- For other uses, see American Empire (disambiguation)
The American Empire is a politically-charged, informal term sometimes used to describe the current political, economic, and cultural influence of the United States on a global scale. It is generally, though by no means always, used with a negative connotation. The current debate over the concept of an American Empire usually involves two basic questions:
- Is the United States currently an empire?
- If so, is that good or bad?
Proponents of the term claim that it is an appropriate one, based on the unrivaled superpower status of the United States after the end of the Cold War. Some believe that there has been a long history of United States imperialism, and was traditionally expressed in the cultural ethos of "Manifest Destiny" —often called "American exceptionalism."
Expansion
It has been suggested that this article be merged into History of United States imperialism. (Discuss) |
As one of the motivations underlying the American Revolution and secession from Great Britain was the constraint imposed by the British government on westward territorial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains, an expansionist tendency was thus present in the United States at the beginning of the nation. At first, the focus was on expansion within North America and internal agricultural and industrial development. Some 130 years after independence, however, the Spanish American War (which was partially provoked by American politicians and businessmen, like William Randolph Hearst, interested in overt European-style imperialism) initiated the period of overt empire-building involving the annexation of territory formerly held by foreign governments. After the war, the defeated Kingdom of Spain ceded most of its colonial possessions (including, for example, the Philippines and Puerto Rico) to the control of the United States.
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Literature
There has been much literature in recent years about the current state of what some consider to be the "American Empire."
In American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (2002), Andrew J. Bacevich argues that the end of the Cold War did not mark the end of an era in American history, because (he says) American foreign policy did not fundamentally change after the Cold War. Bacevich argues, like historians Charles Beard and William Appleman Williams before him, that American foreign policy has long been driven by the desire to expand access to foreign markets in order to benefit the domestic economy. Bacevich believes that the moralistic reasons given for American foreign intervention mask the true economic reasons, and he warns that American economic imperialism (in the guise of globalization) may not be in the best interests of the United States.
In the book Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the USA is seen as central for the development and constitution of a new global regime of international power and sovereignty, termed empire by Hardt and Negri. The book builds on neomarxist, postcolonial, postmodern ideas and globalization theories. Because the empire of Hardt and Negri is decentralized and global, not the rule of one sovereign state over another, it may be differentiated from the American Empire described in this article.
Though many critics and analysis of "American Imperialism" tend to be on the left side of the political spectrum, there are right-wing critics as well. Prominent American paleo-conservative activist Patrick Buchanan discusses American foreign policy in his book A Republic, Not an Empire and argues that the modern United States has betrayed its founding principles by engaging in excessive "meddling" around the world. Buchanan in turn argues that acts of terrorism against the United States, such as the September 11, 2001 attacks are the direct result of America's ill-fated attempts to intervene in places where she should never have been involved in the first place. Buchanan's arguments have been interpreted as the latest form of American isolationism, long a critical counter-voice in American foreign policy discussions.
In his books Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003) and Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (2004), historian Niall Ferguson has drawn parallels between the British Empire and the imperial role of the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, he describes the United States political and social structures as more like those of the Roman Empire than of the British. In contrast to Hardt and Negri, Ferguson views empire as a neutral description, with both positive and negative aspects.
See also
Further reading and information
- Mark Zepezauer, Boomerang! : How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Brought Terror to America, (2002) ISBN 1567512224
External links
- Imperialism: Superpower dominance, malignant and benign Christopher Hitchens says that the U.S.—whether or not you call it an empire—should be careful to use its power wisely.
- America's New Empire for Liberty Conservative writer and historian Paul Johnson argues that the U.S. has always been an empire—and a good one at that.