Has America become too large around the world for its own and the world's good? Should we pull back? Chalmers Johnson, an old CIA man and cold warrior, thinks so.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=195381



Questions for discussion:

Is the United States in your mind an empire? Why or why not?

Do you feel the United States is over-extended around the world?

If you feel the US is over-extended where do you feel we should pull back?

Is the United States in your mind an empire? Why or why not?

Yes it is an empire. It maintains a system of over 700 military bases around the world and continues to extend them into new areas of the world. It uses its bases to exercise political leverage and to maintain access to resources and markets in the interest of politically connected private interests. The US has been an empire at least since the Spanish American War and the acquisition of the Phillipe ans. It also exercised an imperial policy with repeated political and military interventions in Latin America. Its imperialism was greatly expanded after WWII into other regions. With the GWB Administration's "shock and awe" campaigns it even became part of the public discourse to speak of the US as the "greatest empire the world has ever known" and as "the new Rome."

Do you feel the United States is over-extended around the world?

Imperialism is incompatible with democracy and, in some since, we have been overextended since 1898. In this Administration it has become obvious that it impossible to maintain any meaningful democratic institutions and pursue an imperial program. On the other hand, if the public would support a real mobilization including a draft and the continued hollowing out of democracy, the US might maintain its hegemonic empire until climate change or economic collapse made it meaningless.

If you feel the US is over-extended where do you feel we should pull back?

To save our republic we should pull back almost everywhere while greatly expanding our commitment to and participation in multinational security arrangements.

This sentence contradicts itself. We are spread throughout the world as a direct result of our "participation in multinational security arrangements". That is, by definition, exactly why we are in places like south Korea. We have security agreements with every single country that is home to a US military base.

If we are to pull back (and I think we should), we have to reduce our commitments to international security, not the other way around.

In as much as an empire is possible in this world. Through instant communications the world is much smaller. To some extent it is unecessary to actually have a presence in the areas you want to make a part of your empire to "lord over" them. It is simpler and less immediately deadly to infuse our culture into another than it is for the USA to kill the enemy. (Eventually Big Macs will do the work of bullets! ) In the classic sense I do not think America is an empire. I think if America is an empire, though, it largely by accident. The USA looks up from its desk one day and realizes... I'm everywhere.

I doubt there are many who don't think the USA is in too many places at once. Over-extended has a different connotation however.

The interesting part of that is if you asked the countries we're in if we should leave they generally say, "No!" Also leaving, say a, Germany would leave us flat-footed. If the USA were to pull everyone back and let the world sort out its own messes the outcry from the "world community" would be something along the lines of, "How can you, the most powerful nation on Earth, let this happen?" Yet, when the USA does do something, the world community bleats, "Why are you doing that?" It would not be easy for the USA to simply go isolationist. Like it or not corporate interests are interests that musy be minded.


I've sent this off to a few friends who will howl with joy over this paragraph.

Yes indeed...

...and I'm as much a Queen of Hawaii as is possible in this world.

I see no reason to try and shoehorn the present into the archetypes of the past when they no longer apply.

No the US is not an empire. The term still has meaning, despite concerted attempts to abuse it.

Foreign military bases or Macdonald's franchises do not make an empire of a nation.

Is the United States in your mind an empire? Why or why not?

We are not an empire. We have taken the role of the world's policeman, a role we need to relinquish.

Do you feel the United States is over-extended around the world?

We need to withdrawal from Europe immediately we need to reduce our aid to Israel ( and the rest of the ME) and South Korea by 10% a year.

Funny that you should use the hawaii thang- after all, the betrayal of the queen of hawaii can really make the case for our imperialism.

Like most words- empire has changed it's meaning- England was an empire, a proto-empire model of our own, if you will- commercially based, but REAL quick to commit ANY atrocity in order to make a client state-country bend to our economic will. The list of "conquered" countries that we did this too, and really made a mess of things, is quite long- Guatamala (hell, we overthrew that goverment at the behest of freakin' chaquita banana? - bet they never saw that coming ) Iran, stole the oil thang etc etc.

So, we aren't neccesarily an old style roman empire, but we are fairly close, but more sophisticated, version of the English empire.

Is the United States in your mind an empire? Why or why not? Not fully yet, but by our practices, not our principles and charters, we are on the way there! Primarily we are letting ourselves spin and be spun. Where went real rhetoric (not advertising rhetoric), logic and good Science?

Do you feel the United States is over-extended around the world? Absolulely! In the present relatively peaceful times (WOT's really not that real vs the Cold and World Wars is what I'm trying to give a perspective to.

If you feel the US is over-extended where do you feel we should pull back? To the explicit purposes, acts and meanings of our primary charters, treaties, and the needs of free trade, commerce, and "the sharing of and caring for the planet!"

Oh you'll hear no argument from me that the US was an empire, Hawaii, the Philippines, the constant attempts on Cuba.

The point is that this is no longer accurate to describe current US policy, we do not set up colonies or expand by annexation, that is what an empire is.

The word hasn't changed its meaning, people simply insist on using it incorrectly.

Say Hegemony all you like, but its not an empire anymore than its a constitutional monarchy.

Facts is Facts.

Turnea- was England an empire then?

With their colonies in Asia and Africa the UK was not only an empire but the largest in the world. just looking and the breadth of territory today's commonweslth states cover shows that.

They ruled India and Rhodesia as empirical lords.

Are they an empire now?

Nope.

Okay- was the soviet union an empire? Since East Germany adn poland and other countries had thier own local goverments?

And Turnea- what is so different between the way we ruled, say, Iran, Guatamala and Panama?

And, like with the US and Iran, India had a revolt that overthrew the British goverment, same with, well, the US.

There is nothing “Empire” about the US and never was. We go to war (WWII) and then not only don’t control the countries we beat (at great cost in lives and treasure) but rebuild them and then protect them for the “evil Empire – the USSR..


Some Empire.

I've actually read on Iran quite a bit and we never ruled it.

In fact the British had their thumb on Mohammad Reza Shah a lot more than we did, Operation Ajax notwithstanding, BP was born of that whole mess.

We did not rule any of these nations.

We meddled yes, but we did not control any of those governments. Anymore than one could say Iran is the imperial master of Iraq.

The USSR had satellite states ruled by Soviet Law and officially part of the Soviet Union, unlike Iran which frequently acted against US and UK wishes (hence the meddling, Mossadeq was giving them heartburn) these governments we legally beholden to the Russian controlled federal union.

India revolted against the UK, yes. That cements my point that they were real imperial rulers just as we were with the Philippines.

Edited to add:
I certainly would say we were never an empire.

Of course we were, we just aren't now.

I'm inclined to agree in the technical dictionary sense of the word. Hegemony would be a better word for our present relations. Of course one could offer a few small exceptions: American Samoa, Okinawa and Guantanamo might be considered outposts of empire. In the case of American Samoa, I expect if they pushed to regain unity with greater Samoa there probably wouldn't be much objection from our side, given that the place has held little strategic significance for us since the 2nd world war.

Still, in retrospect, it probably would have been less distracting to limit the questions to the 2nd two. Well I guess sorting out the use and misuse of the word "empire" is useful since it is thrown around so much.

Yes, I would say it is an empire but not considering the places where forces are stantioned for securtity related issues. What about Iraq? There are permanent bases there? Excluding the ones for security issues too.