[lit-ideas] Re: Empires, Liberal Democracies, and Core States

  • From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 16:44:30 -0400

Lawrence: I think of Niall Ferguson asserting that the U.S. is an
empire.

Agree with Lawrence. The US has many forward operating bases overseas,
but that does not make it an empire, since the US never has had true
imperial ambitions. 

During the so-called "imperialist phase" of US history, its main goal
was to keep Europeans from meddling in the Western Hemisphere as they
had done throughout much of the 19th century. The US took the
Philippines as a protectorate largely to avoid German seizure of the
island. We had coaling stations like any other maritime nation but
that's it. Our interests were either in sending Christian missionaries,
as the British had done, or in establishing trade agreements.

Contrast that with Japan of the same general period. Japan (1) defeated
the Russian navy to get a dominating Western Pacific position, (2)
repeatedly attempted to gain hegemony over all China and Southeast Asia,
(3) entered WW1 as a member of the Allies *solely* to seize German
colonies in the Pacific, and (4) for decades, planned to use those
seized colonies as staging areas to toss Europeans and Americans out of
China, and defeat the US presence in the Pacific. Now that's an empire
in the making. That's imperial ambition.

US? Not so much. Defeat Marxist totalitarianisms in a nuclear
death-match while protecting Europe, sure. Otherwise mostly benign.

Eric

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