American imperialism - wikipedia American imperialism `` American empire '' redirects here. For other uses, see American Empire. U.S. military presence around the world in 2007. As of 2013, the U.S. still had many bases and troops stationed globally. Their presence has generated controversy and opposition by some in foreign countries. More than 1,000 U.S. troops 100 -- 1,000 U.S. troops Use of military facilities History of U.S. expansion and influence Foreign policy Military history Timeline of military operations List of wars United States military deployments List of bases Manifest destiny Non-interventionism Foreign interventions Pax Americana America 's Backyard Territorial acquisitions United States involvement in regime change American imperialism is a policy aimed at extending the political, economic, and cultural control of the United States government over areas beyond its boundaries. It can be accomplished in any number of ways : by military conquest ; by treaty ; by lending money to a weak country and then taking control of the country when it defaults ; by economic penetration through private companies followed by intervention when those interests are threatened ; or by US support of undemocratic regimes. The concept of expanding territorial control was popularized in the 19th century as the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and was realized through conquests such as the Mexican -- American War of 1846, which resulted in the annexation of 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory. While the US government does not refer to itself as an empire, the continuing phenomenon has been acknowledged by mainstream Western writers including Max Boot, Arthur Schlesinger, and Niall Ferguson. Contents 1 Imperialism 1.1 Indian Wars and Manifest Destiny 1.2 New Imperialism and `` The White Man 's Burden '' 2 American exceptionalism 3 Wilsonian intervention 4 Views of American imperialism 4.1 Empire 5 U.S. foreign policy debate 5.1 Cultural imperialism 6 U.S. military bases 7 Benevolent imperialism 8 See also 9 Notes and references 10 Further reading 11 External links Imperialism Indian Wars and Manifest Destiny Further information : Empire of Liberty, Manifest Destiny, Modern empires, and Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii Caricature showing Uncle Sam lecturing four children labelled Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Cuba, in front of children holding books labelled with various U.S. states. A black boy is washing windows, a Native American sits separate from the class, and a Chinese boy is outside the door. The caption reads : `` School Begins. Uncle Sam ( to his new class in Civilization ) : Now, children, you 've got to learn these lessons whether you want to or not ! But just take a look at the class ahead of you, and remember that, in a little while, you will feel as glad to be here as they are ! '' Thomas Jefferson, in the 1790s, awaited the fall of the Spanish Empire `` until our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece ''. In turn, historian Sidney Lens notes that `` the urge for expansion -- at the expense of other peoples -- goes back to the beginnings of the United States itself ''. Yale historian Paul Kennedy put it, `` From the time the first settlers arrived in Virginia from England and started moving westward, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation. '' Detailing George Washington 's description of the early United States as an `` infant empire '', Benjamin Franklin 's writing that `` the Prince that acquires new Territory... removes the Natives to give his own People Room... may be properly called ( Father ) of ( his ) Nation '', and Thomas Jefferson 's statement that the United States `` must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North & South is to be peopled '', Noam Chomsky said that `` the United States is the one country that exists, as far as I know, and ever has, that was founded as an empire explicitly ''. A national drive for territorial acquisition across the continent was popularized in the 19th century as the ideology of Manifest Destiny. It came to be realized with the Mexican -- American War of 1846, which resulted in the annexation of 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory, stretching up to the Pacific coast. President James Monroe presented his famous doctrine for the western hemisphere in 1823. Historians have observed that while the Monroe Doctrine contained a commitment to resist colonialism from Europe, it had some aggressive implications for American policy, since there were no limitations on the US 's own actions mentioned within it. Scholar Jay Sexton notes that the tactics used to implement the doctrine were `` modeled after those employed by British imperialists '' in their territorial competition with Spain and France. Eminent historian William Appleman Williams dryly described it as `` imperial anti-colonialism. '' The Indian Wars against the indigenous population began in the British era. Their escalation under the federal republic allowed the US to dominate North America and carve out the 48 continental states. This is now understood to be an explicitly colonial process, as the Native American nations were usually recognized as sovereign entities prior to annexation. Their sovereignty was systematically undermined by US state policy ( usually involving unequal or broken treaties ) and white settler - colonialism. The climax of this process was the California genocide. New imperialism and `` the white Man 's Burden '' Further information : History of the Philippines ( 1898 -- 1946 ), Philippine -- American War, Big Stick ideology, and Roosevelt corollary This cartoon reflects the view of Judge magazine regarding America 's imperial ambitions following a quick victory in the Spanish -- American War of 1898. The American flag flies from the Philippines and Hawaii in the Pacific to Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. A variety of factors converged during the `` New Imperialism '' of the late 19th century, when the United States and the other great powers rapidly expanded their overseas territorial possessions. Some of these are explained, or used as examples for the various forms of New Imperialism. The prevalence of overt racism, notably John Fiske 's conception of Anglo - Saxon racial superiority, and Josiah Strong 's call to `` civilize and Christianize '' -- all manifestations of a growing Social Darwinism and racism in some schools of American political thought. Early in his career, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish -- American War and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating `` I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one ''. Roosevelt claimed that he rejected imperialism, but he embraced the near - identical doctrine of expansionism. When Rudyard Kipling wrote the imperialist poem `` The White Man 's Burden '' for Roosevelt, the politician told colleagues that it was `` rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view. '' Roosevelt was so committed to dominating Spain 's former colonies that he proclaimed his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as justification, although his ambitions extended even further, into the Far East. Scholars have documented the resemblance and collaboration between US and British military activities in the Pacific at this time. Industry and trade are two of the most prevalent motivations of imperialism. American intervention in both Latin America and Hawaii resulted in multiple industrial investments, including the popular industry of Dole bananas. If the United States was able to annex a territory, in turn they were granted access to the trade and capital of those territories. In 1898, Senator Albert Beveridge proclaimed that an expansion of markets was absolutely necessary, `` American factories are making more than the American people can use ; American soil is producing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us ; the trade of the world must and shall be ours. '' American rule of ceded Spanish territory was not uncontested. The Philippine Revolution had begun in August 1896 against Spain, and after the defeat of Spain in the Battle of Manila Bay, began again in earnest, culminating in the Philippine Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the First Philippine Republic. The Philippine -- American War ensued, with extensive damage and death, ultimately resulting in the defeat of the Philippine Republic. According to scholars such as Gavan McCormack and E. San Juan, the American counterinsurgency resulted in genocide. A map of `` Greater America '' c. 1900, including overseas territories. The maximum geographical extension of American direct political and military control happened in the aftermath of World War II, in the period after the surrender and occupations of Germany and Austria in May and later Japan and Korea in September 1945 and before the independence of the Philippines in July 1946. Stuart Creighton Miller says that the public 's sense of innocence about Realpolitik impairs popular recognition of U.S. imperial conduct. The resistance to actively occupying foreign territory has led to policies of exerting influence via other means, including governing other countries via surrogates or puppet regimes, where domestically unpopular governments survive only through U.S. support. The Philippines is sometimes cited as an example. After Philippine independence, the US continued to direct the country through Central Intelligence Agency operatives like Edward Lansdale. As Raymond Bonner and other historians note, Lansdale controlled the career of President Ramon Magsaysay, going so far as to physically beat him when the Philippine leader attempted to reject a speech the CIA had written for him. American agents also drugged sitting President Elpidio Quirino and prepared to assassinate Senator Claro Recto. Prominent Filipino historian Roland G. Simbulan has called the CIA `` US imperialism 's clandestine apparatus in the Philippines. '' The U.S. retained dozens of military bases, including a few major ones. In addition, Philippine independence was qualified by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. For example, the Bell Trade Act provided a mechanism whereby U.S. import quotas might be established on Philippine articles which `` are coming, or are likely to come, into substantial competition with like articles the product of the United States ''. It further required U.S. citizens and corporations be granted equal access to Philippine minerals, forests, and other natural resources. In hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs William L. Clayton described the law as `` clearly inconsistent with the basic foreign economic policy of this country '' and `` clearly inconsistent with our promise to grant the Philippines genuine independence. '' American exceptionalism Main article : American exceptionalism On the cover of Puck published on April 6, 1901, in the wake of gainful victory in the Spanish -- American War, Columbia -- the National personification of the U.S. -- preens herself with an Easter bonnet in the form of a warship bearing the words `` World Power '' and the word `` Expansion '' on the smoke coming out of its stack. American exceptionalism is the notion that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, and political and religious institutions and origins. Philosopher Douglas Kellner traces the identification of American exceptionalism as a distinct phenomenon back to 19th century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who concluded by agreeing that the U.S., uniquely, was `` proceeding along a path to which no limit can be perceived ''. President Donald Trump has once said that he does not `` like the term '' American exceptionalism because he thinks it is `` insulting the world ''. He told tea party activists in Texas that `` If you 're German, or you 're from Japan, or you 're from China, you do n't want to have people saying that. '' As a Monthly Review editorial opines on the phenomenon, `` in Britain, empire was justified as a benevolent ' white man 's burden '. And in the United States, empire does not even exist ; ' we ' are merely protecting the causes of freedom, democracy and justice worldwide. '' Wilsonian intervention American troops marching in Vladivostok during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, August 1918 When World War I broke out in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson promised American neutrality throughout the war. This promise was broken when the United States entered the war after the Zimmermann Telegram. This was `` a war for empire '' to control vast raw materials in Africa and other colonized areas according to the contemporary historian and civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois. More recently historian Howard Zinn argues that Wilson entered the war in order to open international markets to surplus US production. He quotes Wilson 's own declaration that Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process... the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down. In a memo to Secretary of State Bryan, the president described his aim as `` an open door to the world. '' Lloyd Gardner notes that Wilson 's original avoidance of world war was not motivated by anti-imperialism ; his fear was that `` white civilization and its domination in the world '' were threatened by `` the great white nations '' destroying each other in endless battle. Despite President Wilson 's official doctrine of moral diplomacy seeking to `` make the world safe for democracy, '' some of his activities at the time can be viewed as imperialism to stop the advance of democracy in countries such as Haiti. The United States invaded Haiti in July 1915 after having made landfall eight times previously. American rule in Haiti continued through 1942, but was initiated during World War I. The historian Mary Renda in her book, Taking Haiti, talks about the American invasion of Haiti to bring about political stability through U.S. control. The American government did not believe Haiti was ready for self - government or democracy, according to Renda. In order to bring about political stability in Haiti, the United States secured control and integrated the country into the international capitalist economy, while preventing Haiti from practicing self - governance or democracy. While Haiti had been running their own government for many years before American intervention, the U.S. government regarded Haiti as unfit for self - rule. In order to convince the American public of the justice in intervening, the United States government used paternalist propaganda, depicting the Haitian political process as uncivilized. The Haitian government would come to agree to U.S. terms, including American overseeing of the Haitian economy. This direct supervision of the Haitian economy would reinforce U.S. propaganda and further entrench the perception of Haitians being incompetent of self - governance. In World War I, the US, Britain, and Russia had been allies for seven months, from April 1917 until the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in November. Active distrust surfaced immediately, as even before the October Revolution, British officers had been involved in the Kornilov Affair which sought to crush the Russian anti-war movement and the independent soviets. Nonetheless, once the Bolsheviks took Moscow, the British began talks to try and keep them in the war effort. British diplomat Bruce Lockhart cultivated a relationship with several Soviet officials, including Leon Trotsky, and the latter approved the initial Allied military mission to secure the Eastern Front, which was collapsing in the revolutionary upheaval. Ultimately, Soviet head of state V.I. Lenin decided the Bolsheviks would settle peacefully with the Central Powers at the Treaty of Brest - Litovsk. This separate peace led to Allied disdain for the Soviets, since it left the Western Allies to fight Germany without a strong Eastern partner. The British SIS, supported by US diplomat Dewitt C. Poole, sponsored an attempted coup in Moscow involving Bruce Lockhart and Sidney Reilly, which involved an attempted assassination of Lenin. The Bolsheviks proceeded to shut down the British and US embassies. Tensions between Russia ( including its allies ) and the West turned intensely ideological. The Allied military expedition now explicitly assisted the anti-Bolshevik Whites in the Russian Civil War, with the British and French giving armed support to the brutal General Alexander Kolchak. Over 30,000 Western troops were deployed in Russia overall. This was the first event which made Russian -- American relations a matter of major, long - term concern to the leaders in each country. Some historians, including William Appleman Williams and Ronald Powaski, trace the origins of the Cold War to this conflict. Wilson launched seven armed interventions, more than any other president. Looking back on the Wilson era, General Smedley Darlington Butler, a leader of the Haiti expedition and the highest - decorated Marine of that time, considered virtually all of the operations to have been economically motivated. In a 1933 speech he said : I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it... I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street... Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. Views of American imperialism Journalist Ashley Smith divides theories of the U.S. imperialism into 5 broad categories : ( 1 ) `` liberal '' theories, ( 2 ) `` social - democratic '' theories, ( 3 ) `` Leninist '' theories, ( 4 ) theories of `` super-imperialism '', and ( 5 ) `` Hardt - and - Negri '' theories. There is also a conservative, anti-interventionist view as expressed by American journalist John T. Flynn : The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets ; to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells. In 1899 Uncle Sam balances his new possessions which are depicted as savage children. The figures are Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines and `` Lad robes '' ( the Mariana Islands ). A `` social - democratic '' theory says that imperialistic U.S. policies are the products of the excessive influence of certain sectors of U.S. business and government -- the arms industry in alliance with military and political bureaucracies and sometimes other industries such as oil and finance, a combination often referred to as the `` military -- industrial complex ''. The complex is said to benefit from war profiteering and the looting of natural resources, often at the expense of the public interest. The proposed solution is typically unceasing popular vigilance in order to apply counter-pressure. Chalmers Johnson holds a version of this view. Alfred Thayer Mahan, who served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during the late 19th century, supported the notion of American imperialism in his 1890 book titled The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Mahan argued that modern industrial nations must secure foreign markets for the purpose of exchanging goods and, consequently, they must maintain a maritime force that is capable of protecting these trade routes. A theory of `` super-imperialism '' argues that imperialistic U.S. policies are not driven solely by the interests of American businesses, but also by the interests of a larger apparatus of a global alliance among the economic elite in developed countries. The argument asserts that capitalism in the Global North ( Europe, the U.S., Japan, among others ) has become too entangled to permit military or geopolitical conflict between these countries, and the central conflict in modern imperialism is between the Global North ( also referred to as the global core ) and the Global South ( also referred to as the global periphery ) rather than between the imperialist powers. Empire American occupation of Mexico City in 1847 Ceremonies during the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii, 1898 Following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the idea of American imperialism was reexamined. In November 2001, jubilant marines hoisted an American flag over Kandahar and in a stage display referred to the moment as the third after those on San Juan Hill and Iwo Jima. All moments, writes Neil Smith, express US global ambition. `` Labelled a war on terrorism, the new war represents an unprecedented quickening of the American Empire, a third chance at global power. '' On October 15, the cover of William Kristol 's Weekly Standard carried the headline, `` The Case for American Empire. '' Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the National Review, called for `` a kind of low - grade colonialism '' to topple dangerous regimes beyond Afghanistan. The columnist Charles Krauthammer declared that, given complete U.S. domination `` culturally, economically, technologically and militarily, '' people were `` now coming out of the closet on the word ' empire. ' '' The New York Times Sunday magazine cover for January 5, 2003, read `` American Empire : Get Used To It. '' The phrase `` American empire '' appeared more than 1000 times in news stories during November 2002 -- April 2003. Two Harvard Historians and their French colleague observed : Since September 11, 2001... if not earlier, the idea of American empire is back... Now... for the first time since the early Twentieth century, it has become acceptable to ask whether the United States has become or is becoming an empire in some classic sense. '' It used to be that only the critics of American foreign policy referred to the American empire... In the past three or four years ( 2001 - 2004 ), however, a growing number of commentators have begun to use the term American empire less pejoratively, if still ambivalently, and in some cases with genuine enthusiasm. US historians have generally considered the late 19th century imperialist urge as an aberration in an otherwise smooth democratic trajectory... Yet a century later, as the US empire engages in a new period of global expansion, Rome is once more a distant but essential mirror for American elites... Now, with military mobilisation on an exceptional scale after September 2001, the United States is openly affirming and parading its imperial power. For the first time since the 1890s, the naked display of force is backed by explicitly imperialist discourse. In the book `` Empire '', Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that `` the decline of Empire has begun ''. Hardt says the Iraq War is a classically imperialist war, and is the last gasp of a doomed strategy. They expand on this, claiming that in the new era of imperialism, the classical imperialists retain a colonizing power of sorts, but the strategy shifts from military occupation of economies based on physical goods to a networked biopower based on an informational and affective economies. They go on to say that the U.S. is central to the development of this new regime of international power and sovereignty, termed `` Empire '', but that it is decentralized and global, and not ruled by one sovereign state : `` the United States does indeed occupy a privileged position in Empire, but this privilege derives not from its similarities to the old European imperialist powers, but from its differences. '' Hardt and Negri draw on the theories of Spinoza, Foucault, Deleuze and Italian autonomist Marxists. Geographer David Harvey says there has emerged a new type of imperialism due to geographical distinctions as well as unequal rates of development. He says there has emerged three new global economic and political blocs : the United States, the European Union and Asia centered on China and Russia. He says there are tensions between the three major blocs over resources and economic power, citing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the motive of which, he argues, was to prevent rival blocs from controlling oil. Furthermore, Harvey argues that there can arise conflict within the major blocs between business interests and the politicians due to their sometimes incongruent economic interests. Politicians live in geographically fixed locations and are, in the U.S. and Europe, accountable to an electorate. The ' new ' imperialism, then, has led to an alignment of the interests of capitalists and politicians in order to prevent the rise and expansion of possible economic and political rivals from challenging America 's dominance. Classics professor and war historian Victor Davis Hanson dismisses the notion of an American Empire altogether, with a mocking comparison to historical empires : `` We do not send out proconsuls to reside over client states, which in turn impose taxes on coerced subjects to pay for the legions. Instead, American bases are predicated on contractual obligations -- costly to us and profitable to their hosts. We do not see any profits in Korea, but instead accept the risk of losing almost 40,000 of our youth to ensure that Kias can flood our shores and that shaggy students can protest outside our embassy in Seoul. '' The existence of `` proconsuls, '' however, has been recognized by many since the early Cold War. In 1957, French Historian, Amaury de Riencourt, associated the American `` proconsul '' with `` the Roman of our time. '' Expert on recent American history, Arthur M. Schlesinger detected several contemporary imperial features, including `` proconsuls '' : Washington does not directly run many parts of the world. Rather, its `` informal empire '' was one `` richly equipped with imperial paraphernalia : troops, ships, planes, bases, proconsuls, local collaborators, all spread wide around the luckless planet. '' `` The Supreme Allied Commander, always an American, was an appropriate title for the American proconsul whose reputation and influence outweighed those of European premiers, presidents, and chancellors. '' US `` combatant commanders... have served as its proconsuls. Their standing in their regions has usually dwarfed that of ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state. '' Harvard Historian Niall Ferguson calls the regional combatant commanders, among whom the whole globe is divided, the ' pro-consuls ' of this ' imperium. ' Günter Bischof calls them `` the all powerful proconsuls of the new American empire. Like the proconsuls of Rome they were supposed to bring order and law to the unruly and anarchical world... `` In September 2000, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest published a series of articles whose central premise was Combatant Commanders ' inordinate amount of political influence within the countries in their areas of responsibility. They `` had evolved into the modern - day equivalent of the Roman Empire 's proconsuls -- well - funded, semi-autonomous, unconventional centers of US foreign policy. '' The Romans often preferred to exercise power through friendly client regimes, rather than direct rule : `` until Jay Garner and L. Paul Bremer became US proconsuls in Baghdad, that was the American method too. '' Another distinction of Victor Davis Hanson -- that US bases, contrary to the legions, are costly to America and profitable for their hosts -- expresses the American view. The hosts express a diametrically opposite view. Japan pays for 25,000 Japanese working on US bases. 20 % of those workers provide entertainment : a list drawn up by the Japanese Ministry of Defense included 76 bartenders, 48 vending machine personnel, 47 golf course maintenance personnel, 25 club managers, 20 commercial artists, 9 leisure - boat operators, 6 theater directors, 5 cake decorators, 4 bowling alley clerks, 3 tour guides and 1 animal caretaker. Shu Watanabe of the Democratic Party of Japan asks : `` Why does Japan need to pay the costs for US service members ' entertainment on their holidays ? '' One research on host nations support concludes : At an alliance - level analysis, case studies of South Korea and Japan present that the necessity of the alliance relationship with the US and their relative capabilities to achieve security purposes lead them to increase the size of direct economic investment to support the US forces stationed in their territories, as well as to facilitate the US global defense posture. In addition, these two countries have increased their political and economic contribution to the US - led military operations beyond the geographic scope of the alliance in the post-Cold War period... Behavioral changes among the US allies in response to demands for sharing alliance burdens directly indicate the changed nature of unipolar alliances. In order to maintain its power preponderance and primacy, the unipole has imposed greater pressure on its allies to devote much of their resources and energy to contributing to its global defense posture... ( It ) is expected that the systemic properties of unipolarity -- non-structural threat and a power preponderance of the unipole -- gradually increase the political and economic burdens of the allies in need of maintaining alliance relationships with the unipole. In fact, increasing the `` economic burdens of the allies '' is one of the major priorities of President Donald Trump. Classicist Eric Adler notes that Hanson earlier had written about the decline of the classical studies in the United States and insufficient attention devoted to the classical experience. `` When writing about American foreign policy for a lay audience, however, Hanson himself chose to castigate Roman imperialism in order to portray the modern United States as different from -- and superior to -- the Roman state. '' As a supporter of a hawkish unilateral American foreign policy, Hanson 's `` distinctly negative view of Roman imperialism is particularly noteworthy, since it demonstrates the importance a contemporary supporter of a hawkish American foreign policy places on criticizing Rome. '' U.S. foreign policy Debate Further information : Military history of the United States and Overseas interventions of the United States This section may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia 's quality standards. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions. ( January 2014 ) Map of the United States and directly - controlled territory at its greatest extent from 1898 -- 1902, after the Spanish -- American War 1898 political cartoon : `` Ten Thousand Miles From Tip to Tip '' meaning the extension of U.S. domination ( symbolized by a bald eagle ) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. The cartoon contrasts this with a map of the smaller United States 100 years earlier in 1798. Annexation is a crucial instrument in the expansion of a nation, due to the fact that once a territory is annexed it must act within the confines of its superior counterpart. The United States Congress ' ability to annex a foreign territory is explained in a report from the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations, `` If, in the judgment of Congress, such a measure is supported by a safe and wise policy, or is based upon a natural duty that we owe to the people of Hawaii, or is necessary for our national development and security, that is enough to justify annexation, with the consent of the recognized government of the country to be annexed. '' Prior to annexing a territory, the American government still held immense power through the various legislations passed in the late 1800s. The Platt Amendment was utilized to prevent Cuba from entering into any agreements with foreign nations, and also granted the Americans the right to build naval stations on their soil. Executive officials in the American government began to determine themselves the supreme authority in matters regarding the recognition or restriction of independence. When asked on April 28, 2003, on al - Jazeera whether the United States was `` empire building, '' Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied `` We do n't seek empires, we 're not imperialistic. We never have been. '' However, historian Donald W. Meinig says the imperial behavior by the United States dates at least to the Louisiana Purchase, which he describes as an `` imperial acquisition -- imperial in the sense of the aggressive encroachment of one people upon the territory of another, resulting in the subjugation of that people to alien rule. '' The U.S. policies towards the Native Americans he said were `` designed to remold them into a people more appropriately conformed to imperial desires. '' Writers and academics of the early 20th century, like Charles A. Beard, in support of non-interventionism ( sometimes referred to as `` isolationism '' ), discussed American policy as being driven by self - interested expansionism going back as far as the writing of the Constitution. Some politicians today do not agree. Pat Buchanan claims that the modern United States ' drive to empire is `` far removed from what the Founding Fathers had intended the young Republic to become. '' Andrew Bacevich argues that the U.S. did not fundamentally change its foreign policy after the Cold War, and remains focused on an effort to expand its control across the world. As the surviving superpower at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. could focus its assets in new directions, the future being `` up for grabs '' according to former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz in 1991. Head of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, Stephen Peter Rosen, maintains : A political unit that has overwhelming superiority in military power, and uses that power to influence the internal behavior of other states, is called an empire. Because the United States does not seek to control territory or govern the overseas citizens of the empire, we are an indirect empire, to be sure, but an empire nonetheless. If this is correct, our goal is not combating a rival, but maintaining our imperial position, and maintaining imperial order. In Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the political activist Noam Chomsky argues that exceptionalism and the denials of imperialism are the result of a systematic strategy of propaganda, to `` manufacture opinion '' as the process has long been described in other countries. Thorton wrote that `` (... ) imperialism is more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves. Where colonization finds analysts and analogies, imperialism must contend with crusaders for and against. '' Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term hegemony is better than empire to describe the US 's role in the world ; political scientist Robert Keohane agrees saying, a `` balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided... by the use of the phrase ' empire ' to describe United States hegemony, since ' empire ' obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of rule between the United States and other Great Powers, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the Soviet Union in the twentieth. ''. Since 2001, Emmanuel Todd assumes that USA can not hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic power due to limited resources. Instead, the USA is going to become just one of the major regional powers along with European Union, China, Russia, etc. Reviewing Todd 's After the Empire, G. John Ikenberry found that it had been written in `` a fit of French wishful thinking. '' The thinking proved to be `` wishful '' indeed, as the book became a bestseller in France for most of the year 2003. Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas Wright, argue that neither term exclusively describes foreign relations of the United States. The U.S. can be, and has been, simultaneously an empire and a hegemonic power. They claim that the general trend in U.S. foreign relations has been away from imperial modes of control. Cultural imperialism McDonald 's in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Some critics of imperialism argue that military and cultural imperialism are interdependent. American Edward Said, one of the founders of post-colonial theory, said that, (... ), so influential has been the discourse insisting on American specialness, altruism and opportunity, that imperialism in the United States as a word or ideology has turned up only rarely and recently in accounts of the United States culture, politics and history. But the connection between imperial politics and culture in North America, and in particular in the United States, is astonishingly direct. International relations scholar David Rothkopf disagrees and argues that cultural imperialism is the innocent result of globalization, which allows access to numerous U.S. and Western ideas and products that many non-U.S. and non-Western consumers across the world voluntarily choose to consume. Matthew Fraser has a similar analysis, but argues further that the global cultural influence of the U.S. is a good thing. Nationalism is the main process through which the government is able to shape public opinion. Propaganda in the media is strategically placed in order to promote a common attitude among the people. Louis A. Perez Jr. provides an example of propaganda used during the war of 1898, `` We are coming, Cuba, coming ; we are bound to set you free ! We are coming from the mountains, from the plains and inland sea ! We are coming with the wrath of God to make the Spaniards flee ! We are coming, Cuba, coming ; coming now ! '' American progressives have been accused of engaging in cultural imperialism. In contrast, many other countries with American brands have incorporated themselves into their own local culture. An example of this would be the self - styled ' Maccas ', an Australian derivation of ' McDonald 's ' with a tinge of Australian culture. U.S. military bases Further information : List of United States military bases Chalmers Johnson argued in 2004 that America 's version of the colony is the military base. Chip Pitts argued similarly in 2006 that enduring U.S. bases in Iraq suggested a vision of `` Iraq as a colony ''. While territories such as Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and Puerto Rico remain under U.S. control, the U.S. allowed many of its overseas territories or occupations to gain independence after World War II. Examples include the Philippines ( 1946 ), the Panama canal zone ( 1979 ), Palau ( 1981 ), the Federated States of Micronesia ( 1986 ) and the Marshall Islands ( 1986 ). Most of them still have U.S. bases within their territories. In the case of Okinawa, which came under U.S. administration after the Battle of Okinawa during the Second World War, this happened despite local popular opinion. In 2003, a Department of Defense distribution found the United States had bases in over 36 countries worldwide. In 2015 the Department of Defense reported the number of bases that had any military or civilians stationed or employed was 587. This includes land only ( where no facilities are present ), facility or facilities only ( where there the underlying land is neither owned nor controlled by the government ), and land with facilities ( where both are present ). Also in 2015, David Vine 's book Base Nation, found 800 US military bases located outside of the US, including 174 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea, the total costs, an estimated $100 billion a year. Benevolent imperialism Main articles : Neoconservatism and Monroe Doctrine Political cartoon depicting Theodore Roosevelt using the Monroe Doctrine to keep European powers out of the Dominican Republic. One of the earliest historians of American Empire, William Appleman Williams, wrote, `` The routine lust for land, markets or security became justifications for noble rhetoric about prosperity, liberty and security. '' Max Boot defends U.S. imperialism by claiming : `` U.S. imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during the past century. It has defeated communism and Nazism and has intervened against the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing. '' Boot used `` imperialism '' to describe United States policy, not only in the early 20th century but `` since at least 1803 ''. This embrace of empire is made by other neoconservatives, including British historian Paul Johnson, and writers Dinesh D'Souza and Mark Steyn. It is also made by some liberal hawks, such as political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael Ignatieff. British historian Niall Ferguson argues that the United States is an empire and believes that this is a good thing : `` What is not allowed is to say that the United States is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad. '' Ferguson has drawn parallels between the British Empire and the imperial role of the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, though he describes the United States ' political and social structures as more like those of the Roman Empire than of the British. Ferguson argues that all of these empires have had both positive and negative aspects, but that the positive aspects of the U.S. empire will, if it learns from history and its mistakes, greatly outweigh its negative aspects. Another point of view implies that United States expansion overseas has indeed been imperialistic, but that this imperialism is only a temporary phenomenon ; a corruption of American ideals or the relic of a past historical era. Historian Samuel Flagg Bemis argues that Spanish -- American War expansionism was a short - lived imperialistic impulse and `` a great aberration in American history '', a very different form of territorial growth than that of earlier American history. Historian Walter LaFeber sees the Spanish -- American War expansionism not as an aberration, but as a culmination of United States expansion westward. Historian Victor Davis Hanson argues that the U.S. does not pursue world domination, but maintains worldwide influence by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges. On the other hand, a Filipino revolutionary General Emilio Aguinaldo felt as though the American involvement in the Philippines was destructive, ``... the Filipinos fighting for Liberty, the American people fighting them to give them liberty. The two peoples are fighting on parallel lines for the same object. '' American influence worldwide and the effects it has on other nations have multiple interpretations according to whose perspective is being taken into account. Liberal internationalists argue that even though the present world order is dominated by the United States, the form taken by that dominance is not imperial. International relations scholar John Ikenberry argues that international institutions have taken the place of empire. International relations scholar Joseph Nye argues that U.S. power is more and more based on `` soft power '', which comes from cultural hegemony rather than raw military or economic force. This includes such factors as the widespread desire to emigrate to the United States, the prestige and corresponding high proportion of foreign students at U.S. universities, and the spread of U.S. styles of popular music and cinema. Mass immigration into America may justify this theory, but it is hard to know for sure whether the United States would still maintain its prestige without its military and economic superiority. See also United States portal Americanization American Century Criticism of the United States government Indian massacre Inverted totalitarianism Manifest destiny A People 's History of American Empire -- 2008 book by Howard Zinn, et al. Territories of the United States Superiority complex Washington Consensus Neocolonialism New Imperialism Anti-Americanism Anti-imperialism Soviet Empire Chinese imperialism Notes and references Jump up ^ `` Base Structure Report : FY 2013 Baseline '' ( PDF ). United States Department of Defense. Jump up ^ `` Protesters Accuse US of ' Imperialism ' as Obama Rekindles Military Deal With Philippines ''. VICE News. Jump up ^ `` Anti-US Base Candidate Wins Okinawa Governor Race ''. PopularResistance.Org. Jump up ^ `` History in Context : Imperialism '' Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, 2015 ^ Jump up to : Lens, Sidney ; Zinn, Howard ( 2003 ) ( 1971 ). The Forging of the American Empire. London : Pluto Press. ISBN 0 - 7453 - 2100 - 3. ^ Jump up to : Field, James A., Jr. ( June 1978 ). `` American Imperialism : The Worst Chapter i Almost Any Book ''. The American Historical Review. 83 ( 3 ) : 644 -- 668. doi : 10.2307 / 1861842. JSTOR 1861842. Jump up ^ Lindsay, Ivo H. Daalder and James M. `` American Empire, Not ' If ' but ' What Kind ' ''. Jump up ^ Susan Welch ; John Gruhl ; Susan M. Rigdon ; Sue Thomas ( 2011 ). Understanding American Government. Cengage Learning. pp. 583, 671 ( note 3 ). ISBN 978 - 0 - 495 - 91050 - 3. Jump up ^ Walter LaFeber ( 1993 ). Inevitable Revolutions : The United States in Central America. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 19. ISBN 978 - 0 - 393 - 30964 - 5. ^ Jump up to : Emily Eakin `` Ideas and Trends : All Roads Lead To DC '' New York Times, March 31, 2002. Jump up ^ Contending with the American Empire : Introduction. Jump up ^ `` Franklin 's `` Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind... `` ''. www.columbia.edu. Jump up ^ `` Envisaging the West : Thomas Jefferson and the Roots of Lewis and Clark ''. jeffersonswest.unl.edu. Jump up ^ `` Modern - Day American Imperialism : Middle East and Beyond ''. chomsky.info. Jump up ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PdJ9TAdTdA Jump up ^ Preston, Andrew ; Rossinow, Doug ( 2016 - 11 - 15 ). Outside In : The Transnational Circuitry of US History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190459871. Jump up ^ Sexton, Jay ( 2011 - 03 - 15 ). The Monroe Doctrine : Empire and Nation in Nineteenth - Century America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 2 -- 9. ISBN 9781429929288. Jump up ^ Williams, Walter L. ( 1980 ). `` United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation : Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism ''. The Journal of American History. 66 ( 4 ) : 810 -- 831. doi : 10.2307 / 1887638. Jump up ^ `` American Genocide Yale University Press ''. yalebooks.yale.edu. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 26. Jump up ^ `` California 's state - sanctioned genocide of Native Americans ''. Newsweek. 2016 - 08 - 17. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 26. Jump up ^ `` A Thing Well Begun Is Half Done ''. Persuasive Maps : PJ Mode Collection. Cornell University. Jump up ^ Thomas Friedman, `` The Lexus and the Olive Tree '', p. 381, and Manfred Steger, `` Globalism : The New Market Ideology, '' and Jeff Faux, `` Flat Note from the Pied Piper of Globalization, '' Dissent, Fall 2005, pp. 64 -- 67. Jump up ^ Brands, Henry William. ( 1997 ). T.R. : The Last Romantic. New York : Basic Books. Reprinted 2001, full biography OCLC 36954615, ch 12 Jump up ^ `` April 16, 1897 : T. Roosevelt Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy ''. Crucible of Empire -- Timeline. PBS Online. Retrieved July 26, 2007. Jump up ^ `` Transcript For `` Crucible Of Empire '' ``. Crucible of Empire -- Timeline. PBS Online. Retrieved July 26, 2007. Jump up ^ Tilchin, William N. Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire : A Study in Presidential Statecraft ( 1997 ) Jump up ^ `` '' The White Man 's Burden `` : Kipling 's Hymn to U.S. Imperialism ''. historymatters.gmu.edu. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 25. Jump up ^ `` The roosevelt corollary - Imperialism ''. www.americanforeignrelations.com. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 27. Jump up ^ Kramer, Paul A. ( 2006 - 12 - 13 ). The Blood of Government : Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807877173. Jump up ^ Zinn, Howard. A People 's History of the United States : 1492 -- 2001. New York : HarperCollins, 2003. Print. Jump up ^ Jones, Gregg ( 2013 ). Honor in the Dust : Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America 's Imperial Dream. Penguin. pp. 169 -- 170. ISBN 9780451239181. Jump up ^ Schirmer & Shalom 1987, pp. 18, 40 -- 41. Jump up ^ Secretary Root 's Record : `` Marked Severities '' in Philippine Warfare, Wikisource ( multiple mentions ) Jump up ^ Zinn, Howard ( 2014 ). A PEOPLE 's HISTORY of the UNITED STATES 1492 -- PRESENT. Time Apt. Group. p. unnumbered. ISBN 978 - 615 - 5505 - 13 - 3. Jump up ^ E. San Juan, Jr. ( March 22, 2005 ). `` U.S. Genocide in the Philippines : A Case of Guilt, Shame, or Amnesia ? ''. Jump up ^ Jr, E. San Juan ( 2007 - 09 - 03 ). U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines. Springer. pp. Xii -- xviii. ISBN 9780230607033. Jump up ^ `` Philippine Republic Day ''. www.gov.ph. Jump up ^ Miller, Stuart Creighton ( 1982 ). Benevolent Assimilation : The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899 - 1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 030016193X. Jump up ^ Johnson, Chalmers, Blowback : The Costs and Consequences of American Empire ( 2000 ), pp. 72 -- 79 Jump up ^ Butterfield, Fox ; Times, Special to the New York ( 1987 - 04 - 19 ). `` New Book on Marcos Says U.S. Knew of His ' 72 Martial - Law Plans ''. The New York Times. ISSN 0362 - 4331. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 24. Jump up ^ Nashel, Jonathan ( 2005 ). Edward Lansdale 's Cold War. Univ of Massachusetts Press. p. 32. ISBN 1558494642. Jump up ^ Simbulan, Roland G. ( August 18, 2000 ). `` Equipo Nizkor - Covert Operations and the CIA 's Hidden History in the Philippines ''. www.derechos.org. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 23. Lecture at the University of the Philippines - Manila, Rizal Hall, Padre Faura, Manila Jump up ^ `` Commonwealth Act No. 733 ''. Chan Robles Law Library. April 30, 1946. Jump up ^ Jenkins, Shirley ( 1954 ). American Economic Policy Toward the Philippines. Stanford University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0 - 8047 - 1139 - 9. Jump up ^ Frederick Jackson Turner, Significance of the Frontier at the Wayback Machine ( archived May 21, 2008 ), sagehistory.net ( archived from the original on May 21, 2008 ). Jump up ^ Kellner, Douglas ( April 25, 2003 ). `` American Exceptionalism ''. Archived from the original on February 17, 2006. Retrieved February 20, 2006. Jump up ^ McManus, Doyle ( 8 February 2017 ). `` The Trumpist Future : A World Without Exceptional America ''. LA Times. Retrieved 25 April 2017. Jump up ^ Magdoff, Harry ; John Bellamy Foster ( November 2001 ). `` After the Attack... The War on Terrorism ''. Monthly Review. 53 ( 6 ) : 7. Retrieved October 8, 2009. Jump up ^ Zinn, Howard. A People 's History of the United States. New York : HarperCollins, 2003. p. 363 Jump up ^ Zinn, pp. 359 -- 376 Jump up ^ Zeiler, Thomas W. ; Ekbladh, David K. ; Garder, Lloyd C. ( 2017 - 03 - 27 ). Beyond 1917 : The United States and the Global Legacies of the Great War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190604035. Jump up ^ Steigerwald, David ( 1994 ). Wilsonian Idealism in America. Cornell University Press. pp. 30 -- 42. ISBN 0801429366. Jump up ^ Renda, `` Introduction, '' in Taking Haiti : Military Occupation & the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915 -- 1940, pp. 10 -- 22, 29 -- 34 Jump up ^ Keith Neilson, Strategy and Supply ( RLE The First World War ) : The Anglo - Russian Alliance ( Routledge, 2014 ), p. 282 - 290 Jump up ^ Jeffery T. Richelson, A Century of Spies : Intelligence in the Twentieth Century ( Oxford University Press, 1997 ) Jump up ^ Martin Sixsmith, `` Fanny Kaplan 's Attempt to Kill Lenin '' in Was Revolution Inevitable ? : Turning Points of the Russian Revolution, edited by Tony Brenton ( Oxford University Press, 2017 ), p. 185 - 192 Jump up ^ `` Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918 - 1919, '' The National Archives Jump up ^ Powaski, `` The United States and the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917 -- 1933, '' in The Cold War :. The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917 -- 1991, pp. 5 -- 34 Jump up ^ Wertheim, Stephen. `` The Wilsonian Chimera ''. scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2018 - 01 - 21. Jump up ^ Dubois, Laurent ( 2012 - 01 - 03 ). Haiti : The Aftershocks of History. Henry Holt and Company. pp. 240 -- 249. ISBN 9780805095623. Jump up ^ `` Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC ''. Federation of American Scientists. Jump up ^ Smith, Ashley ( June 24, 2006 ). The Classical Marxist Theory of Imperialism. Socialism 2006. Columbia University. Jump up ^ `` Books '' ( PDF ). Mises Institute. Jump up ^ C. Wright Mills, The Causes of World War Three, Simon and Schuster, 1958, pp. 52, 111 Jump up ^ Flynn, John T. ( 1944 ) As We Go Marching. Jump up ^ Johnson, Chalmers ( 2004 ). The sorrows of empire : Militarism, secrecy, and the end of the republic. New York : Metropolitan Books. Jump up ^ Mahan, Alfred Thayer ( 1890 ). The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660 -- 1783. Boston, MA : Little, Brown, and Company. Chapter I : Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power. OCLC 2553178... Jump up ^ Sumida, Jon Tetsuro ( Summer 2006 ). `` Geography, technology, and British naval strategy in the dreadnought era '' ( PDF ). Naval War College Review. 59 ( 3 ) : 89 -- 102. ISSN 0028 - 1484. Retrieved 7 May 2017. Jump up ^ Neil Smith, American Empire : Roosevelt 's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization, ( Berkeley & Los Angeles & London : University of California Press, 2003 ), p XI - XII. Jump up ^ Max Boot, `` The Case for American Empire, '' Weekly Standard 7 / 5, ( October 15, 2001 ), http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/boot.htm Jump up ^ Nina J. Easton, `` Thunder on the Right, '' American Journalism Review 23 ( December 2001 ), 320. Jump up ^ David A. Lake, `` Escape from the State - of - Nature : Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics, '' International Security, 32 / 1 : ( 2007 ), p 48. Jump up ^ Charles S. Maier, Among Empires : American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors, ( Massachusetts & London : Harvard University Press, 2006 ), p 2 - 24. Jump up ^ Niall Ferguson, Colossus : The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, ( New York : Penguin Books, 2005 ), p 3 - 4. Jump up ^ Philip S. Golub, `` Westward the Course of Empire, '' Le Monde Diplomatique, ( September 2002 ), http://mondediplo.com/2002/09/03westward Jump up ^ Empire hits back. The Observer, July 15, 2001. Jump up ^ Hardt, Michael ( July 13, 2006 ). `` From Imperialism to Empire ''. The Nation. Jump up ^ Negri, Antonio ; Hardt, Michael ( 2000 ). Empire. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0 - 674 - 00671 - 2. Retrieved October 8, 2009. p. xiii -- xiv. Jump up ^ Michael Hardt, Gilles Deleuze : an Apprenticeship in Philosophy, ISBN 0 - 8166 - 2161 - 6 Jump up ^ Autonomism # Italian autonomism Jump up ^ Harvey, David ( 2005 ). The new imperialism. Oxford University Press. p. 101. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 927808 - 4. Jump up ^ Harvey 2005, p. 31. Jump up ^ Harvey 2005, pp. 77 -- 78. Jump up ^ Harvey 2005, p. 187. Jump up ^ Harvey 2005, pp. 76 -- 78 Jump up ^ `` www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson112702.html ''. Archived from the original on 2012 - 07 - 13. Jump up ^ Cited in Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945 : From ' Empire ' by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift, ( Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005 ), p 112. Jump up ^ The Cycles of American History, ( Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1986 ), p 141. Jump up ^ Lawrence Kaplan, `` Western Europe in ' The American Century, ' '' Diplomatic History, 6 / 2, ( 1982 ) : p 115. Jump up ^ Eliot A. Cohen, `` History and the Hyperpower, '' Foreign Affairs, 83 / 4, ( 2004 ) : p 60 - 61. Jump up ^ Colossus : The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, ( New York : Penguin Books, 2005 ), p 17. Jump up ^ Günter Bischof, `` Empire Discourses : The ' American Empire ' in Decline ? '' Kurswechsel, 2, ( 2009 ) : p 18, http://www.beigewum.at/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009_2_014-23.pdf Jump up ^ Cited in Andrew Feickert, `` The Unified Command Plan and Combatant Commands : Background and Issues for Congress, '' ( Congressional Research Service, Washington : White House, 2013 ), p 59, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42077.pdf Jump up ^ Jonathan Freedland, `` Bush 's Amazing Achievement, '' The New York Review of Books, ( June 14, 2007 ), http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/06/14/bushs-amazing-achievement/ Jump up ^ Cited in George R. Packard, `` The United States - Japan Security Treaty at 50, '' Foreign Affairs, 89 / 2, ( 2010 ) : p 98 - 99. Jump up ^ Sung Woo Kim, `` System Polarities and Alliance Politics '', ( PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2012 ), p 149 - 151, http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3482 Jump up ^ `` AIPAC and foreign policy ''. The Economist. March 22, 2016. Jump up ^ Sanger, David E. ; Haberman, Maggie ( July 20, 2016 ). `` Donald Trump Sets Conditions for Defending NATO Allies Against Attack ''. The New York Times. ISSN 0362 - 4331. Retrieved July 31, 2016. Jump up ^ `` What 's Trump 's Position on NATO ? ''. factcheck.org. Retrieved July 31, 2016. Jump up ^ `` Full Rush Transcript : Donald Trump, CNN Milwaukee Republican Presidential Town Hall ''. CNN. Retrieved June 26, 2016. Jump up ^ Eric Adler, `` Post-9 / 11 Views of Rome and the Nature of ' Defensive Imperialism, ' '' International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 15 / 4, ( 2008 ) : p 593. Jump up ^ Eric Adler 2008, p 593. Jump up ^ United States. Cong. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Annexation of Hawaii. Comp. Davis. 55th Cong., 2nd sess. S. Rept. 681. Washington, D.C. : G.P.O., 1898. Print. ^ Jump up to : Pérez, Louis A. The War of 1898 : The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina, 1998. Print. Jump up ^ `` USATODAY.com -- American imperialism ? No need to run away from label ''. usatoday.com. Jump up ^ Meinig, Donald W. ( 1993 ). The Shaping of America : A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2 : Continental America, 1800 -- 1867. Yale University Press. pp. 22 -- 23, 170 -- 196, 516 -- 517. ISBN 0 - 300 - 05658 - 3. Jump up ^ Buchanan, Pat ( 1999 ). A Republic, Not an Empire : Reclaiming America 's Destiny. Washington, DC : Regnery Publishing. ISBN 0 - 89526 - 272 - X. p. 165. Jump up ^ Bacevich, Andrew ( 2004 ). American Empire : The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0 - 674 - 01375 - 1. Jump up ^ ERIC SCHMITT, `` Washington at Work ; Ex-Cold Warrior Sees the Future as ' Up for Grabs ' '' The New York Times December 23, 1991. Jump up ^ `` The Future of War and the American Military : Demography, Technology and the Politics of Modern Empire, '' Harvard Review, 102, ( May / June ), http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/05/the-future-of-war-and-th.html Jump up ^ Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years ' Crisis 1919 -- 1939 : An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 1939. Jump up ^ Thornton, Archibald Paton ( September 1978 ). Imperialism in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0 - 333 - 24848 - 1. Jump up ^ Walzer, Michael. `` Is There an American Empire ? ''. www.freeindiamedia.com. Archived from the original on October 21, 2006. Retrieved June 10, 2006. Jump up ^ Keohane, Robert O. `` The United States and the Postwar Order : Empire or Hegemony ? '' ( Review of Geir Lundestad, The American Empire ) Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 28, No. 4 ( November, 1991 ), p. 435 Jump up ^ Emmanuel Todd, After the Empire. The Breakdown of the American Order, 2001, ( tr. Delogu, C. Jon, New York : Columbia University Press, 2003 ). Jump up ^ `` Review : Illusions of Empire : Defining the New American Order, '' Foreign Affairs, 83 / 2, ( 2004 ) : p 152. Jump up ^ Alexander Kirshner, `` Eiffel Cower : France 's Answer to the Neocons, '' Washington Monthly, 36 / 1 - 2, http://law-journals-books.vlex.com/vid/eiffel-cower-france-answer-neocons-54669942 Jump up ^ Nexon, Daniel and Wright, Thomas `` What 's at Stake in the American Empire Debate '' Archived September 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. American Political Science Review, Vol. 101, No. 2 ( May 2007 ), p. 266 - 267 Jump up ^ Said, Edward. `` Culture and Imperialism, speech at York University, Toronto, February 10, 1993 ''. Archived from the original on 2001 - 09 - 17. Retrieved 2006 - 02 - 23. CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown ( link ) Jump up ^ Rothkopf, David In Praise of Cultural Imperialism ? Archived 2012 - 01 - 19 at the Wayback Machine. Foreign Policy, Number 107, Summer 1997, pp. 38 -- 53 Jump up ^ Fraser, Matthew ( 2005 ). Weapons of Mass Distraction : Soft Power and American Empire. St. Martin 's Press. Jump up ^ `` The New Cultural Imperialism ''. Jump up ^ `` The Missionary Zeal of the New Progressive Imperialism ''. Jump up ^ `` Our Story About Macca 's McDonald 's AU ''. mcdonalds.com.au. Retrieved 2016 - 11 - 10. Jump up ^ `` www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-08.htm ''. Archived from the original on 2004 - 01 - 17. Jump up ^ Pitts, Chip ( November 8, 2006 ). `` The Election on Empire ''. The National Interest. Retrieved October 8, 2009. Jump up ^ Patrick Smith, Pay Attention to Okinawans and Close the U.S. Bases, International Herald Tribune ( Opinion section ), March 6, 1998. Jump up ^ `` Base Structure Report '' ( PDF ). USA Department of Defense. 2003. Archived ( PDF ) from the original on January 10, 2007. Retrieved January 23, 2007. Jump up ^ `` Department of Defense, Base Structure Report FY 2015 Baseline '' ( PDF ). Retrieved 2017 - 09 - 04. Jump up ^ Vine, David. 2015. Base Nation. Published by Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York. Jump up ^ William Appleman Williams, `` Empire as a Way of Life : An Essay on the Causes and Character of America 's Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts About an Alternative '' ( New York : Simon & Schuster, 1996 ), S1. ^ Jump up to : Max Boot ( May 6, 2003 ). `` American Imperialism ? No Need to Run Away from Label ''. Op - Ed. USA Today. Archived from the original on 2011 - 04 - 04 -- via Council on Foreign Relations. Jump up ^ `` Max Boot, `` Neither New nor Nefarious : The Liberal Empire Strikes Back, '' November 2003 ``. mtholyoke.edu. Archived from the original on 2008 - 05 - 15. Jump up ^ Heer, Jeet ( March 23, 2003 ). `` Operation Anglosphere ''. Boston Globe. Retrieved October 8, 2009. Jump up ^ `` The Unconscious Colossus : Limits of ( Alternatives to ) American Empire, '' Daedalus, 134 / 2, ( 2005 ) : p 21. Jump up ^ Ferguson, Niall ( June 2, 2005 ). Colossus : The Rise and Fall of the American Empire. Penguin. ISBN 0 - 14 - 101700 - 7. Jump up ^ Miller, Stuart Creighton ( 1982 ). `` Benevolent Assimilation '' The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899 -- 1903. Yale University Press. ISBN 0 - 300 - 02697 - 8. p. 3. Jump up ^ Lafeber, Walter ( 1975 ). The New Empire : An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860 -- 1898. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0 - 8014 - 9048 - 0. Jump up ^ Hanson, Victor Davis ( November 2002 ). `` A Funny Sort of Empire ''. National Review. Retrieved October 8, 2009. Jump up ^ Aguinaldo, Emilio ( September 1899 ). `` Aguinaldo 's Case Against the United States '' ( PDF ). North American Review. Jump up ^ Ikenberry, G. John ( March -- April 2004 ). `` Illusions of Empire : Defining the New American Order ''. Foreign Affairs. Jump up ^ Cf. Nye, Joseph Jr. ( 2005 ). Soft Power : The Means to Success in World Politics. Public Affairs. 208 pp. Further reading Bacevich, Andrew ( 2008 ). The Limits of Power : The End of American Exceptionalism. Macmillan. ISBN 0 - 8050 - 8815 - 6. Boot, Max ( 2002 ). The Savage Wars of Peace : Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. Basic Books. ISBN 0 - 465 - 00721 - X. Brown, Seyom ( 1994 ). Faces of Power : Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Clinton. New York : Columbia University Press. ISBN 0 - 231 - 09669 - 0. Burton, David H. ( 1968 ). Theodore Roosevelt : Confident Imperialist. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press. ASIN B0007GMSSY. Callahan, Patrick ( 2003 ). Logics of American Foreign Policy : Theories of America 's World Role. New York : Longman. ISBN 0 - 321 - 08848 - 4. Card, Orson Scott ( 2006 ). Empire. TOR. ISBN 0 - 7653 - 1611 - 0. Daalder, Ivo H. ; James M. Lindsay ( 2003 ). America Unbound : The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution. ISBN 0 - 8157 - 1688 - 5. Fulbright, J. William ; Seth P. Tillman ( 1989 ). The Price of Empire. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0 - 394 - 57224 - 6. Gaddis, John Lewis ( 2005 ). Strategies of Containment : A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy ( 2nd ed. ). New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 517447 - X. Grandin, Greg, `` The Death Cult of Trumpism : In his appeals to a racist and nationalist chauvinism, Trump leverages tribal resentment against an emerging manifest common destiny '', The Nation, 29 Jan. / 5 Feb. 2018, pp. 20 -- 22. `` ( T ) he ongoing effects of the ruinous 2003 war in Iraq and the 2007 -- 8 financial meltdown are... two indicators that the promise of endless growth can no longer help organize people 's aspirations... We are entering the second ' lost decade ' of what Larry Summers calls ' secular stagnation, ' and soon we 'll be in the third decade of a war that Senator Lindsey Graham... says will never end. ( T ) here is a realization that the world is fragile and that we are trapped in an economic system that is well past sustainable or justifiable... In a nation like the United States, founded on a mythical belief in a kind of species immunity -- less an American exceptionalism than exemptionism, an insistence that the nation was exempt from nature, society, history, even death -- the realization that it ca n't go on forever is traumatic. '' ( p. 21. ) Hardt, Michael ; Antonio Negri ( 2001 ). Empire. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. ISBN 0 - 674 - 00671 - 2. online Huntington, Samuel P. ( 1996 ). The Clash of Civilizations. New York : Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0 - 684 - 81164 - 2. Johnson, Chalmers ( 2000 ). Blowback : The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. New York : Holt. ISBN 0 - 8050 - 6239 - 4. Johnson, Chalmers ( 2004 ). The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. New York : Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0 - 8050 - 7004 - 4. Johnson, Chalmers ( 2007 ). Nemesis : The Last Days of the American Republic. New York, NY : Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0 - 8050 - 7911 - 4. Kagan, Robert ( 2003 ). Of Paradise and Power : America and Europe in the New World Order. New York : Knopf. ISBN 1 - 4000 - 4093 - 0. Kerry, Richard J. ( 1990 ). The Star - Spangled Mirror : America 's Image of Itself and the World. Savage, MD : Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0 - 8476 - 7649 - 8. Lundestad, Geir ( 1998 ). Empire by Integration : The United States and European Integration, 1945 -- 1997. New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 878212 - 8. Meyer, William H. ( 2003 ). Security, Economics, and Morality in American Foreign Policy : Contemporary Issues in Historical Context. Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall. ISBN 0 - 13 - 086390 - 4. Nye, Joseph S., Jr ( 2002 ). The Paradox of American Power : Why the World 's Only Superpower Ca n't Go It Alone. New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 515088 - 0. Odom, William ; Robert Dujarric ( 2004 ). America 's Inadvertent Empire. Yale University Press. ISBN 0 - 300 - 10069 - 8. Patrick, Stewart ; Forman, Shepard, eds. ( 2001 ). Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy : Ambivalent Engagement. Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner. ISBN 1 - 58826 - 042 - 9. Perkins, John ( 2004 ). Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Tihrān : Nashr - i Akhtarān. ISBN 1 - 57675 - 301 - 8. Rapkin, David P., ed. ( 1990 ). World Leadership and Hegemony. Boulder, CO : Lynne Rienner. ISBN 1 - 55587 - 189 - 5. Ruggie, John G., ed. ( 1993 ). Multilateralism Matters : The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form. New York : Columbia University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 231 - 07980 - 8. Smith, Tony ( 1994 ). America 's Mission : The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press. ISBN 0 - 691 - 03784 - 1. Tomlinson, John ( 1991 ). Cultural Imperialism : A Critical Introduction. Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0 - 8018 - 4250 - 6. Todd, Emmanuel ( 2004 ). After the Empire : The Breakdown of the American Order. New York : Columbia University Press. ISBN 978 - 0 - 231 - 13103 - 2. Tremblay, Rodrigue ( 2004 ). The New American Empire. Haverford, PA : Infinity Pub. ISBN 0 - 7414 - 1887 - 8. Zepezauer, Mark ( 2002 ). Boomerang ! : How Our Covert Wars Have Created Enemies Across the Middle East and Brought Terror to America. Monroe, Maine : Common Courage Press. ISBN 1 - 56751 - 222 - 4. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : American imperialism Wikiquote has quotations related to : American benevolence `` Imperial America '' by Richard Haass, 2000 `` Empire or Not ? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role '' by Thomas E. Ricks, 2001 `` The Answer to Terrorism ? Colonialism '' by Paul Johnson, 2001 `` The Need for a New Imperialism '' by Martin Wolf, 2001 `` The Case for American Empire '' by Max Boot, 2001 `` All Roads Lead to D.C. '' by Emily Eakin, 2002 `` The Reluctant Imperialist : Terrorism, Failed States, and the Case for American Empire '' by Sebastian Mallaby, 2002 `` The New Liberal Imperialism '' by Robert Cooper, 2002 `` In Praise of American Empire '' by Dinesh D'Souza, 2002 `` Empire lite '' by Michael Ignatieff, 2003 `` America and The Tragic Limits of Imperialism '' by Robert D. Kaplan, 2003 `` An Empire in Denial : The Limits of US Imperialism '' by Niall Ferguson, 2003 `` In Defence of Empires '' by Deepak Lal, 2003 United States articles History By event Timeline of U.S. history Pre-Columbian era Colonial era Thirteen Colonies military history Continental Congress American Revolution War American frontier Confederation Period Drafting and ratification of Constitution Federalist Era War of 1812 Territorial acquisitions Territorial evolution Mexican -- American War Civil War Reconstruction Era Indian Wars Gilded Age Progressive Era African - American civil rights movement 1865 -- 1896 / 1896 -- 1954 / 1954 -- 1968 Spanish -- American War Imperialism World War I Roaring Twenties Great Depression World War II home front Nazism in the United States American Century Cold War Korean War Space Race Feminist Movement Vietnam War Post-Cold War ( 1991 -- 2008 ) War on Terror War in Afghanistan Iraq War Recent events ( 2008 -- present ) By topic Outline of U.S. history Demographic Discoveries Economic debt ceiling Inventions before 1890 1890 -- 1945 1946 -- 91 after 1991 Military Postal Technological and industrial Geography Territory counties federal district federal enclaves Indian reservations insular zones minor outlying islands populated places states Earthquakes Extreme points Islands Mountains peaks ranges Appalachian Rocky National Park Service National Parks Regions East Coast West Coast Great Plains Gulf Mid-Atlantic Midwestern New England Pacific Central Eastern Northern Northeastern Northwestern Southern Southeastern Southwestern Western Rivers Colorado Columbia Mississippi Missouri Ohio Rio Grande Yukon Time Water supply and sanitation Politics Federal Executive Cabinet Civil service Executive departments Executive Office Independent agencies Law enforcement President of the United States Public policy Legislative House of Representatives current members Speaker Senate current members President pro tempore Vice President Judicial Courts of appeals District courts Supreme Court Law Bill of Rights civil liberties Code of Federal Regulations Constitution federalism preemption separation of powers Federal Reporter United States Code United States Reports Intelligence Central Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Agency Federal Bureau of Investigation National Geospatial - Intelligence Agency National Reconnaissance Office National Security Agency Office of the Director of National Intelligence Uniformed Armed Forces Army Marine Corps Navy Air Force Coast Guard National Guard NOAA Corps Public Health Service Corps 51st state political status of Puerto Rico District of Columbia statehood movement Elections Electoral College Foreign relations Foreign policy Hawaiian sovereignty movement Ideologies anti-Americanism exceptionalism nationalism Local government Parties Democratic Republican Third parties Red states and blue states Purple America Scandals State government governor state legislature state court Uncle Sam Economy By sector Agriculture Banking Communications Energy Insurance Manufacturing Mining Tourism Trade Transportation Companies by state Currency Exports Federal budget Federal Reserve System Financial position Labor unions Public debt Social welfare programs Taxation Unemployment Wall Street Society Culture Americana Architecture Cinema Cuisine Dance Demography Education Family structure Fashion Flag Folklore Languages American English Indigenous languages ASL Black American Sign Language HSL Plains Sign Talk Arabic Chinese French German Italian Russian Spanish Literature Media Journalism Internet Newspapers Radio Television Music Names People Philosophy Public holidays Religion Sexuality Sports Theater Visual art Social class Affluence American Dream Educational attainment Homelessness Home - ownership Household income Income inequality Middle class Personal income Poverty Professional and working class conflict Standard of living Wealth Issues Ages of consent Capital punishment Crime incarceration Criticism of government Discrimination affirmative action antisemitism intersex rights islamophobia LGBT rights racism same - sex marriage Drug policy Energy policy Environmental movement Gun politics Health care abortion health insurance hunger obesity smoking Human rights Immigration illegal International rankings National security Mass surveillance Terrorism Separation of church and state Outline Index Book Category Portal North America articles History Settlement of the Americas Paleo - Indians Pre-Columbian era European colonization New Spain New France British North America Turtle Island Geography Cities Countries and dependent territories by population Extreme points Geology Islands Lakes Mountains Rivers Politics American imperialism North American Union ( NAU ) Organization of American States ( OAS ) Transatlantic relations Economy Caribbean Community ( CARICOM ) North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA ) Transportation Countries by GDP ( per capita ) PPP per capita HDI Internet users Minimum wages Outline Category Portal Maps Globalization Journals Outline Studies Aspects Alter - globalization Anti-globalization Counter-hegemonic globalization Cultural globalization Deglobalization Democratic globalization Economic globalization Environmental globalization Financial globalization Global citizenship education Global governance Global health History of archaic early modern Military globalization Political globalization Trade globalization Workforce globalization Issues Global Disease Digital divide Labor arbitrage Population Warming Water crisis Other Brain drain reverse Climate change Climate justice Development aid Economic inequality Endangered languages Fair trade Forced migration Human rights Illicit financial flows Invasive species Investor - state disputes New international division of labour North -- South divide Offshoring Race to the bottom pollution havens Transnational crime McDonaldization Westernization American imperialism British Empire World war Theories Capital accumulation Dependency Development Earth system Fiscal localism Modernization ecological history of Primitive accumulation Social change World history World - systems Notable scholars Samir Amin Arjun Appadurai K. Anthony Appiah Daniele Archibugi Giovanni Arrighi Ravi Batra Jean Baudrillard Zygmunt Bauman Ulrich Beck Walden Bello Jagdish Bhagwati Robert Brenner Manuel Castells Noam Chomsky Alfred Crosby Christopher Chase - Dunn Andre G. Frank Thomas Friedman Anthony Giddens Peter Gowan Michael Hardt David Harvey David Held Paul Hirst Michael Hudson Paul James Ibn Khaldun Naomi Klein Antonio Negri George Ritzer Dani Rodrik Jeffrey Sachs Saskia Sassen John R. Saul Vandana Shiva Joseph Stiglitz John Urry Immanuel Wallerstein Portal Category Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_imperialism&oldid=831711260 '' Categories : History of United States expansionism Imperialism Empires History of the foreign relations of the United States Criticism of the United States Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2013 All articles containing potentially dated statements Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2017 All pages needing factual verification Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from February 2013 Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from September 2016 Wikipedia articles needing rewrite from January 2014 All articles needing rewrite Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from February 2011 Pages using div col without cols and colwidth parameters Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Languages Dansk Deutsch Español Esperanto فارسی Français 한국어 हिन्दी Ido Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית Latviešu 日本 語 Norsk nynorsk Português Русский Simple English ไทย Türkçe Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 15 more Edit links This page was last edited on 21 March 2018, at 21 : 50. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: us imperialism in the late 19th century was supported by which theory
Answer: Manifest Destiny