Is the united states an empire? Why?
96286
They have Empire airlines and the Empire State Building, so why not? From now on i'm going to say I live in the Empire of the United States!!! So what if people look at me weird.
845975
The U.S. is one of the strongest and largest economy in the world.\n\nThe U.S. is all about Capitalism.\n\nThe U.S. colonizes nothing, just occupies.\n\nWithout the U.S., other economies of the world would suffer.\n\nSometimes the U.S. leads, and sometimes other major economies lead.\n\nBig money controls the world, and don't let anyone tell you differently.\n\nGuns and butter my friend.
1080170
US imperialism will stop when the dollar will no longer be the premier currency and other economies become larger than the US. The EU as a whole is already bigger than the US. However they are still politically divided. China is growing fast enough to catch up with the US in 15-20 years when their GDP becomes as large as the US'.\n\nUsually history shows an empire lasts for 200-300 years after which it declines. The decline takes another about 200 years. So in about 500 years empires completely disappear. Take the British empire for example, which started, arguably with the British navy holding off the Spanish Armada in 1588. The British empire lost much of its supremacy with America becoming independent in 1776 (approximately 200 yrs). By mid-1900s India had broken away from the empire and within 20 years the African colonies became independent too. In other words in another 200 years Britain became the tiny country they now are. Their decline was in step with the rise of other countries like USA and Germany.\n\nYou can take the example of the Roman Empire too. Started with Augustus (great-nephew of Julius Caesar, I presume) at around the time Jesus was around too. The Roman empire collapsed in about 476AD. A part of the empire in the east around Turkey survived this collapse and continued to exist as the Byzantine empire but it didn't have the glory or sway of the Roman empire. So, another about 500 yrs of an empire.\n\nSome of the other answers are outright hilarious! for example skypilot's. "Has the US taken over any nation and declared it part of their country?" Well there is a direct example of Hawaii. But other than that he has got it mistaken between a kingdom and an empire. To build an empire you simply put a puppet government that will answer to your needs. US has done this to many countries in South America. Iraq is the newest addition to the empire. All empires were built on similar principles. An empire is made up of kingdoms with kings (countries with governments) who all owe allegiance to one supreme emperor. The empire never "annexes" the kingdom. Kingdoms simply lose their sovereignty.\n\nAnd people like namsave needs that bogeyman story to help him sleep at night.
966678
No will\nNo clout\nNo backbone\nNo respect\nNobody cares what europeans say or do.\n\nHey cd, America has been "the" empire for some years now. Did you just land on this planet ???
108937
The short answer is 'No'. I think it is hard to define what you put as "Anglo-American" powers.  Do you mean the West, or specifically England and the United States?  In any event, we must realize that neither the West nor the Islamic world is a monolithic entity.  There are widely varrying strains and currents throughout both.  From a strategic perspective, the US is unrivaled.  From an ideological perspective, there are ongoing shifts toward conservativism and fundementalism in both the West and the Arab world.  These shifts are largely reactionary to the rise of globalism.  Ultimately the historical trend toward openness and integration, driven by a global economy, will overcome zenophobic impulses in both the West and the entire Islamic world.
1037257
Hey, do you really think the US is kind old Uncle Sam ??? The US also wants its own Empire.
240672
The standard reason is, better administrative control over the Empire.  In reality, it was probably because East and West had too many differences, and the leadership of both halves would have been at each other's throats had it not split.
112013
nope.\n\nthey have an Emperor.
63127
There's a reason that no one nation rules the whole world. Is this a serious question?
29232
That comparison is dated. Americans have never followed even the noblest of ideals championed by our for fathers when they are against money matters. The USA is now the puppet master that pulls the strings of over half of the world. It didn't start with Iraq. We've been doing it for over 200 years now. And it's good that we have been too. If we didn't grab up the oportunities someone else would. Look at history. Every country that gets its interior problems sorted out turn to imperialism, even our civilized cousins the French, the Belgians, the Swiss, all of them. Would you rather someone else held the whip?
119195
The US had not entered the war with the intention of gaining a colonial empire. However, at the end of the war the colonial ruler Spain was militarily crushed and the three remaining colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines) were in rebellion. The US felt if they did not take posession that they would be seized by European powers (a German flotilla did show up off of Manila Bay).
881789
I'm proud of the United States for a number of reasons. \n\n- We have a relatively fair system of justice. There are very few places that do as well as we do in that realm. \n- We have quite a bit of freedom guaranteed by our Constitution, and in fact defended by our justice systems. \n- We have a good history of promoting invention for reasonable profit. That has resulted in a LOT of important innovations. \n- We used our financial, military, and diplomatic resources to stop several major threats, including Hitler and Stalin. \n- We just this week stood up against the out-of-control domestic right-wing movement despite a propaganda network on a scale of those used by Hitler and Stalin. \n\nWe're far from perfect, and we may still fall to our religious extremists, but there is no doubt that the United States has been an overall force for good, and a vital one.\n\nI could find many good things to say about many other countries as well. I don't think this needs to be a contest between countries: it'd be a dull and lesser world if they were all alike.
484859
I am so reactionary that I don't support Bush. I want to re-establish the Byzantine Empire. I prefer feudalism to capitalism. Monarchy is better than a republic any day of the week. How about them apples?
461332
No, America is no longer based on its founding priciples.  It has become a empire bent on world domination, and becoming a military state.  See Governmentnews.org and antipasministries.com to see what America has really become.  If you dont live here, Great.  If you live here, GET OUT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!!!
255322
We don't.  That's why the US is a Federal Republic.
412119
one day if the US gets a little more power over the rest of the world and some technological advances the US could actually become and empire and use its influence to in effect rule the world.....or.....maybe one day the superpowers of the world will decide to band together and make the entire world and all its people into an unbreakable empire...hey you may laugh now but one day it could happen.
524663
Structuring a nation's foreign policy to acquire and develop colonies is a strategy of building an empire.  This is imperialism.\n\nWhen a number of empires aggregate themselves into unnecessary alliances, a great and needless conflict can erupt over a petty incident.  This is how the First World War started in 1914.  The first post argues that this is a crime caused by imperialism.  But foreign alliances of this sort are apart from intra-national colony building, which is imperialism proper.\n\nMy feeling is that the dangerous element in imperialism is that petty governments can develop oppressive colonies.  France, Belgium, Germany and the United States were ineffective and cruel imperial powers.  The arrogant and corrupt French mismanagement of Indo-China is a prime example of imperialism creating a world "hot spot" of trouble that ultimately haunted the United States.  The Belgium imperial government of the Congo sponsored a genocide campaign.  Imperial Russia under the Romonov's oppressed all their people and, coupled with an unpopular participation in an alliance during the First World War, were toppled as a government.  The Soviets oppressed and expanded this empire, ultimately were toppled as a government, and the south Asian republics that exist today are unstable and potential dangerous to peace on that continent.\n\nThe best argument for imperialism as a good movement was, of course, the British Empire.  After harrassing their American colonies into a successful revolt, the British never made a mistake of that magnitude again.  Unlike the other colonial powers, the British led with a light hand (one one person in 800 in colonial India was actually British) and were the world leaders in modernizing and industrializing their colonies.  To this day, compare a map of the railroads in India to those of the surrounding countries to see their emphasis upon colonia infrastruture.\n\nThe great dream of the ultimate British imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, was not merely all of the eastern part of Africa being placed under British rule, but the development and expansion of the empire to eventually re-incorpoate the United States into Great Britain (!) and become the world's government, with a benefit being no multi-power international conflict and therefore no more war.\n\nIt is hard to claim that the British Empire was a negative influence on the world.  The main complaint, and it is a well founded one, is that the British Empire warped and grossly changed the native cultures of the peoples it ruled.  It was an empire of forced modernization.\n\nThe greatest feat of the British Empire goes unheralded and largely unrecognied.  Britain's flag was planted on one quarter of the world's population.  The British were the first genuinely international currency and international banking system.  Nor is this just a prelude to the internationalism that has become the standard model of growth since 1945.\n\nThe other major empires folded or made deals with Hitler, except for the United Sttes (still an imperial power in the 1930's with the Philippines as a territory).  Hitler made  a deal with the Soviets and successfully invaded Belgium and France.  But he failed to invade England.\n\nThe English had a vastly superior intelligence system (another benefit of its empire, especially the Canadian intelligence masters) and the British had an imperial banking system which they properly used to bankrupt themselves in order to stop the Nazis.\n\nThe British Empire did not alone defeat the Nazis, but it achieved a stalemate, an accomplishment which saved the world from tyranny once its former territory, the United States, finally came into the fray.  So, at its very best, one of the empires made the world a safer place.\n\nThe cost was the dissolution of the empire itself.  This was a heavy price, but defeat at the hands of Hitler was unthinkable.\n\nThe smaller, crueler, more oppressive empires created dangers which