [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]] and [[Michael Ignatieff]].<ref>{{cite news | last=Heer|first= Jeet | title=Operation Anglosphere: Today's most ardent American imperialists weren't born in the USA |work=Boston Globe | url=http://www.jeetheer.com/politics/anglosphere.htm| date=March 23, 2003| url-status=usurped|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060507104216/http://www.jeetheer.com/politics/anglosphere.htm |archive-date= 2006-05-07 }}</ref>

Scottish-American historian [[Niall Ferguson]] argues that the United States is an empire and believes that this is a good thing: "What is not allowed is to say that the United States is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad."<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1162/0011526053887419 | title=The unconscious colossus: Limits of (& alternatives to) American empire| journal=Daedalus| volume=134| issue=2| pages=18–33| year=2005| last1=Ferguson| first1=Niall| s2cid=57571709|url=https://www.amacad.org/publication/unconscious-colossus-limits-alternatives-american-empire| doi-access=free}} Quoting p 21.</ref> Ferguson has drawn parallels between the [[British Empire]] and the global 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 of these empires have had both positive and negative aspects, but that the positive aspects of the U.S. empire will, if it learns from history and its mistakes, greatly outweigh its negative aspects.<ref>Niall Ferguson, ''Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'' (2005) pp 286–301</ref>

===Role of women in American imperialism===
Within the United States, women played important roles in both advocating for and protesting against American imperialism. Women's organisations 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 United States had a responsibility to guide and shape the destiny of other nations.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoganson |first=Kristin L. |title=Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Choi |first=Hyaeweol |title=Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways |publisher=University of California Press |year=2009}}</ref>

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 [[East–West dichotomy|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 civilisation, 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 peoples|indigenous]] practices as in need of improvement and "upliftment".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bashford |first=Alison |title=Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism, and Public Health |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan London |year=2004}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brewster |first=Claire |date=2005 |title=Women and the Spanish-American Wars of Independence: An Overview. |journal=Feminist Review |volume=79 |pages=20–35|doi=10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400200 |s2cid=154141760 }}</ref>

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 United States. 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Burgin |first=SN |date=2016 |title=White Women, Anti-Imperialist Feminism and the Story of Race within the US Women's Liberation Movement |journal=Women's History Review |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=756–770|doi=10.1080/09612025.2015.1132980 |s2cid=146480559 |url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/89616/2/BURGIN%20WHR%20Special%20Issue%20Aug%202015.pdf }}</ref>

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 U.S. expansionism. Women's organisations and prominent figures raised their voices against the injustices of imperialism, advocating for peace, human rights, and the self-determination of colonised peoples. They criticized the exploitation and oppression inherent in imperialistic practices, highlighting the disproportionate impact on marginalised 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 behaviour 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dean |first1=Robert |title=A Companion to the Vietnam War |date=2002 |location=Malden, MA |pages=367–383}}</ref>

===American Empire and capitalism===

Writers like [[William I. Robinson]] have characterised 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 colonised and re-colonised.<ref name="auto1"/>

== American media and cultural imperialism ==
[[File:McDonalds in St Petersburg 2004.JPG|thumb|McDonald's in [[Saint Petersburg]], Russia]]
American imperialism has long had a media dimension ([[media imperialism]]) and cultural dimension ([[cultural imperialism]]).

In ''Mass Communication and American Empire'', [[Herbert Schiller|Herbert I. Schiller]] emphasized the significance of the mass media and [[Culture industry|cultural industry]] to American imperialism,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mirrlees |first=Tanner |date=2015 |title=U.S. Empire and Communications Today: Revisiting Herbert I. Schiller |url=http://www.polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/view/56 |journal=The Political Economy of Communication |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=3–27}}</ref> 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 United States world power."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schiller |first=Herbert |title=Mass Communication and American Empire |publisher=Beacon Press |year=1969 |edition=1st |location=Boston |pages=206–207}}</ref>

In ''Communication and Cultural Domination'', Schiller presented the premier definition of cultural imperialism as{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schiller |first=Herbert |title=Communication and Cultural Domination |publisher=M. E. Sharp |year=1969 |isbn=9780807061756 |location=Boston |pages=9}}</ref> }}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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mirrlees |first=Tanner |date=2015 |title=U.S. Empire and Communications Today: Revisiting Herbert I. Schiller |url=http://www.polecom.org/index.php/polecom/article/view/56 |journal=The Political Economy of Communication |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=6}}</ref> According to Schiller, cultural imperialism "pressured, forced and bribed" societies to integrate with the U.S.'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 Schiller|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mirrlees |first=Tanner |title=Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |year=2016 |isbn=9780774830157 |edition=1st |location=Vancouver}}</ref>

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  it, 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-colonialism|post-colonial theory]], said,

{{blockquote|...&nbsp;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.<ref name="Said">Said, Edward. {{cite web|url=http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/barsaid.htm |title=Culture and Imperialism, speech at York University, Toronto, February&nbsp;10,&nbsp;1993. |access-date=2006-02-23 |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20010917140537/http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/barsaid.htm |archive-date=2001-09-17 |url-status=dead}}</ref>}}

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 U.S. and Western ideas and products that many non-U.S. and non-Western consumers across the world voluntarily choose to consume.<ref>Rothkopf, David [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/rothkopf.html In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119145355/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/rothkopf.html |date=2012-01-19 }} Foreign Policy, Number 107, Summer 1997, pp. 38–53</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://mcdonalds.com.au/about-maccas/maccas-story|title=Our Story {{!}} About Macca's {{!}} McDonald's AU|website=mcdonalds.com.au|access-date=2016-11-10}}</ref>

International relations scholar [[Joseph Nye]] argues that U.S. 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 U.S. universities, and the spread of U.S. styles of popular music and cinema. Mass immigration into America may justify this theory, but it is hard to know whether the United States would still maintain its prestige without its military and economic superiority.,<ref>Joseph S. Nye Jr, ''Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics'' (2004), pp. 33–72.</ref>  In terms of soft power, [[Giles Scott-Smith]], argues that American universities:<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1163/187119007X240532 | title=The Ties that Bind: Dutch-American Relations, US Public Diplomacy and the Promotion of American Studies since the Second World War| journal=The Hague Journal of Diplomacy| volume=2| issue=3| pages=283–305| year=2007| last1=Scott-Smith| first1=Giles|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228653861}}</ref>
: 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 USA' 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 P. Huntington|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.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 2010115|title = Transnational Organizations in World Politics|journal = World Politics|volume = 25|issue = 3|pages = 333–368|last1 = Huntington|first1 = Samuel P.|year = 1973|doi = 10.2307/2010115| s2cid=154553877 |url=https://www.usna.edu/NAFAC/_files/round_tables/opferman/Transnational%20Organizations%20in%20World%20Politics.pdf}} p. 344.</ref><ref>See also Liping Bu, ''Making The World Like Us: Education, Cultural Expansion, and the American Century'' (2003).</ref> 
[[Matthew Fraser (journalist)|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.<ref>{{cite book | author=Fraser, Matthew | title=Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire | year=2005 | publisher=St. Martin's Press}}</ref> 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).<ref>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,</ref>

== American expansion through artistic expression ==
America's 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 America's imperial endeavors.
[[File:A View to the River - 1861.jpg|left|thumb|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 (philosophy)|sublime]] landscapes and grand natural scenes. These paintings which admired the marvels of unexplored American territory emphasized this idea of America as a promised land.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cusack |first=Tricia |date=2021-09-30 |title=The Chosen People: The Hudson River School and the Construction of American Identity |journal=Review of International American Studies |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=107–152 |doi=10.31261/rias.11804 |issn=1991-2773|doi-access=free }}</ref> 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 (painter)|John Gast]], famously known for his 1872 painting titled ''[[American Progress]]'' similarly displays themes of discovery and the hopeful prospects of American expansion.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Weems |first=Jason |date=March 2011 |title=Looking Up, Looking Down, Looking Out |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/660024 |journal=American Art |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=2–10 |doi=10.1086/660024 |s2cid=188656106 |issn=1073-9300|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Wiggins |first1=J. Russell |last2=Merk |first2=Frederick |last3=Merk |first3=Lois Bannister |date=December 1963 |title=Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/363114 |journal=The New England Quarterly |volume=36 |issue=4 |pages=528 |doi=10.2307/363114 |jstor=363114 |issn=0028-4866|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

== See also ==
{{Portal|United States}}
<!--please keep the list in alphabetical order-->
{{colbegin}}
* [[American expansionism under Donald Trump]]
* [[Americanization]]
* [[Anti-Americanism]]
* ''[[A People's History of American Empire]]'' – 2008 book by [[Howard Zinn]], et al.
* [[Foreign interventions by the United States]]
* [[Historic recurrence]]
* [[Manifest destiny]]
* [[Neocolonialism]]
* [[New Imperialism]]
* [[Post-American era]]
* [[Territorial evolution of the United States]]
* [[Territories of the United States]]
* [[United States involvement in regime change]]
* [[United States involvement in regime change in Latin America]]
{{colend}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book |last=Handy |first=Jim |year=1994 |title=Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944–1954 |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |isbn=978-0-8078-4438-0}}
* {{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|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fV_qCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA3|year=1999|publisher=UNC Press Books|isbn=978-0-8078-9986-1|pages=3–38|chapter=Land Speculators versus Indians and the Privy Council }}
* {{cite journal|last=Moulton|first=Aaron Coy|title="Amplies Ayuda Externa" Contra "La Gangrena Comunista": Las Fuerzas Regionales Anticomunistas y la Finalizacion de la Operacion PBFortune, Octobre de 1952|trans-title="Extend External Assistance" Against "The Communist Gangrene": The Regional Anti-Communist Forces and the Finalization of Operation PBFortune, October 1952|journal=Revista de Historia de América|date=July 2013|issue=149|pages=45–58|doi=10.35424/rha.149.2013.406 |language=es|jstor=44732841|s2cid=257442076 |doi-access=free}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book|last=Bacevich|first=Andrew|author-link=Andrew Bacevich|year=2008|title=The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-8050-8815-1}}
* [[Andrew J. Bacevich|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.&nbsp;25–32. "In 2010, Admiral [[Michael Mullen]], chairman of the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], declared that the [[U.S. national debt|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 change|climate]] will drive uncertainty and will drive conflict." (p.&nbsp;31.)
* [[Andrew J. Bacevich|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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;21.)
* {{cite book|last=Boot|first=Max|author-link=Max Boot|year=2002|title=The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=0-465-00721-X}}
* {{cite book |last=Brown |first=Seyom |title=Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Clinton |year=1994 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |location=New York |isbn=0-231-09669-0 }}
* {{cite book |last=Burton |first=David H. |author-link = David H. Burton|title=Theodore Roosevelt: Confident Imperialist |year=1968 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] |location=Philadelphia |asin=B0007GMSSY }}
* {{cite book |last=Callahan |first=Patrick |title=Logics of American Foreign Policy: Theories of America's World Role |year=2003 |publisher=Longman |location=New York |isbn=0-321-08848-4 }}
* {{cite book|last=Daalder |first=Ivo H. |title=America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy |author-link=Ivo Daalder |author2=James M. Lindsay |year=2003 |publisher=Brookings Institution |location=Washington, DC |isbn=0-8157-1688-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/americaunboundbu00daal }}
* {{cite book| last =Fulbright | first =J. William | author-link =J. William Fulbright | author2 =Seth P. Tillman | year =1989 | title =The Price of Empire | publisher =Pantheon Books | isbn =0-394-57224-6 | url =https://archive.org/details/priceofempire00fulb }}
* {{cite book |last=Gaddis |first=John Lewis |title=Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy |author-link=John Lewis Gaddis |year=2005 |edition=2nd |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-19-517447-X }}
* {{cite book |last1=Hampf |first1=Michaela |title=Empire of Liberty |date=2019 |publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg |isbn=978-3-11-065774-6 |language=de}}
* [[Suzy Hansen|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 (19 October 2023), pp.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;28.)
* {{cite book |last=Hardt |first=Michael |title=Empire |author-link=Michael Hardt |author2=Antonio Negri |year=2001 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |isbn=0-674-00671-2 |author2-link=Antonio Negri |title-link=Empire (Negri and Hardt book) }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20080409064117/http://www.infoshop.org/texts/empire.pdf online]
* {{cite book |last=Hudson |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Hudson (economist) |date=2021 |title=Super Imperialism. The Economic Strategy of American Empire |location= |publisher=Islet |isbn=978-3981826098|edition=Third }}
* [[Daniel Immerwahr|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]]'', 17 June 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 [[T.E. Lawrence|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 Hussein|Saddam]]'s continued military capacities. But intelligence was wanting. [...] The combination of scant knowledge and overweening concern created demand, and [Ahmad] [[Ahmad Chalabi|Chalabi]] arrange[d] the supply. He promoted sources who [falsely] claimed that Saddam was stockpiling [[chemical weapon|chemical]] and [[biological weapon]]s and had kept working toward [[nuclear weapon|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.)
* [[Daniel Immerwahr|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]]'', 14/21 December 2020, pp.&nbsp;34–37.
* {{cite book|last=Immerwahr |first=Daniel |title=How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-374-17214-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Chalmers|author-link=Chalmers Johnson|title=Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire|year=2000|isbn=0-8050-6239-4|publisher=Holt|location=New York|url=https://archive.org/details/blowback00chal}}
* {{cite book|last=Johnson|first=Chalmers|author-link=Chalmers Johnson|year=2004|title=The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic|isbn=0-8050-7004-4|publisher=Metropolitan Books|location=New York|url=https://archive.org/details/sorrowsofempirem00john_0}}
* {{cite book |last=Kerry |first=Richard J. |title=The Star-Spangled Mirror: America's Image of Itself and the World |author-link= Richard J. Kerry |year=1990 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |location=Savage, MD |isbn=0-8476-7649-8 }}
* [[Laleh Khalili|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 (5 June 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.)
* [[Paul Krugman|Krugman, Paul]], "The American Way of Economic War: Is Washington Overusing Its Most Powerful Weapons?" (review of [[Henry Farrell (political scientist)|Henry Farrell]] and [[Abraham L. Newman|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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;152.) "[T]he U.S. government has installed 'splitters': [[prism (optics)|prism]]s 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 Administration|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.&nbsp;154) This has allowed the U.S. "to effectively cut [[Iran]] out of the world financial system... Iran's economy stagnated... Eventually, Tehran agreed to cut back its [[nuclear reactor|nuclear]] programs in exchange for relief." (pp.&nbsp;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 company]] [[HSBC]] 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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;155.)
* [[Jackson Lears|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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;40.)
* [[Jackson Lears|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, {{ISBN|978-0-300-21000-2}}, 459 pp.; and [[David C. Hendrickson]], ''Republic in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition'', Oxford University Press, 2017, {{ISBN|978-0190660383}}, 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." (''[[The New York Review of Books|NYRB]]'', cited on p. 10.)
* {{cite book |last=Lundestad |first=Geir |title=Empire by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945–1997 |author-link=Geir Lundestad |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=0-19-878212-8 }}
* {{cite book|last=Odom|first=William|author-link=William Eldridge Odom|author2=Robert Dujarric|year=2004|title=America's Inadvertent Empire|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-10069-8|url=https://archive.org/details/americasinadvert00will_0}}
* 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 (8 February 2024), pp. 32, 34–35. "[I]n Walton's view, there was scarcely a US [[covert operation|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 [[Soviet Union|Soviets]]) and perhaps support for the anti-Soviet [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Solidarity movement]] in [[Poland]]." (p. 34.)
* [[Wallace Shawn|Shawn, Wallace]], "The End of a Village", ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXXI, no 15 (3 October 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 [[Vietnam]]ese 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.)
* [[Héctor Tobar|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 (18 April 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.) 
* {{cite book |last=Todd |first=Emmanuel |author-link=Emmanuel Todd |title=After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-231-13103-2 |url=http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13102-5/after-the-empire}}
* [[Adam Tooze|Tooze, Adam]], "Is This the End of the American Century?", ''[[London Review of Books]]'', vol. 41, no. 7 (4 April 2019), pp.&nbsp;3, 5–7.
* {{cite book| last =Tremblay| first =Rodrigue | author-link =Rodrigue Tremblay| year =2004| title =The New American Empire | publisher=Infinity Pub| location =Haverford, PA| isbn =0-7414-1887-8| title-link =The New American Empire }}
* [[Stephen Wertheim|Wertheim, Stephen]], "The Price of Primacy: Why America Shouldn't Dominate the World", ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'', vol. 99, no. 2 (March/April 2020), pp.&nbsp;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 country|developing countries]] with technology and financing to bypass [[fossil fuel]]s." (p. 24.) "[T]he United States should cease acting as a partisan in disputes such as [[Yemeni civil war (2014–present)|Yemen's civil war]] and the [[Israeli-Palestinian conflict]] [...]." (p. 27.) 
* [[Stephen Wertheim|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.&nbsp;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.&nbsp;152.)
* {{cite book| last =Zepezauer| first =Mark| year =2002| title =Boomerang!: How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Brought Terror to America| publisher =Common Courage Press| location =Monroe, Maine| isbn =1-56751-222-4| url-access =registration| url =https://archive.org/details/boomeranghowourc0000zepe}}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote|American imperialism}}
{{Wikiquote|American benevolence}}
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{{Empires}}
[[Category:American imperialism| ]]
[[Category:Criticism of United States foreign policy]]
[[Category:History of the foreign relations of the United States]]
[[Category:History of United States expansionism|>]]
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[[Category:Overseas empires]]

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[[Category:Empires]]