Or better put, is it very likely that Imperialism will ever happen again, with multiple world-spanning empires competing for natural resources and colonial development? Or is the cost to expand and maintain such an empire completely unfeasible in the modern world whether due to better armed insurrectionists, economics reasons, and logistical nightmares?
Does imperialism have to limited to nations? Could multi-national corporations engage in a modern era imperialism, securing and exploiting more resources for themselves whether by engaging in economic warfare or political influence, even going as far as having nations go to war for their benefit to secure those resources?
Well, if you listen to some of the people on this board, Imperialism is what’s going on right now in Iraq.
The answer really lies in how one defines “empire”. Did the United States have an “empire” during the Cold War, with governments of Latin America and Africa lining up for foreign and military aid in exchange for their resources being bought up by U.S. corporations? Is that “imperialism”? If not, what about the Soviet version, where the resources of the Warsaw Pact countries and the minor Communist states were even more directly absorbed and used for the great good of the USSR?
I seriously doubt that Imperialism, as seen in the Victorian era, is going to come back in the future- the paternalism, and the idea that certain peoples simply can’t govern themselves, is nothing that would stand up today. However, that doesn’t mean that larger nations won’t continue to seek the support (and resources and markets) of smaller states, and create something akin to empires of old; but they’ll do it through alliances and the creation of free-trade treaties and the occasional election interference (or support of insurgencies and such) as opposed to the old style of outright conquest and direct rule.
Well, up until the “going to war,” I’d have a hard time arguing that such isn’t the current case- multi-national corporations attempting to lobby and gain influence with the U.S. and with other states for favorable terms/taxes/markets is nothing new.
Fighting wars by proxy for their benefit, though, seems unlikely- it would have to be a situation where the resources gained by victory would be well worth the possible losses. And very few companies have exclusive treaties with one country or another; I expect that a war between two Arab oil-producing states would be just as bad for Shell and Amoco’s balances regardless of who wins.
Fighting insurrections or overthrowing governments by proxy? Likely, and possibly already come to pass (depending upon how much you believe that the Eisenhower Administration’s actions in Latin America in the '50’s were controlled by Big Fruit).
Why limit it to this board? Even a fair-handed source like the Christian Science Monitor believes the current neoconservative leadership is into empire-building:
A complex conglomerate of companies, all interconnected stakeholders in one another’s operations, and with common board members, executives, major shareholders etc. That network owns a profitable mine that has been closed by insurrectionists. This conglomerate’s own mercenary operation branch is employed to “render the insurrectionists military ineffective and repossess the mine” using armed soldiers, military engineers, helicopter gunships and various other military assets. It does this with approval from the national government, which is also intimately connected to the conglomerate in a way that strongly suggests bribery or coercion to allow the conglomerate’s mercenaries freedom to operate.
Sound like something out of a bad cyberpunk novel? Nah, it happened in Papua New Guinea less than 10 years ago.