I wonder if the US is an empire, I’ve been watchin’ about Charlmers Johnson, who used to work with the CIA, and authored a book called ‘Baseworld’ and how colonies have effectively been replaced with a US hegemony and a network of military bases influencial in the extention of US political and economic agendas.
My argument for the US being a benevolent empire, is that it’s got an ability, much like it’s British predecessor, of forwarding the cause of liberal economics, rule of law, free trade, and influence of culture.
Which other countries are supposed to be our colonies/part of our hegemony? Anything with a US military base in it?
And given our recent military misadventures, and the fact that we’re arguably not all that forward thinking socially, I’d say that “benevolent” doesn’t fit us as well as “self-serving”.
You’ve bought into Roman propaganda then. I’d MUCH rather have been a Gaul (pre-Roman of course) than a Roman citizen.
No…I don’t think the US is an empire in any realistic sense of the word. We are a superpower of course…which means we have tremendous global influence. I’d have thought our invasion of Iraq and the subsequent history there would have put to rest once and for all this idea of a US empire though. Not only were we unable to get most of our allies to sign on to the invasion, but we haven’t even minimally attempted to create an American colony in Iraq.
Do I think that it’s a bad thing that the US is a superpower and has such influence? No…not at all. Bad as we may be (or as we are perceived to be) I think it’s going to come as a shock to The World™ when the US is no longer in the drivers seat and no longer has the economic, military or social power to compete on the worlds stage. Hopefully I won’t live long enough to see it…
The US military has hegemony over pretty much large parts of the globe excluding maybe China and Russia, and when I talk of hegemony, it can include in this agreements and invitations by foreign governments to work towards mutual interests, but with the US clearly on the top ‘giving orders’ so to speak.
You can be benevolent and still get what you want even if you’re self serving, all you have to do is convince the other person that’s in both their interests to do what one person wants.
I concur, but to some people being able to rule yourself without being incorporated into someones ‘manifest destiny’ is alot better. To each their own I guess.
Empire doesn’t neccessarily correlate to obtaining overseas colonies, you can have informal empires in which states are left most of the time to their own devices, however are ‘in line’ so to speak in certain areas of policy, whatever that may be, which is beneficial to the major power.
Two small examples
The UK never ran Argentina as a colony, but controlled it’s economy and it’s banks (I may be wrong, just something I’ve read about recently) and also heavily influenced China in trying to open up trade and ended up with a small possession of Hong Kong.
So if we look at the imposition of US military bases in the Middle East, Europe and some parts of Asia, we can see where the US military is strategically placed and is able to leverage the most influence for it’s own benefit. It doesn’t have to run countries to get what it wants. Just a few laws enacted to allow troops to be in areas of vital importance to the world economy.
Those two situations do not constitute a whole for the legacy of a US empire. It would be as bad as me coming back with the Germany and Japan argument.
First off, that’s not at all what an Empire is. That is well beyond the scope of the word “empire” unless you are willing to stretch into meaninglessness (which many anti-America activists are). An empire is a specifically a state composed of individual seperate states which, having an existence prior to the Empire, have been conquered or otherwise incorporated into the empire. You could maybe make an arguement that the original 13 colonbies constitute an Empire on this basis, but that’d be very, very thin. They formed the government of the United States: they were not taken over and incorporated into it, and the national government properly only has powers deliberately anfd specifically granted to it.
Similarly, trans-nationality and global reach are not neccessary or even common attributes of empires. Empires include Babylon (transnational but not global, Persia (likewise), China (arguably not even transnational, as until recently it influenced but did not control everyone within its borders), Japan (neither, with the exception of being semi-global during the run-up to WW2), the Holy Roman Empire (neither, as its populations were almost exclusively Germanic), and Astria-Hungary (transnational but but not global).
Simialrly, the USA does not effectively control or direct its strategic partners, and particularly in Asia can’t count on any one partner remaining allied. The US has not absorbed anything but the most rudimentary civilizations within its borders, and then did not take over existing civlizations but established wholly new government and society. In many cases, the original inhabitants were removed, but others assimilated.
I don’t think we’re an empire in the classical sense, not by a long shot.
As stated, we do have a strong influence on a very large portion of the world, but that influence is not necessarily weilded by the US gov’t so much as the US “corporate-industrial complex”. The two don’t always go hand in hand, of course, but overall, US influence is used in a benign way.
Also, anyone want to start a pool to see how many posts it takes for Der Trihs to come threadshit with how awful the Imperialist Babykilling US is?
Smiling Bandit I think your usage debases the word Empire into meaninglessness more than his does. Basically we have defined entities as not being vassals based on a modern conception of the word, but at the same time we have to ask ourselves what level of autonomy would those states we exert influence over have to create their own trade policy?
Japan for instance, could not form it’s own military for the latter half of the twentieth century. Cuba has been denied certain aspects of trade. We denied Iran the right to choose its own government democratically.
If having veto power over the domestic/governmental organization of other states isn’t Imperial then the word has no meaning.
The classical sense predated telecommunications. I would argue that it’s only the telecommunications that separate us.
The corporate-industrial complex wields power via the governmental channels. The UN I would have you recall is based in New York and NATO is an American construction.
You tell us then. What level of control does the US exert directly or indirectly on the supposed parts of our ‘empire’? Economic or military. Let’s see some examples.
By treaty as a defeated power. And for much of that time it was THEY who used that treaty to prevent themselves from re-arming…not the US holding that treaty over their heads to prevent them from doing so. We WANTED Japan to re-arm during the Cold War…but they used those treaties to keep from doing so for their own reasons. Not exactly a good example on your part.
They have hardly been part of our supposed ‘empire’ for quite some time. If you are thinking that the trade embargo constitutes the US exerting influence over it’s ‘empire’ then I’d say you have one upped both the OP and SB on devaluing the term.
No…we supported a government favorable to us in the region. There is a key difference there. We didn’t dictate to the Shah that he would not be allowed to shift Iran’s government to a more democratic model.
Well I gave the overthrow of the democratically elected Iran. Then there’s the nation-building in Iraq where we dismantled the existing Sunni civil infrastructure in favor of building a Shi’ite one from scratch. Then there is our opposition and sanctioning of any government with a leftist leader such as Venezuela and Cuba. Then there was the Cold War where we fought tooth and nail to keep nations from becoming Communist wherever we could. There’s our support for the Saudi royal family. There’s our soft military control where we get a regime’s military dependent upon American weapons so that all we have to do to hurt them is withhold replacement parts like we did to Venezuela a couple of years ago when they tried to buy parts for their F-16s. There’s the drug war where we send troops and consultants to other nations to slash and burn local farms while spending lots of money to lobby their governments to keep drugs illegal.
It’s a just fine example. Arguing the particulars doesn’t change anything. So the treaty was the mechanism by which we exerted influence, and there were local forces who found the Imperial/Vassal relationship to be beneficial. So what?
Right, we have been punishing them for half of a century for resisting our hegemony. Why do you think Empires existed in the past? To enforce trade regimes largely. The most successful empires were the ones that gave people freedom to practice their local religion. It was always trade that was controlled. As long as the Imperial merchants could travel from one place to another under the protection of the local vassals and those vassals gave some sort of benefit to the Imperial power, they were unmolested.
There aren’t enough of these :rolleyes: for that. We overthrew the Mossadegh government because it was not favorable to the Imperium, but we would’ve allowed the Shah to institute a democratic government. There are just so many things wrong with that, let me list the most obvious.
We overthrew their Democracy because they elected the wrong Executive.
The Imposed dictatorial Monarch would’ve had free reign to institute Democracy. :rolleyes:
Right, you said it yourself, they can have a Democratic election as long as whoever they elect is pro-American(Imperial).
Oh please…I know that you are aware that the Iranian thing was not as simple as that.
No actually we didn’t. Even if we leave out the fact that the Brits actually played as large or a larger part (unless they are instruments of our ‘empire’ as well of course), what actually happened in the non-comic book version was that we supported the deposed Shah in a reverse coup after Mosaddeq (who, granted, was the democratically elected Prime Minister) had thrown the Shah out in a coup of his own (which going a bit beyond his legal powers as Prime Minister). It was a complex situation that goes far beyond your assertions…and doesn’t show how this makes the US an ‘empire’ in any event.
Yet we have not exactly forced Iraq into our own economic sphere. We have not taken over their oil fields, have not flagged their companies as US, and have allowed them to set up a democratic government along their own model. Your definition of what does or doesn’t constitute an ‘empire’ is certainly different than any I’ve ever heard before.
Etc etc etc
Ah…so ‘empire’ equals being a superpower in your mind. Well hell…you should have just said so! By that definition then every major nation on earth is an ‘empire’, since any powerful nation would qualify.
So…it seems like you are saying ‘Don’t distract me with all those fact thingies!’
Um…no. I’d have to say it was the whole communist thing, along with that seizing of property aspect…perhaps coupled with the hostility part. Plus a healthy smidgen of political inertia. No ‘resisting our hegemony’ required.
I’m not seeing how we are controlling trade throughout our supposed ‘empire’. ISTM that if we were controlling it then we’d be getting much more favorable terms…and it would be OUR products being sold to THEM (to protect our local industries and all), if we were holding a gun to their collective heads. The reverse seems to be the case though.
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya concerning hegemony…that word dinna mean what you thin’ it means…
You are right…there aren’t enough rolley-eyes for this. If I wanted the comic book discussion on this I’d have waited for Der Trihs to wander into the thread.
I’ll ask, why is it necessary for the US to have colonies in order for it to be declared an empire, where as it can get just as much leverage for its interests by not colonising them and just controlling certain aspects of trade defence economic policy by terms of influence on a country? Seems to me to twice the reward and less of the hassle of actually managing a country directly.
This is where the US being a Hegemon or an Empire get blurred, since it’s unethical to declare your country an empire, you have to deviate and term it as something else, however the distinction between hegemon and empire can be so thin at times that they can sometimes blur the lines of what the US really is.
If I say the US is an empire, I can use examples of the 700-odd bases around the globe protecting US interests US investment overseas and control of resources, if I want to call it a Hegemon, I can cite NATO, the UN and the WTO as prime examples.
