Anxiety underlies The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch, which grapples with a complex human experience.
Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response to a present threat, whereas anxiety is the anticipation of a future one. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination.
Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing. It is often accompanied by muscular tension, restlessness, fatigue,
inability to catch one's breath, tightness in the abdominal region,
nausea, and problems in concentration. Anxiety is closely related to
fear, which is a response to a real or perceived immediate threat (fight-or-flight response); anxiety involves the expectation of a future threat including dread. People facing anxiety may withdraw from situations which have provoked anxiety in the past.
The emotion of anxiety can persist beyond the developmentally
appropriate time-periods in response to specific events, and thus
turning into one of the multiple anxiety disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder). The difference between anxiety disorder and anxiety
(as normal emotion), is that people with an anxiety disorder experience
anxiety excessively or persistently during approximately 6 months, or
even during shorter time-periods in children. Anxiety disorders are among the most persistent mental problems and often last decades. Anxiety can also be experienced within other mental disorders (e.g., obsessive–compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder).
Anxiety vs. fear
Anxiety is distinguished from fear, which is an appropriate cognitive and emotional response to a perceived threat. Anxiety is related to the specific behaviors of fight-or-flight responses, defensive behavior or escape. There is a false presumption that often circulates that anxiety only
occurs in situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable, but
this is not always so. David Barlow defines anxiety as "a future-oriented mood state in which one is not ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events," and that it is a distinction between future and present dangers which
divides anxiety and fear. Another description of anxiety is agony,
dread, terror, or even apprehension. In positive psychology,
anxiety is described as the mental state that results from a difficult
challenge for which the subject has insufficient coping skills.
Fear and anxiety can be differentiated into four domains: (1)
duration of emotional experience, (2) temporal focus, (3) specificity of
the threat, and (4) motivated direction. Fear is short-lived,
present-focused, geared towards a specific threat, and facilitating
escape from threat. On the other hand, anxiety is long-acting,
future-focused, broadly focused towards a diffuse threat, and promoting
excessive caution while approaching a potential threat and interferes
with constructive coping.
Joseph E. LeDoux and Lisa Feldman Barrett have both sought to separate automatic threat responses from additional associated cognitive activity within anxiety.
Evolutionary perspectives
Evolutionary psychiatry and Evolutionary psychology
interprets anxiety as an evolved defence that helps organisms avoid
potential threats; by design, such defences can produce “false alarms”
when the cost of a missed danger would be high (sometimes described as a
“smoke‑detector” principle). Contemporary reviews stress that this
framing does not treat anxiety disorders as adaptive, but rather as
dysregulations or context‑insensitive activation of otherwise useful
systems; the perspective is used for explanation and psychoeducation,
not as a specific therapy.
Symptoms
Anxiety
can be experienced with long, drawn-out daily symptoms that reduce
quality of life, known as chronic (or generalized) anxiety, or it can be
experienced in short spurts with sporadic, stressful panic attacks, known as acute anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety can range in number, intensity, and frequency,
depending on the person. However, most people do not suffer from chronic
anxiety.
The behavioral effects of anxiety may include withdrawal from
situations which have provoked anxiety or negative feelings in the past. Other effects may include changes in sleeping patterns, changes in
habits, increase or decrease in food intake, and increased motor tension
(such as foot tapping).
The emotional effects of anxiety may include feelings of
apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy,
anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching for signs
of danger, and a feeling of empty mindedness. It may also include feeling of helplessness.
The cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about
suspected dangers, such as an irrational fear of dying or having a heart
attack, when in reality all one is experiencing is mild chest pain, for
example.
The physiological symptoms of anxiety may include:
Digestive, as abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, indigestion, dry mouth, or globus.
Stress hormones released in an anxious state have an impact on bowel
function and can manifest physical symptoms that may contribute to or
exacerbate IBS.
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in The Concept of Anxiety
(1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of
freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of
anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and
choosing. In Art and Artist (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma
of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and
encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for –
separation, individuation, and differentiation.
The theologianPaul Tillich characterized existential anxiety as "the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he listed three categories for the nonbeing and resulting anxiety: ontic (fate and death), moral (guilt and condemnation), and spiritual (emptiness and meaninglessness).
According to Tillich, the last of these three types of existential
anxiety is predominant in modern times while the others were predominant
earlier. Tillich argues that spiritual anxiety can either be accepted as part of the human condition
or resisted with negative consequences. In its pathological form, it
may "drive the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of
meaning which are supported by tradition and authority" even though such "undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality".
According to Viktor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning, when a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near.
Depending on the source of the threat, psychoanalytic theory distinguishes three types of anxiety: realistic, neurotic and moral.
According to Yerkes-Dodson law,
an optimal level of arousal is necessary to best complete a task such
as an exam, performance, or competitive event. However, when the anxiety
or level of arousal exceeds that optimum, the result is a decline in
performance.
Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students who have test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth; fear of embarrassment by a teacher; fear of alienation
from parents or friends; time pressures; or feeling a loss of control.
Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeats, nausea, fidgeting,
uncontrollable crying or laughing and drumming on a desk are all common. Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia. The DSM-IV classifies test anxiety as a type of social phobia.
Research indicates that test anxiety among U.S. high-school and
college students has been rising since the late 1950s. Test anxiety
remains a challenge for students, regardless of age, and has
considerable physiological and psychological impacts. Management of test anxiety focuses on achieving relaxation and developing mechanisms to manage anxiety. The routine practice of slow, Device-Guided Breathing (DGB) is a
major component of behavioral treatments for anxiety conditions.
Performance anxiety and competitive anxiety (competitive trait anxiety, competitive state anxiety)
happen when an individual's performance is measured against others. An
important distinction between competitive and non-competitive anxiety is
that competitive anxiety makes people view their performance as a
threat. As a result, they experience a drop in their ordinary ability, whether physical or mental, due to that perceived stress.
Competitive anxiety is caused by a range of internal factors including high expectations, outside pressure, lack of experience, and external factors like the location of a competition. It commonly occurs in those participating in high pressure activities
like sports and debates. Some common symptoms of competitive anxiety
include muscle tension, fatigue, weakness, sense of panic,
apprehensiveness, and panic attacks.
There are 4 major theories
of how anxiety affects performance: Drive theory, Inverted U theory,
Reversal theory, and The Zone of Optimal Functioning theory.
Drive theory believes that anxiety is positive and
performance improves proportionally to the level of anxiety. This theory
is not well accepted.
The Inverted U theory is based on the idea that
performance peaks at a moderate stress level. It is called Inverted U
theory because the graph that plots performance against anxiety looks
like an inverted "U".
Reversal theory suggests that performance increases in
relation to the individual's interpretation of their arousal levels. If
they believed their physical arousal level would help them, their
performance would increase, if they didn't, their performance would
decrease. For example: Athletes were shown to worry more when focusing on results
and perfection rather than the effort and growth involved.
The Zone of Optimal Functioning theory proposes that there is a zone where positive and negative emotions
are in a balance which lead to feelings of dissociation and intense
concentration, optimizing the individual's performance levels.
Humans generally require social acceptance and thus sometimes dread
the disapproval of others. Apprehension of being judged by others may
cause anxiety in social environments.
Anxiety during social interactions, particularly between
strangers, is common among young people. It may persist into adulthood
and become social anxiety or social phobia. "Stranger anxiety"
in small children is not considered a phobia. In adults, an excessive
fear of other people is not a developmentally common stage; it is called
social anxiety. According to Cutting, social phobics do not fear the crowd but the fact that they may be judged negatively.
Social anxiety varies in degree and severity. For some people, it
is characterized by experiencing discomfort or awkwardness during
physical social contact (e.g. embracing, shaking hands, etc.), while in
other cases it can lead to a fear of interacting with unfamiliar people
altogether. Those with this condition may restrict their lifestyles to
accommodate the anxiety, minimizing social interaction whenever
possible. Social anxiety also forms a core aspect of certain personality
disorders, including avoidant personality disorder.
To the extent that a person is fearful of social encounters with
unfamiliar others, some people may experience anxiety particularly
during interactions with outgroup members, or people who share different
group memberships (i.e., by race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.).
Depending on the nature of the antecedent relations, cognitions, and
situational factors, intergroup contact may be stressful and lead to
feelings of anxiety. This apprehension or fear of contact with outgroup
members is often called interracial or intergroup anxiety.
As is the case with the more generalized forms of social anxiety,
intergroup anxiety has behavioral, cognitive, and affective effects.
For instance, increases in schematic processing and simplified
information processing can occur when anxiety is high. Indeed, such is
consistent with related work on attentional bias in implicit memory. Additionally recent research has found that implicit racial evaluations (i.e. automatic prejudiced attitudes) can be amplified during intergroup interaction. Negative experiences have been illustrated in producing not only
negative expectations, but also avoidant, or antagonistic, behavior such
as hostility. Furthermore, when compared to anxiety levels and cognitive effort
(e.g., impression management and self-presentation) in intragroup
contexts, levels and depletion of resources may be exacerbated in the
intergroup situation.
Trait
Anxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "personality
trait". Trait anxiety reflects a stable tendency across the lifespan of
responding with acute, state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening
situations (whether they are actually deemed threatening or not). A meta-analysis showed that a high level of neuroticism is a risk factor for development of anxiety symptoms and disorders. Such anxiety may be conscious or unconscious.
Personality can also be a trait leading to anxiety and depression and their persistence. Through experience, many find it difficult to collect themselves due to their own personal nature.
Choice or decision
Anxiety
induced by the need to choose between similar options is recognized as a
problem for some individuals and for organizations. In 2004, Capgemini
wrote: "Today we're all faced with greater choice, more competition and
less time to consider our options or seek out the right advice." Overthinking a choice is called analysis paralysis.
In a decision context, unpredictability or uncertainty may
trigger emotional responses in anxious individuals that systematically
alter decision-making. There are primarily two forms of this anxiety type. The first form
refers to a choice in which there are multiple potential outcomes with
known or calculable probabilities. The second form refers to the
uncertainty and ambiguity related to a decision context in which there
are multiple possible outcomes with unknown probabilities.
Panic disorder may share symptoms of stress and anxiety, but it is
actually very different. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder that
occurs without any triggers. According to the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, this disorder can be distinguished by unexpected and
repeated episodes of intense fear. Someone with panic disorder will eventually develop constant fear of
another attack and as this progresses it will begin to affect daily
functioning and an individual's general quality of life. It is reported
by the Cleveland Clinic that panic disorder affects 2 to 3 percent of
adult Americans and can begin around the time of the teenage and early
adult years. Some symptoms include: difficulty breathing, chest pain,
dizziness, trembling or shaking, feeling faint, nausea, fear that you
are losing control or are about to die. Even though they have these
symptoms during an attack, the main symptom is the persistent fear of
having future panic attacks.
Anxiety disorders are caused by a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. To be diagnosed, symptoms typically need to be present for at least six
months, be more than would be expected for the situation, and decrease a
person's ability to function in their daily lives. Other problems that may result in similar symptoms include hyperthyroidism, heart disease, caffeine, alcohol, or cannabis use, and withdrawal from certain drugs, among others.
Without treatment, anxiety disorders tend to remain. Treatment may include lifestyle changes, counselling, and medications. Counselling is typically with a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. Medications, such as antidepressants or beta blockers, may improve symptoms. A 2023 review found that regular physical activity is effective for reducing anxiety.
About 12% of people are affected by an anxiety disorder in a
given year and between 12% and 30% are affected at some point in their
life. They occur about twice as often in women than they do in men, and generally begin before the age of 25. The most common anxiety disorders are specific phobias, which affect
nearly 12% of people, and social anxiety disorder, which affects 10% of
people at some point in their life. They affect those between the ages
of 15 and 35 the most and become less common after the age of 55. Rates
appear to be higher in the United States and Europe.
Short- and long-term anxiety
Anxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "trait". Whereas trait anxiety represents worrying about future events, anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by feelings of anxiety and fears.
Four ways to be anxious
In his book Anxious: The Modern Mind in the Age of AnxietyJoseph LeDoux examines four experiences of anxiety through a brain-based lens:
In the presence of an existing or imminent external threat, you
worry about the event and its implications for your physical and/or
psychological well-being. When a threat signal occurs, it signifies
either that danger is present or near in space and time or that it might
be coming in the future. Nonconscious threats processing by the brain
activates defensive survival circuits, resulting in changes in
information processing in the brain, controlled in part by increases in
arousal and behavioral and physiological responses in the body that then
produce signals that feed back to the brain and complement the
physiological changes there, intensifying them and extending their
duration.
When you notice body sensations, you worry about what they might
mean for your physical and/or psychological well-being. The trigger
stimulus does not have to be an external stimulus but can be an internal
one, as some people are particularly sensitive to body signals.
Thoughts and memories may lead to you to worry about your physical
and/or psychological well-being. We do not need to be in the presence of
an external or internal stimulus to be anxious. An episodic memory of a
past trauma or of a panic attack in the past is sufficient to activate
the defence circuits.
Thoughts and memories may result in existential dread, such as worry
about leading a meaningful life or the eventuality of death. Examples
are contemplations of whether one's life has been meaningful, the
inevitability of death, or the difficulty of making decisions that have a
moral value. These do not necessarily activate defensive systems; they
are more or less pure forms of cognitive anxiety.
Co-morbidity
Anxiety disorders often occur with other mental health disorders, particularly major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or certain personality disorders.
It also commonly occurs with personality traits such as neuroticism.
This observed co-occurrence is partly due to genetic and environmental
influences shared between these traits and anxiety.
A marble bust of the Roman Emperor Decius from the Capitoline Museum, conveying "an impression of anxiety and weariness, as of a man shouldering heavy [state] responsibilities"
Anxiety disorders are partly genetic, with twin studies suggesting
30–40% genetic influence on individual differences in anxiety. Environmental factors are also important. Twin studies show that
individual-specific environments have a large influence on anxiety,
whereas shared environmental influences (environments that affect twins
in the same way) operate during childhood but decline through
adolescence. Specific measured 'environments' that have been associated with anxiety include child abuse, family history of mental health disorders, and poverty. Anxiety is also associated with drug use, including alcohol and caffeine, as well as benzodiazepines, which are often prescribed to treat anxiety.
Genetics
Genetics
and family history (e.g. parental anxiety) may put an individual at
increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally external stimuli
will trigger its onset or exacerbation. Estimates of genetic influence on anxiety, based on studies of twins,
range from 25 to 40% depending on the specific type and age-group under
study. For example, genetic differences account for about 43% of
variance in panic disorder and 28% in generalized anxiety disorder. Longitudinal twin studies have shown the moderate stability of anxiety
from childhood through to adulthood is mainly influenced by stability in
genetic influence. When investigating how anxiety is passed on from parents to children,
it is important to account for sharing of genes as well as environments,
for example using the intergenerational children-of-twins design.
Many studies in the past used a candidate gene approach to test
whether single genes were associated with anxiety. These investigations
were based on hypotheses about how certain known genes influence
neurotransmitters (such as serotonin and norepinephrine) and hormones
(such as cortisol) that are implicated in anxiety. None of these
findings are well replicated, with the possible exception of TMEM132D, COMT and MAO-A. The epigenetic signature of BDNF, a gene that codes for a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor that is found in the brain, has also been associated with anxiety and specific patterns of neural activity. and a receptor gene for BDNF called NTRK2 was associated with anxiety in a large genome-wide investigation. The reason that most candidate gene findings have not replicated is
that anxiety is a complex trait that is influenced by many genomic
variants, each of which has a small effect on its own. Increasingly,
studies of anxiety are using a hypothesis-free approach to look for
parts of the genome that are implicated in anxiety using big enough
samples to find associations with variants that have small effects. The
largest explorations of the common genetic architecture of anxiety have
been facilitated by the UK Biobank, the ANGST consortium and the CRC
Fear, Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders.
Epigenetic modifications play a role in the development and
heritability of these disorders and related symptoms. For example,
regulation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis by glucocorticoids plays a major role in stress response and is known to be epigenetically regulated.
As of 2015 most work has been done in animal models in laboratories, and little work has been done in humans; the work is not yet applicable to clinical psychiatry. Stress-induced epigenetic changes, particularly to genes that effect the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal
(HPA) axis, persist into future generations, negatively impacting the
capacity of offspring to adapt to stress. Early life experiences, even
when generations removed, can cause permanent epigenetic modifications
of DNA resulting in changes in gene expression, endocrine function and metabolism. These heritable epigenetic modifications include DNA methylation of the promoter regions of genes that affect sensitivity to stress.
Medical conditions
Many medical conditions can cause anxiety. This includes conditions that affect the ability to breathe, like COPD and asthma, and the difficulty in breathing that often occurs near death.Conditions that cause abdominal pain or chest pain can cause anxiety and may in some cases be a somatization of anxiety; the same is true for some sexual dysfunctions. Conditions that affect the face or the skin can cause social anxiety especially among adolescents, and developmental disabilities often lead to social anxiety for children as well. Life-threatening conditions like cancer also cause anxiety.
While many often report self-medicating anxiety with these
substances, improvements in anxiety from drugs are usually short-lived
(with worsening of anxiety in the long term, sometimes with acute
anxiety as soon as the drug effects wear off) and tend to be
exaggerated. Acute exposure to toxic levels of benzene may cause euphoria, anxiety, and irritability lasting up to 2 weeks after the exposure.
Psychological
Mental state in terms of challenge level and skill level, according to Csikszentmihalyi's flow model. (Click on a fragment of the image to go to the appropriate article)
Poor coping skills
(e.g., rigidity/inflexible problem solving, denial, avoidance,
impulsivity, extreme self-expectation, negative thoughts, affective
instability, and inability to focus on problems) are associated with
anxiety. Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person's own
pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback
negativity. Temperament (e.g., neuroticism) and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety.
Cognitive distortions such as overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, mind reading, emotional reasoning,
binocular trick, and mental filter can result in anxiety. For example,
an overgeneralized belief that something bad "always" happens may lead
someone to have excessive fears of even minimally risky situations and
to avoid benign social situations due to anticipatory anxiety of embarrassment. In addition, those who have high anxiety can also create future stressful life events. Together, these findings suggest that anxious thoughts can lead to
anticipatory anxiety as well as stressful events, which in turn cause
more anxiety. Such unhealthy thoughts can be targets for successful
treatment with cognitive therapy.
Psychodynamic theory posits that anxiety is often the result of opposing unconscious wishes or fears that manifest via maladaptive defense mechanisms (such as suppression, repression, anticipation, regression, somatization, passive aggression, dissociation) that develop to adapt to problems with early objects (e.g., caregivers) and empathic failures
in childhood. For example, persistent parental discouragement of anger
may result in repression/suppression of angry feelings which manifests
as gastrointestinal distress (somatization) when provoked by another
while the anger remains unconscious and outside the individual's
awareness. Such conflicts can be targets for successful treatment with psychodynamic therapy.
While psychodynamic therapy tends to explore the underlying roots of
anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy has also been shown to be a
successful treatment for anxiety by altering irrational thoughts and
unwanted behaviors.
Evolutionary psychology
An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance
regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased
tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This
may cause false positive
reactions but an individual with anxiety may also avoid real threats.
This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to
accidents. There is ample empirical evidence that anxiety can have adaptive value.
Within a school, timid fish are more likely than bold fish to survive a
predator.
When people are confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased blood flow in the amygdala. In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This
might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to
prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors.
Social
Social
risk factors for anxiety include a history of trauma (e.g., physical,
sexual or emotional abuse or assault), bullying, early life experiences
and parenting factors (e.g., rejection, lack of warmth, high hostility,
harsh discipline, high parental negative affect,
anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing
behaviour, discouragement of emotions, poor socialization, poor
attachment, and child abuse and neglect), cultural factors (e.g., stoic
families/cultures, persecuted minorities including those with
disabilities), and socioeconomics
(e.g., uneducated, unemployed, impoverished although developed
countries have higher rates of anxiety disorders than developing
countries). A 2019 comprehensive systematic review of over 50 studies showed that
food insecurity in the United States is strongly associated with
depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Food-insecure individuals had an almost 3 fold risk increase of testing
positive for anxiety when compared to food-secure individuals.
Gender socialization
Contextual factors that are thought to contribute to anxiety include gender socialization
and learning experiences. In particular, learning mastery (the degree
to which people perceive their lives to be under their own control) and
instrumentality, which includes such traits as self-confidence, self-efficacy,
independence, and competitiveness fully mediate the relation between
gender and anxiety. That is, though gender differences in anxiety exist,
with higher levels of anxiety in women compared to men, gender
socialization and learning mastery explain these gender differences.
The first step in the management of a person with anxiety symptoms
involves evaluating the possible presence of an underlying medical
cause, the recognition of which is essential in order to decide the
correct treatment. Anxiety symptoms may mask an organic disease, or appear associated with or as a result of a medical disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for anxiety disorders and is a first line treatment. CBT appears to be equally effective when carried out via the internet. While evidence for mental health apps is promising, it is preliminary.
Anxiety often affects relationships, and interpersonal psychotherapy addresses these issues by improving communication and relationship skills.
Psychopharmacological treatment can be used in parallel to CBT or
can be used alone. As a general rule, most anxiety disorders respond
well to first-line agents. Such drugs, also used as anti-depressants,
are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors,
that work by blocking the reuptake of specific neurotransmitters and
resulting in the increase in availability of these neurotransmitters.
Additionally, benzodiazepines are often prescribed to individuals with
anxiety disorder. Benzodiazepines produce an anxiolytic response by
modulating GABA and increasing its receptor binding. A third common
treatment involves a category of drug known as serotonin agonists. This
category of drug works by initiating a physiological response at 5-HT1A
receptor by increasing the action of serotonin at this receptor. Other treatment options include pregabalin, tricyclic antidepressants, and moclobemide, among others.
Anxiety is considered to be a serious psychiatric illness that
has an unknown true pervasiveness due to affected individuals not asking
for proper treatment or aid, and due to professionals missing the
diagnosis.
Prevention
The
above risk factors give natural avenues for prevention. Psychological
or educational interventions have a small yet statistically significant
benefit for the prevention of anxiety in varied population types. Improvement in dietary intake and habits may also help lower the risk of anxiety.
1898 political cartoon: "Ten thousand miles from tip to tip." referring to the expansion of American domination (symbolized by a bald eagle) from Puerto Rico to the Philippines following the Spanish–American War; the cartoon contrasts this with a map showing the significantly smaller size of the United States in 1798, exactly 100 years earlier.Map of the United States and directly controlled territories at its greatest extent from 1898 to 1902, after the Spanish–American War
U.S. imperialism or American imperialism is the expansion of political, economic, cultural, media, and military influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright military conquest; military protection; gunboat diplomacy; unequal treaties; subsidization of preferred factions; regime change; economic or diplomatic support; or economic penetration through private companies, potentially followed by diplomatic or forceful intervention when those interests are threatened.
The policies perpetuating American imperialism and expansionism are usually considered to have begun with "New Imperialism" in the late 19th century, though some consider American territorial expansion and settler colonialism at the expense of Indigenous Americans to be similar enough in nature to be identified with the same term. While the United States has never officially identified itself and its
territorial possessions as an empire, some commentators have referred to
the country as such, including Max Boot, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and Niall Ferguson. Other commentators have accused the United States of practicing neocolonialism—sometimes defined as a modern form of hegemony—which leverages economic power rather than military force in an informal empire; the term "neocolonialism" has occasionally been used as a contemporary synonym for modern-day imperialism.
The question of whether the United States should intervene in the
affairs of foreign countries has been a much-debated topic in domestic
politics for the country's entire history.
Opponents of interventionism have pointed to the country's origin as a former colony that rebelled against an overseas king, as well as the American values of democracy, freedom, and independence. Conversely, supporters of interventionism and of American presidents who have attacked foreign countries—most notably Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft—have
justified their interventions in (or whole seizures of) various
countries by citing the necessity of advancing American economic
interests, such as trade and debt management; preventing European
intervention (colonial or otherwise) in the Western Hemisphere, manifested in the anti-European Monroe Doctrine of 1823; and the benefits of keeping "good order" around the world.
Despite periods of peaceful co-existence in the early 1600s, wars with Native Americans
resulted in substantial territorial gains for American colonists who
were expanding into native land. Wars with the Native Americans
continued intermittently after independence, and an ethnic cleansing campaign known as Indian removal gained for European Americansettlers more valuable territory on the eastern side of the continent.
In terms of territorial acquisition, the United States has
integrated (with voting rights) all of its acquisitions on the North
American continent, including the non-contiguous Alaska.
Hawaii has also become a state with equal representation to the
mainland, but other island jurisdictions acquired during wartime remain
territories, namely Guam, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. (The federal government officially apologized for the overthrow of the Hawaiian government
in 1993.) The remainder of acquired territories have become independent
with varying degrees of cooperation, ranging from three freely associated states
which participate in federal government programs in exchange for
military basing rights, to Cuba which severed diplomatic relations
during the Cold War. The United States was a public advocate for
European decolonization after World War II (having started a ten-year independence transition for the Philippines in 1934 with the Tydings–McDuffie Act). Even so, the US desire for an informal system of global primacy in an "American Century" often brought them into conflict with national liberation movements. The United States has now granted citizenship to Native Americans and recognizes some degree of tribal sovereignty.
1700s–1800s: Indigenous American Wars and manifest destiny
Caricature by Louis Dalrymple showing Uncle Sam lecturing four children labeled Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba,
in front of children holding books labeled with various U.S. states and
territories. 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!"
Yale historian Paul Kennedy has asserted, "From the time the first settlers arrived in Virginia from England and started moving westward, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation." Expanding on George Washington's description of the early United States as an "infant empire", Benjamin Franklin wrote: "Hence the Prince that acquires new Territory,
if he finds it vacant, or removes the Natives to give his own People
Room; the Legislator that makes effectual Laws for promoting of Trade,
increasing Employment, improving Land by more or better Tillage;
providing more Food by Fisheries; securing Property, etc. and the Man
that invents new Trades, Arts or Manufactures, or new Improvements in
Husbandry, may be properly called Fathers of their Nation, as they are
the Cause of the Generation of Multitudes, by the Encouragement they
afford to Marriage." Thomas Jefferson asserted in 1786 that the United States "must be
viewed as the nest from which all America, North & South is to be
peopled. [...] The navigation of the Mississippi we must have. This is
all we are as yet ready to receive.". From the left Noam Chomsky
writes 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. The policy of settlement of land was a foundational goal of the United
States of America, with one of the driving factors of discontent with
British rule originating from the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which barred settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. As part of the desire of Manifest Destiny to open up land for American
settlement came campaigns in the Great Lakes region which saw the United
States fight the Northwestern Confederacy resulting in the Northwest Indian War. Subsequent treaties such as the Treaty of Greenville and the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) resulted in a rise of Anti-American sentiment among the Native Americans in the Great Lakes region, which helped to create Tecumseh's Confederacy which was defeated by the end of the War of 1812. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 culminated in the deportation of 60,000 Native Americans in an event known as the Trail of Tears, where up to 16,700 people died in an act of ethnic cleansing. The deportation of Natives West of the Mississippi, resulted in significant economic gains for settlers. For example, the Arkansas firm, Byrd and Belding earned up to $27,000 in two years through supplying food. The policy of Manifest Destiny would continue to be realized with the Mexican–American War of 1846, which resulted in the cession of 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 km2) of Mexican territory to the United States, stretching up to the Pacific coast.The Whig Party strongly opposed this war and expansionism generally.
Following the American victory over Mexico, colonization and settlement of California would begin which would soon lead to the California genocide. Estimates of total deaths in the genocide vary greatly from 2,000 to 100,000. The discovery of Gold in California resulted in an influx of settlers,
who formed militias to kill and displace Indigenous peoples. The government of California supported expansion and settlement through the passage of the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians which legalized the enslavement of Native Americans and allowed settlers to capture and force them into labor.California further offered and paid bounties for the killing of Native Americans.
Indian land as defined by the Treaty of Fort Laramie
American expansion in the Great Plains resulted in conflict between
many tribes West of the Mississippi and the United States. In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie
was signed, which gave the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes territory from
the North Platte River in present-day Wyoming and Nebraska southward to
the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado and Kansas. The land was
initially not wanted by White settlers, but following the discovery of
gold in the region, settlers began to pour into the territory. In 1861,
six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Wise which saw the loss of 90% of their land. The refusal of various warriors to recognise the treaty resulted in
white settlers starting to believe that war was coming. The subsequent Colorado War would result in the Sand Creek Massacre
in which up to 600 Cheyenne were killed, most of whom were children and
women. On October 14, 1865, the chiefs of what remained of the Southern
Cheyennes and Arapahos agreed to live south of the Arkansas, sharing
land that belonged to the Kiowas, and thereby relinquish all claims in the Colorado territory.
Map showing the Great Sioux Reservation and current reservations
Following the victory of Red Cloud in Red Cloud's War over the United States, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) was signed. This treaty led to the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation.
However, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills resulted in a surge
of White settlement in the region. The gold rush was very profitable for
the White settlers and the American government, with just one of the
Black Hill Mines yielding $500 Million in gold. Attempts to purchase the land failed, and the Great Sioux War began as a result. Despite initial success by Native Americans in the war's first few battles, most notably the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
the United States eventually won and ended the reservation, carving it
up into smaller reservations. The reservation system did not just serve
as a way to facilitate American settlement and expansion of land, but
also enriched local merchants and businesses who held significant
economic power over the Native tribes. Traders would often accept
payment for goods via annuity money from land sales contributing to further poverty.
In the South-West, various settlements and communities had been established thanks to profits from the American Civil War. In order to maintain revenue and profit, settlers often waged war against native tribes. By 1871, the settlement of Tucson
for example had a population of three thousand, including
saloon-keepers, traders and contractors who had made fortunes during the
Civil War and were hopeful of continuing their profits with an Indian
war. Desire to fight resulted in the Camp Grant Massacre of 1871 where up to 144 Apache were killed, most being women and children. Up to 27 Apache children were captured and sold into slavery in Mexico. In the 1860s, the Navajo faced deportation in an attempted act of ethnic cleansing under the Long Walk of the Navajo.
The "Long Walk" started at the beginning of spring 1864. Bands of
Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their traditional lands in
eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort
Sumner. Around 200 died during the march. During the march, New Mexican
slavers, assisted by the Ute often attacked isolated bands, killing the
men, taking the women and children captive, and capturing horses and
livestock. As part of these raids, a large number of slaves were taken
and sold throughout the region.
The American Colossus (1880), shown connected to the United States, Mexico, and Nicaragua
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 actions mentioned within it. Historian Jay
Sexton notes that the tactics used to implement the doctrine were
modeled after those employed by European imperial powers during the 17th
and 18th centuries. From the left historian William Appleman Williams described it as "imperial anti-colonialism."
In the older historiography William Walker's filibustering
represented the high tide of antebellum American imperialism. His brief
seizure of Nicaragua in 1855 is typically called a representative
expression of Manifest destiny
with the added factor of trying to expand slavery into Central America.
Walker failed in all his escapades and never had official U.S. backing.
Historian Michel Gobat, however, presents a strongly revisionist
interpretation. He argues that Walker was invited in by Nicaraguan
liberals who were trying to force economic modernization and political
liberalism. Walker's government comprised those liberals, as well as
Yankee colonizers, and European radicals. Walker even included some
local Catholics as well as indigenous peoples, Cuban revolutionaries,
and local peasants. His coalition was much too complex and diverse to
survive long, but it was not the attempted projection of American power,
concludes Gobat.
The Indian Wars against the indigenous peoples of the Americas began in the colonial era. Their escalation under the federal republic allowed the US to dominate North America and carve out the 48 contiguous states.
This can be considered to be an explicitly colonial process in light of
arguments that Native American nations were sovereign entities prior to
annexation. Their sovereignty was systematically undermined by US state policy (usually involving unequal or broken treaties) and white settler-colonialism. Furthermore, following the Dawes Act of 1887 native american systems of
land tenure and communal ownership were ended, in favour of private
property and capitalism. This resulted in the loss of around 100 Million acres of land from 1887 to 1934.
1890s–1900s: New Imperialism and "The White Man's Burden"
This cartoon reflects the view of Judge magazine regarding America's imperial ambitions following McKinley's 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. One of these factors was the prevalence of overt racism, notably John Fiske's conception of "Anglo-Saxon" racial superiority and Josiah Strong's call to "civilize and Christianize." The concepts were 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 proclaimed his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine as justification, although his ambitions extended even further, into the Far East.
His 128th birthday, Puck magazine, 1904. Political cartoon illustrates a bald eagle standing on the "U.S.A." portion of North America, with its wings extending from "Panama" and "Porto Rico" (Puerto Rico) on the right side of the image to the "Philippines" on the left.
Scholars have noted the resemblance between U.S. policies in the Philippines and European actions in their colonies in Asia and Africa during this period. By one contrast, however, the United States claimed to colonize in the
name of anti-colonialism: "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!" Filipino revolutionary General Emilio Aguinaldo
wondered: "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." However, from 1898 until the Cuban revolution,
The United States of America had significant influence over the economy
of Cuba. By 1950, US investors owned 44 of the 161 sugar mills in Cuba,
and slightly over 47% of total sugar output. By 1906, up to 15% of Cuba was owned by American landowners. This consisted of 632,000 acres of sugar lands, 225,000 acres of
tobacco, 700,000 of fruits and 2,750,000 acres of mining land, along
with a quarter of the banking industry.
Industry and trade were two of the most prevalent justifications 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."
One of the New York Journal's most infamous cartoons, depicting Philippine–American War General Jacob H. Smith's order "Kill Everyone over Ten," from the front page on May 5, 1902
The United States' interests in Hawaii began in the 1800s with
the United States becoming concerned that Great Britain or France might
have colonial ambitions on the Hawaiian Kingdom. In 1849 the United
States and The Kingdom of Hawaii signed a treaty of friendship removing
any colonial ambitions Great Britain or France might have had. In 1885,
King David Kalākaua, last king of Hawaii, signed a trade reciprocity
treaty with the United States allowing for tariff free trade of sugar to
the United States. The treaty was renewed in 1887 and with it came the
overrunning of Hawaiian politics by rich, white, plantation owners. On
July 6, 1887, the Hawaiian League, a non-native political group,
threatened the king and forced him to sign a new constitution stripping
him of much of his power. King Kalākaua would die in 1891 and be
succeeded by his sister Lili'uokalani. In 1893 with support from marines
from the USS Boston Queen Lili'uokalani would be deposed in a
bloodless coup. Hawaii has been under US control ever since and became
the 50th US state on August 21, 1959 in a joint resolution with Alaska.
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".
A map of "Greater America" c. 1900, including overseas territories
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."
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 on July 28, 1915, and American rule continued until August 1, 1934. 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, an attempted coup d'état by the Russian Army against the Provisional Government. Nonetheless, once the Bolsheviks took Moscow, the British government
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 Secret Intelligence Service, 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 U.S. embassies.
Tensions between Russia (including its allies) and the West
turned intensely ideological. Horrified by mass executions of White
forces, land expropriations, and widespread repression, the Allied
military expedition now assisted the anti-Bolshevik Whites in the Russian Civil War, with the US covertly giving support to the autocratic and antisemitic General Alexander Kolchak. Over 30,000 Western troops were deployed in Russia overall. This was the first event that 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 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.
1920s–1930s
Following
World War I, the British maintained occupation of the Middle East, most
notably Turkey and portions of formerly Ottoman territory following the
empire's collapse. The occupation led to rapid industrialization, which resulted in the
discovery of crude oil in Persia in 1908, sparking a boom in the Middle
Eastern economy.
By the 1930s, the United States had cemented itself in the Middle East via a series of acquisitions through the Standard Oil of California (SOCAL), which saw US control over Saudi oil.
It was clear to the US that further expansion in Middle Eastern
oil would not be possible without diplomatic representation. In 1939,
CASOC appealed to the US State Department about increasing political
relations with Saudi Arabia. This appeal was ignored until Germany and Japan made similar attempts following the start of World War II.
1941–1945: World War II
At the start of World War II,
the US had multiple territories in the Pacific. The majority of these
territories were military bases like Midway, Guam, Wake Island and
Hawaii. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
was what ended up bringing the United States into the war. Japan also
launched multiple attacks on other American Territories like Guam and
Wake Island. By early 1942 Japan also was able to take over the
Philippine islands. At the end of the Philippine island campaign the
general MacArthur stated "I came through and I shall return" in response to the Americans losing the island to the Japanese. The loss of American territories ended the decisive Battle of Midway.
The Battle of Midway was the American offensive to stop Midway Island
from falling into Japanese control. This led to the pushback of American
forces and the recapturing of American territories. There were many
battles that were fought against the Japanese which retook both allied
territory as well as took over Japanese territories. In October 1944
American started their plan to retake the Philippine islands. Japanese
troops on the island ended up surrendering in August 1945. After the
Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, the United States occupied and
reformed Japan up until 1952. 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 United States granted the Philippines independence on July 4, 1946.
The Grand Area
In
an October 1940 report to Franklin Roosevelt, Bowman wrote that "the US
government is interested in any solution anywhere in the world that
affects American trade. In a wide sense, commerce is the mother of all
wars." In 1942 this economic globalism was articulated as the "Grand
Area" concept in secret documents. The US would have to have control
over the "Western Hemisphere, Continental Europe and Mediterranean Basin
(excluding Russia), the Pacific Area and the Far East, and the British Empire
(excluding Canada)." The Grand Area encompassed all known major
oil-bearing areas outside the Soviet Union, largely at the behest of
corporate partners like the Foreign Oil Committee and the Petroleum
Industry War Council. The US thus avoided overt territorial acquisition, like that of the
European colonial empires, as being too costly, choosing the cheaper
option of forcing countries to open their door to American business
interests.
Although the United States was the last major belligerent to join the Second World War, it began planning for the post-war world from the conflict's outset. This postwar vision originated in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an economic elite-led organization that became integrated into the government leadership. CFR's War and Peace Studies
group offered its services to the State Department in 1939 and a secret
partnership for post-war planning developed. CFR leaders Hamilton Fish Armstrong and Walter H. Mallory saw World War II as a "grand opportunity" for the U.S. to emerge as "the premier power in the world."
This vision of empire assumed the necessity of the US to "police
the world" in the aftermath of the war. This was not done primarily out
of altruism, but out of economic interest. Isaiah Bowman, a key liaison between the CFR and the State Department, proposed an "American economic Lebensraum." This built upon the ideas of Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, who (in his "American Century"
essay) wrote, "Tyrannies may require a large amount of living space
[but] freedom requires and will require far greater living space than
Tyranny." According to Bowman's biographer, Neil Smith:
Better than the American Century or
the Pax Americana, the notion of an American Lebensraum captures the
specific and global historical geography of U.S. ascension to power.
After World War II, global power would no longer be measured in terms of
colonized land or power over territory. Rather, global power was
measured in directly economic terms. Trade and markets now figured as
the economic nexuses of global power, a shift confirmed in the 1944
Bretton Woods agreement, which not only inaugurated an international
currency system but also established two central banking
institutions—the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—to
oversee the global economy. These represented the first planks of the
economic infrastructure of the postwar American Lebensraum.
FDR promised: Hitler will get lebensraum, a global American one.
1947–1952: Cold War in Western Europe
Protest against the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe, The Hague, Netherlands, 1983
Prior to his death in 1945, President Roosevelt was planning to
withdraw all U.S. forces from Europe as soon as possible. Soviet actions
in Poland and Czechoslovakia led his successor Harry Truman to
reconsider. Heavily influenced by George Kennan,
Washington policymakers believed that the Soviet Union was an
expansionary dictatorship that threatened American interests. In their
theory, Moscow's weakness was that it had to keep expanding to survive;
and that, by containing or stopping its growth, stability could be
achieved in Europe. The result was the Truman Doctrine (1947). Initially regarding only Greece and Turkey, the NSC-68
(1951) extended the Truman Doctrine to the whole non-Communist world.
The United States could no longer distinguish between national and
global security. Hence, the Truman Doctrine was described as "globalizing" the Monroe Doctrine.
A second equally important consideration was the need to restore
the world economy, which required the rebuilding and reorganizing of
Europe for growth. This matter, more than the Soviet threat, was the
main impetus behind the Marshall Plan of 1948.
A third factor was the realization, especially by Britain and the three Benelux nations, that American military involvement was needed. Geir Lundestad
has commented on the importance of "the eagerness with which America's
friendship was sought and its leadership welcomed.... In Western Europe,
America built an empire 'by invitation'" According to Lundestad, the U.S. interfered in Italian and French politics in order to purge elected communist officials who might oppose such invitations.
1950–1959: Cold War outside Europe
The end of the Second World War and start of the Cold War saw increased US interest in Latin America. Since the Guatemalan Revolution, Guatemala saw the expansion of labour rights and land reforms which granted property to landless peasants. Lobbying by the United Fruit Company,
whose profits were affected by these policies, as well as fear of
Communist influence in Guatemala culminated in the USA supporting Operation PBFortune to overthrow Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The plan involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua. This culminated in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état.
The subsequent military junta assumed dictatorial powers, banned
opposition parties and reversed the social reforms of the revolution.
The USA would continue to support Guatemala through the Cold War,
including during the Guatemalan genocide in which up to 200,000 people were killed. After the coup, American
enterprises saw a return of influence in the country, in both the public
level of government but also in the economy.
On the March 15, 1951 the Iranian parliament, passed legislation that was proposed by Mohammad Mosaddegh to nationalize the Anglo-Persian Oil Company,
which gained significant revenues from Iranian oil, more so than the
Iranian government itself. Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister by the
Majlis later in 1952. Mosadeggh's support by the Tudeh as well as a boycott by various businesses against the nationalised industry resulted in fears by the United Kingdom
and the United States that Iran would turn to Communism. America would
officially remain neutral, but the CIA supported various candidates in
the 1952 Iranian legislative election.
In late 1952, with Mosaddegh remaining in power, the CIA launched Operation Ajax with support by the United Kingdom to overthrow Mosaddegh. The coup saw an increase in power of the monarchy, which went from a
constitutional monarchy to an authoritarian nation. In the aftermath of
the coup, the Shah agreed to replace the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a
consortium—British Petroleum and eight European and American oil
companies. In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the
U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified
government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and
the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian
politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as
pro-coup propaganda.
1945–1970: Asia-Pacific
In Korea, the U.S. occupied the Southern half of the peninsula in 1945 and dissolved the Socialist People's Republic of Korea. After which, the USA quickly allied with Syngman Rhee, leader of the fight against the People's Republic of Korea that proclaimed a provisional government. There was a lot of opposition to the division of Korea, including rebellions by communists such as the Jeju uprising in 1948 and further Communist partisans in the Korean War.
The Jeju Uprising was violently suppressed and led to the deaths of
30,000 people, the majority of them civilians. North Korea invaded South
Korea in June 1950, starting the Korean War. With National Security Council document 68 and the subsequent Korean War, the U.S. adopted a policy of "rollback" against communism in Asia. John Tirman,
an American political theorist has claimed that this policy was heavily
influenced by America's imperialistic policy in Asia in the 19th
century, with its goals to Christianize and Americanize the peasant masses. In the following conflict, the USA oversaw a large bombing campaign over North Korea. A total of 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, were dropped on Korea.
In Vietnam, the U.S. eschewed its anti-imperialist rhetoric by materially supporting the French Empire in a colonial counterinsurgency.
However, the United States helped the French colonialists to fight
communism, not to support France's continued rule of Vietnam after
winning the war. The United States' support was in response to communist
China's support for Vietnam's communist independence movement. The
United States put pressure on France to negotiate with the indigenous
anti-communist nationalists and gradually return independence to the pro-French government in the context of global decolonization. Influenced by the Grand Area policy, the U.S. eventually assumed military and financial support for the South Vietnamese state against the Vietnamese communists following French defeat in the First Indochina War. The US and South Vietnam feared Ho Chi Minh, a communist, would win nationwide elections. They both refused to sign agreements at the 1954 Geneva Conference arguing that fair elections weren't possible in North Vietnam. Beginning in 1965, the US sent many combat units to fight Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers in South Vietnam, with fighting extending to North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. During the war Martin Luther King Jr. called the American government "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Initially based on stopping the spread of Communism into South Vietnam,
the war and its motivations slowly began to lose its momentum in
justifying the damage the war was causing to both sides. Particularly on
the home front, where by 1970, two thirds of the American public
advocated against the war. The communist government of North Vietnam
propagated that their war was anti-colonial and equated the US with
France, although in essence the Vietnam War was completely a proxy war and civil war.
After the deaths of six generals in the Indonesian Army, which Suharto blamed on the Communist Party of Indonesia and a failed coup attempt by the 30 September Movement,
an Anti-Communist purge began across the country led by Suharto and the
army. The subsequent killings resulted in the deaths of up to 1,000,000
people. Though some estimates claim a death toll of 2 or 3 Million.
Ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, activists, artists, ethnic
Javanese Abangan, ethnic Chinese, atheists, so-called "unbelievers", and alleged leftists were also among targeted groups in the killings.
Geoffrey B. Robinson, professor of history at UCLA,
argued that powerful foreign states, in particular the United States,
Great Britain and their allies, were instrumental in facilitating and
encouraging the Indonesian Army's campaign of mass killing, and without
such support, the killings would not have happened. The political changes that came with the mass-killings not only
resulted in the purge of the Communist Party, but also a shift in
Indonesia's foreign policy towards the West and capitalism. Furthermore, the mass-killings resulted in the expansion of American markets into Indonesia. By 1967, companies such as Freeport Sulphur, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, General Electric, American Express, Caterpillar Inc., StarKist, Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, began to explore business opportunities in Indonesia. Declassified documents released by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in
October 2017 stated that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of
the massacres from the start. The documents revealed that the U.S.
government actively encouraged and facilitated the Indonesian Army's
massacres to further its geopolitical interests in the region.
Professor George Klay Kieh Jr. argued that part of the motivation for the Gulf War was derived from a desire to distract from the various crises in America at the time, such as the Keating Five, national debt rising to $3 trillion, an increasing trade deficit, unemployment, rising crime and growing wealth inequality. He also argued that other very significant motivating factors for the
war were strategic factors, such as a fear of subsequent invasion of Saudi Arabia and other Pro-American monarchies in Arabia. Iraqi control over the Gulf region was also feared to harm access to
the United States to a major corridor of international trade. Professor
Kieh also argued for various economic factors behind the invasion. The
Bush Administration calculated that Iraq's annexation of Kuwait would
result in it controlling up to 45% of global oil production and since major banks such as Bank of America
had significant stakes in the oil industry (various Gulf states saved
more than $75 billion in American banks), there were fears of a
potential economic crisis due to the annexation.
Iraq War
The American invasion of Iraq
has been cited by William Robinson as an instance of imperialism in
which the beneficiaries of imperial conquest were transnational capitalist
groups where the goal of the Iraq war was not political annexation, but
rather the economic subjugation of Iraq and its incorporation into the
global economy. Robinson draws specific attention to Order 39
where after taking control of Iraq in 2003, the America occupation
force dismantled the previous Iraqi economy in favour of full
privatization in Iraq and the permitting of 100% foreign ownership of
Iraqi assets thereby strengthening the positions of foreign businesses
and investors.
2011 Intervention in Libya
In 2011, as part of the wider Arab Spring, protests erupted in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi,
which soon spiralled into a civil war. In the ensuing conflict, a
NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. While the effort was initially largely led by France and the United Kingdom, command was shared with the United States, as part of Operation Odyssey Dawn. According to the Libyan Health Ministry, the attacks saw 114 civilians killed and 445 civilians wounded.
Matteo Capasso argued that the 2011 military intervention in Libya was "US-led imperialism" and the final conclusion in a wider war on Libya since the 1970s via 'gunboat diplomacy, military bombings, international sanctions and arbitrary use of international law'. Capasso argued that the war in Libya acted to strip Libya of its
autonomy and resources and the 'overall weakening and fragmentation of
the African and Arab political position, and the cheapening and/or
direct annihilation of human lives in Third World countries'.
According to a February 2025 poll by YouGov,
only 4% of Americans support American expansion if it requires military
force, 33% of Americans support expansion without the use of military
or economic force, and 48% of Americans oppose expansion altogether.
Strategy
US military alliances
The architect of Containment, George Kennan, designed in 1948 a globe-circling system of anti-Russian alliances embracing all non-Communist countries of the Old World. The design was met by the US administration with enthusiasm.
Disregarding George Washington's dictum of avoiding entangling
alliances, in the early Cold War the United States contracted 44 formal
alliances and many other forms of commitment with nearly 100 countries,
most of the world countries. Some observers described the process as "pactomania." The enthusiasm was reciprocal. Most of the world were interested to
ally with the United States. Already in the early 1940s, observing the
attitude of other nations, Isaiah Bowman, Henry Luce and Wendell Willkie stressed the allying potential of the United States. The "imperium" of
an unprecedented scale was partly made possible by the eagerness with
which America’s alliance was sought and welcomed.
According to Kenneth N. Waltz, these are not alliances in the Westphalian sense characterized by balance of power, equal interdependence of member states, and impermanence. Many scholars regard them as instruments through which the United States perpetuates its "hegemonic" role. Before he predicted Clash of Civilizations, Samuel P. Huntington
had generalized that since 1945 most democratic countries have become
members of the “alliance system” within which the “position of the
United States was ‘hegemonic.’” Since the beginning, US alliances were associated with imperial organization. On the eve of the Rio Treaty and NATO, James Burnham envisaged:
A federation however in which the federal units are not equal, in which
one of them leads all others ... and holds the decisive instrument of
material power, is in reality an empire. The word ... would in practice
doubtless never be employed. Whatever the words, it is well also to know
the reality. In reality, the only alternative to the Communist World
Empire is an American Empire which will be, if not literally worldwide
in formal boundaries, capable of exercising decisive world control.
There is already an American Empire, Burnham continued, and it is not just about Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. Some later experts describe US alliances as regional imperia "run and operated" by the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski
put the US Eurasian geostrategy “in a terminology that hearkens back to
the more brutal age of ancient empires" and outlined "three grand
imperatives of imperial geostrategy" which "are to prevent collusion and
maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries
pliant and protected and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” Richard Ned Lebow, Robert Kelly, Eric W. Robinson and Herfried Münkler drew parallel between NATO and the Delian League which turned into the Athenian Empire. Historians Arnold J. Toynbee and Max Ostrovsky associated US alliances with the Roman client system during the late Republic. By defending the allies, says Cicero (Republic, II.34), Rome has gained the world dominion.
Scholars label the US network of alliances as "hub-and-spokes"
system where the United States is the "hub." Spokes do not directly
interrelate between and among themselves, but all are bound to the same
hub. The "hub-and-spokes" analogy is used in the comparative studies of empires. By contrast to earlier empires, however, the American "imperial" presence was largely welcome. Ostrovsky says that although all earlier empires, especially persistent
empires, were in a measure by bargain, cooperation and invitation, in
the post-1945 world this took an extreme form. In 1989, Samuel Huntington counted that most democratic states of the world entered “hegemonic” alliances and Charles Krauthammer summarized that “Europe achieved the single greatest transfer of sovereignty in world history.” Krauthammer meant West Europe. Just as he published this summary, East Europe followed suit. In 2009, France reintegrated into the NATO Command.
Disregarding national pride, concludes Ostrovsky, large number of
states, some of them recent great powers, "surrender their strategic
sovereignty en mass[sic]." They host hegemonic bases, partly cover the expenses for running them, integrate their strategic forces under the hegemonic command,contribute
1-2% of their GDP to those forces, and tip military, economic and
humanitarian contributions in case of the hegemonic operations
worldwide. Bertrand Russell theorized about “military unification of the world” led by the Anglo-American powers. Later, Ostrovsky developed the subject as “military globalization.”
Contrary to economic globalization, military globalization, besides
inter-relation and inter-connection, involves centralization—integration
under the central command. The larger part of the world has
strategically converged.
Since the term of President Dwight Eisenhower, US administrations
believed that the United States shared a disproportionate amount of the
burden for maintaining NATO. In 2025, President Donald Trump announced
that he wanted NATO countries should raise their contributions from 2 to
5% of their respective GDPs In addition, the Trump administration adopted a more assertive and
transactional attitude towards allies, most notably via a new tariff policy and expansionist proposals,
a shift from decades of free trade and multilateral alliances. The
shift in attitude alarmed allies such as Canada, who, according to
former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Michael Ignatieff,
were once "happy to shelter under American imperial protection" but
were now being threatened with a new tariff regime and threats of
annexation by the Trump administration. In response to what was perceived as a "betrayal", Ignatieff engaged in
designing an anti-hegemonic "common front" with the Europeans,
particularly the Danes, and the Latin Americans, particularly the
Mexicans and the Panamanians, to oppose US hegemonic activity during
Trump's term.
U.S. military presence around the world in 2007. As of 2013, the U.S. had many bases and troops stationed globally. Their presence has generated controversy and opposition.
During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt promised that the American
eagle will "fly high and strike hard." But he can only do so if he has
safe perches around the world. Initially, the Army and Navy disagreed. But the leading expert on "flying high and striking hard," Curtis LeMay, endorsed: "We needed to establish bases within reasonable range; then we could bomb and burn them until they quit." After the War, a global network of bases emerged. NCS-162/2 of 1953
stated: "The military striking power necessary to retaliate depends for
the foreseeable future on having bases in allied countries." The bases
were defined as nation's strategic frontier defining a sphere of
American inviolate military predominance. The overseas network of bases in a one-sided affair, with no freestanding foreign bases on US soil. 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."
In his New Frontier
speech in 1960, John F. Kennedy noted that America's frontiers are on
every continent. Circling the Sino-Soviet bloc with bases resulted in a
network of global dimensions. Contemplating its genesis, an observer
wondered: What two places in the world have less in common than the
frozen Thule and tropical Guam half a way around the world? Both happened to be principal operating areas of the Strategic Air Command. On Guam, a common joke had it that few people other than nuclear targeters in the Kremlin know where their island is.
As of 2024, the United States deploys approximately 160,000 of its active-duty personnel outside the United States and its territories. 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 U.S. military bases located outside of the U.S., including 174 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Some 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees inhabited the bases in Germany and Japan, with some bases, such as Rammstein Air Base, having become city-sized, with schools, hospitals and power plants. The total cost was estimated at $100 billion a year.
Similarly, associates American author Robert D. Kaplan, the Roman garrisons were established to defend the frontiers of the empire and for surveillance of the areas beyond. For Historian Max Ostrovsky and International Law scholar Richard A. Falk,
this is contrast rather than similarity: "this time there are no
frontiers and no areas beyond. The global strategic reach is
unprecedented in world history phenomenon." "The United States is by circumstance and design an emerging global empire, the first in the history of the world." Robert Kagan inscribed over the map of US global deployments: "The Sun never sets."
The global network of military alliances and bases is coordinated by the Unified combatant command (UCC). As of 2025, the world is divided between six geographic "commands." The
origins of the UCC is rooted in World War II with its global scale and
two main theaters half-a-world apart. As in the case of military
alliances and bases, the UCC was founded to wage the Cold War but long
outlived this confrontation and expanded.
Dick Cheney,
who served as Secretary of Defense during the end of the Cold War,
announced: "The strategic command, control and communication system
should continue to evolve toward a joint global structure…" The continuation of the strategic pattern implied for some that "the United States would hold to its accidental hegemony." In 1998, the UCC determined the Soviet "succession": the former Soviet
Republics in Europe and the whole of Russia were assigned to the USEUCOM and those of the Central Asia to the USCENTCOM. USEUCOM stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
In 2002, for the first time, the entire surface of the Earth was
divided among the US commands. The last unassigned
region—Antarctica—entered the USPACOM
which stretched from Pole to Pole and covered half of the globe; the
rest of geographic commands covered the other half. Historian Christopher Kelly asked in 2002: What America needs to consider is "what is the optimum size for a non-territorial empire." His colleague, Max Ostrovsky, replied: "Precisely that year, the UCC supplied a precise answer: 510 million km2…"
Canadian Historian, Michael Ignatieff,
claims that the UCC map conveys the idea of the architecture underlying
the entire global order and explaining how this order is sustained. The US national defense evolves into global defense. The Quadrennial Defense Review of 2014 refers to "our global Combatant Commanders," that is "our" and "global" at the same time. The idea of the map can be traced to the first year of World War II when it was proposed as a reaction on the "magic geography" of Geopolitik:
American political geographers—Hartshorne... Bowman... and some of the rest of us—began studying Geopolitik seriously as long ago as the Germans did. Obviously if a German Geopolitiker
can draw a map for an Axis-dominated Europe we should at once set our
geographers to work designing a new world map to meet democratic
specifications.
One of the mentioned Geographers, Isaiah Bowman, was known as "Roosevelt's Geographer." Prominent is the leap from regional (European) map to "world map." Such
mapping is a symptom of universal empire. Its rulers need to know the
extent of their rule. Coming from a city-state, Herodotes was puzzled
why the Persian Kings are always "surveying potential conquests, as if
nervous of their power, and as if mapping were the same as mastering." The etymological link between empire and command also appears in Persia. Xerxes the Great called himself "commander of many commanders."
Combatant Commanders exercise heavy international influence and sometimes are associated with the Roman proconsuls. Commander of United States European Command holds a dual-hatted position with that of Supreme Allied Commander Europe,
the Commander of NATO. "Command," translated into Latin, renders
"imperium." The Romans used the word "command" for their sphere of rule
containing nominally independent states. From the First century AD, the
word "command" became "synonymous with the realm commanded," that is, imperium obtained the meaning of "empire," and later lost its original meaning of "command."
Former NSC
employee, Cranes Lord, summarized the imperial features of the US
strategy: No other nation has anything approaching the network of
overseas bases, forward deployed forces and client relationship of the
United States; nor divides the whole world into Areas of Responsibility presided over by its commanders.
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.
On the ideological level, one motif for the global leadership is the notion of American exceptionalism. The United States occupies a special position 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". 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." Fareed Zakaria
stressed one element not exceptional for the American Empire—the
concept of exceptionalism. All dominant empires thought they were
special.
Economic interests
1903 cartoon, "Go Away, Little Man, and Don't Bother Me", depicts President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone.In 1899, Uncle Sam balances his new possessions which are depicted as savage children. The figures are Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Philippines and "Ladrone Island" (Guam, largest of the Mariana Islands, which were formerly known as the Ladrones 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 looting 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, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.) 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. 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.
Security
The
last period of the US Isolationist policy ended with World War II. Due
to the progress of military technology, it was argued, the Oceans
stopped protecting. Ever since, this War is invoked as a lesson for
permanent involvement in world politics. Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Bill Clinton repeated close versions of this lesson. If hostile powers are not
checked from the beginning, the paradigm tells, they would gain control
over vaster resources and eventually the United States would have to
fight them when they are stronger.
By the end of World War II, it had become a US strategic axiom
that cumulatively the Old World vastly exceeds the Western Hemisphere in
terms of manpower and resources, and hence the Old World must not be
allowed to unify. The focus of this policy is on Eurasia. Since Alfred Thayer Mahan and until Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the American geopolitical school claims it vital to prevent the Eurasian land mass from coming under control of any single power or combination of powers. Some scholars explain the Cold War by geopolitics rather than ideology. They stress that the US grand strategy designed for the Cold War long outlived the Soviet Communism.
According to Andrew Preston,
American officials who oversaw victory in World War II and waged Cold
War against the Soviet Union sought to create a world system which would
ensure America’s security in an interdependent world. In 2005, the United States Army War College,
which provides graduate-level instruction to senior military officers
and government officials, initiated a study of empires focusing on
causes of their rise and fall. It classed the American Empire as
accidental defensive, a result of the defense against Soviet Communism. The Cold War for Michael Mandelbaum
was self-defense against the Soviet Union. In the process the United
States acquired the role of world government but did not do so
deliberately.
September 11 is another example of security crisis which triggered greater intervention as well as released mass publications on the "American Empire" accompanied by heated debates (see
"Post-September-11 debates" below). Widely associated with the Pearl
Harbor attack, it could similarly "unleash the American Empire." Analyzing the reaction on September 11, David C. Hendrickson warned that the quest for absolute security is the way towards universal empire. Military analyst J. R. Dunn prefaced his 2007 article citing an ancient
British anti-imperialist, Calgacus: The Romans "have made a desolation,
and they call it peace" (Tacitus. Agricola. 30:5). Dunn warned modern anti-imperialists of the same outcome if they succeed to undermine the US security:
There have been rumblings, comments on the Net, voices on talk radio,
arguing another alternative... That an effective response to terror is
simply to start vaporizing cities, beginning with Tehran and working our
way down until attacks cease. That, quite simply, the United States
should transform itself into Rome... But how many Carthages would have
to burn before we gained it? ... Would it take a dozen Hiroshimas? A
hundred? ... But the critics should be wary of screaming too loud, of
conspiring too well, of undermining us too thoroughly. Because if they
succeed, if they do get what they insist they want, then the result may
well be something they never conceived, and it will be their desolation,
and our peace.
For the first three centuries, explained Ammianus Marcellinus
(14:6:3—6), Rome carried its wars about its city walls. Trying to
remove the wars ever further away from the city walls, Rome reached
"every region which the vast globe includes." The pattern of increasing
involvement responding to security crises or threats is known as "defensive imperialism" in the Roman studies and Historian Max Ostrovsky applied the concept also to Qin
and the United States. All three, he finds, began with isolationism
using geographic barriers and gradually built their empires responding
to growing external threats. The three strategic transformations are
analogous—from isolationism to hegemony to empire—with the modern
process being currently uncompleted.
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 agreement 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.
Historian Donald W. Meinig says 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. Many
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."
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. 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."
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.
Since 2001, Emmanuel Todd
assumes the U.S. cannot hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic
power, due to limited resources. Instead, the U.S. 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."
Following September 11, publications on the "American Empire" grew exponentially, accompanied by heated debates. Harvard historian Charles S. Maier states:
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.
French political scientist Philip Golub argues:
U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
Following the invasion of Afghanistan
in 2001, the idea of American imperialism was re-examined. 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 U.S. 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, 2001, the cover of Bill 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. Academic publications on general imperiology surged too. In 2005, two notable Journals, History and Theory and Daedalus, devoted a special issue to empires.
A leading spokesman for America-as-Empire, British historian A. G. Hopkins, argues that by the 21st century traditional economic imperialism
was no longer in play, noting that the oil companies opposed the
American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Instead, anxieties about the negative
impact of globalization on rural and rust-belt America were at work,
says Hopkins:
These anxieties prepared the way for a conservative revival based on
family, faith and flag that enabled the neo-conservatives to transform
conservative patriotism into assertive nationalism after 9/11. In the
short term, the invasion of Iraq was a manifestation of national unity.
Placed in a longer perspective, it reveals a growing divergence between
new globalised interests, which rely on cross-border negotiation, and
insular nationalist interests, which seek to rebuild fortress America.
The CIA's extraordinary rendition and detention program – countries involved in the Program, according to the 2013 Open Society Foundation's report on torture
Harvard professor Niall Ferguson concludes that worldwide military
and economic power have combined to make the U.S. the most powerful
empire in history. It is a good idea he thinks, because like the
successful British Empire
in the 19th century it works to globalize free markets, enhance the
rule of law and promote representative government. He fears, however,
that Americans lack the long-term commitment in manpower and money to
keep the Empire operating. 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.
The U.S. dollar is the de factoworld currency. The term petrodollar warfare
refers to the alleged motivation of U.S. foreign policy as preserving
by force the status of the United States dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced. The term was coined by William R. Clark, who has written a book with the same title. The phrase oil currency war is sometimes used with the same meaning.
When asked on April 28, 2003, on Al Jazeera whether the United States was "empire building," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld replied, "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic. We never have been." Many – perhaps most – scholars have decided that the United States lacks the key essentials of an
empire. For example, while there are American military bases around the
world, the American soldiers do not rule over the local people, and the
United States government does not send out governors or permanent
settlers like all the historic empires did. Harvard historian Charles S. Maier
has examined the America-as-Empire issue at length. He says the
traditional understanding of the word "empire" does not apply, because
the United States does not exert formal control over other nations or
engage in systematic conquest. The best term is that the United States
is a "hegemon." Its enormous influence through high technology, economic
power, and impact on popular culture gives it an international outreach
that stands in sharp contrast to the inward direction of historic
empires.
World historian Anthony Pagden asks, Is the United States really an empire?
I think if we look at the history of the European empires, the answer
must be no. It is often assumed that because America possesses the
military capability to become an empire, any overseas interest it does
have must necessarily be imperial. ...In a number of crucial respects,
the United States is, indeed, very un-imperial.... America bears not the
slightest resemblance to ancient Rome. Unlike all previous European
empires, it has no significant overseas settler populations in any of
its formal dependencies and no obvious desire to acquire any. ...It
exercises no direct rule anywhere outside these areas, and it has always
attempted to extricate itself as swiftly as possible from anything that
looks as if it were about to develop into even indirect rule.
A U.S. soldier stands guard duty near a burning oil well in the Rumaila oil field, Iraq, April 2003.
In the book Empire (2000), 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 Baruch Spinoza, Michel Foucault, Gilles 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 have 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.
In
one point of view, United States expansion overseas in the late 1890s
has indeed been imperialistic, but that this imperialism is only a
temporary phenomenon, a corruption of American ideals, or the relic of a
past 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.
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." 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.
Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term hegemony is better than empire to describe the U.S.'s role in the world. Hegemony is distinguished from empire as ruling only external but not internal affairs of other states. Political scientist Robert Keohane
argues a "balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided ... by the use of
the word 'empire' to describe United States hegemony, since 'empire'
obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of governance
between the United States and other Great Powers, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the Soviet Union in the twentieth". Proponents of this definition regard the post-Cold War world order as hegemonic stability.
Some identify recurrent cycle of such orders while others argue that
what is identified as earlier cases were neither hegemony nor stability
and the situation is unprecedented in history.
Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas
Wright, argue that neither 'empire' nor 'hegemony' 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.
Max Boot
defends U.S. imperialism, writing, "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 scientists Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michael Ignatieff.
Scottish-American 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 global 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.
Role of women in American imperialism
Within
the United States, women played important roles in both advocating for
and protesting against American imperialism. Women's organisations and
prominent figures actively supported and promoted the expansion of
American influence overseas and saw imperialism as an opportunity to
extend American values, culture, and civilization to other nations.
These women believed in the superiority of American ideals and saw it as
their duty to uplift and educate what they often perceived as 'lesser'
peoples. By endorsing imperialist policies, women aimed to spread
democracy, Christianity,
and Western progress to territories beyond American borders: their
domestic advocacy created a narrative that framed imperialism as a
mission of benevolence, wherein the United States had a responsibility
to guide and shape the destiny of other nations.
During the era of American imperialism, women played a significant role in missionary
work. Missionary societies sent women to various parts of the world,
particularly in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, with the aim of spreading
Christianity and Western values. These women saw themselves as agents
of cultural and religious transformation, seeking to "civilize" and
"Christianize" indigenous populations. Their missionary efforts involved
establishing schools, churches, hospitals, and orphanages in imperial
territories; through these institutions, women aimed to improve the
lives of local people, provide education, healthcare, and social
services. Their work intertwined religious and imperialistic motives, as
they believed that the spread of Christianity and Western values would
uplift and transform the "heathen" populations they encountered.
Women played a crucial role in educational and social reform
initiatives within imperial territories during the era of American
imperialism. They established schools, hospitals, and orphanages, aiming
to improve the lives of indigenous populations – initiatives reflecting
a belief in the superiority of Western values
and a desire to assimilate native cultures into American norms. Women
also sought to provide education, healthcare, and social services that
aligned with American ideals of progress and civilisation, and by
promoting Western education and introducing social reforms, they hoped
to shape the lives and future of the people they encountered in imperial
territories. These efforts often entailed the imposition of Western
cultural norms, as women saw themselves as agents of transformation and
viewed indigenous practices as in need of improvement and "upliftment".
Women also played important roles as nurses and medical
practitioners during the era of American imperialism. Particularly
during the Spanish–American War and subsequent American occupations,
women provided healthcare services to soldiers, both American and local,
and worked to improve public health conditions in occupied territories.
These women played a vital role in caring for the wounded, preventing
the spread of diseases, and providing medical assistance to communities
affected by the conflicts. Their work as nurses and medical
practitioners contributed to the establishment of healthcare
infrastructure and the improvement of public health in imperial
territories. These women worked tirelessly in often challenging
conditions, dedicating themselves to the well-being and recovery of
those affected by the conflicts.
While some women supported American imperialism, others actively
participated in anti-imperialist movements and expressed opposition to
expansionist policies. Women, including suffragists and progressive
activists, criticized the imperialist practices of the United States.
They challenged the notion that spreading democracy and civilization abroad could be achieved through the oppression and colonization
of other peoples. These women believed in the principles of
self-determination, sovereignty, and equality for all nations. They
argued that true progress and justice could not be achieved through the
subjugation of others, emphasising the need for cooperation and respect
among nations. By raising their voices against imperialism, these women
sought to promote a vision of global justice and equality.
Ultimately women's activism played a significant role in
challenging and shaping American imperialism. Throughout history, women
activists have been at the forefront of anti-imperialist movements,
questioning the motives and consequences of U.S. expansionism. Women's
organisations and prominent figures raised their voices against the
injustices of imperialism, advocating for peace, human rights, and the
self-determination of colonised peoples. They criticized the
exploitation and oppression inherent in imperialistic practices,
highlighting the disproportionate impact on marginalised communities.
Women activists collaborated across borders, forging transnational
alliances to challenge American dominance and promote global solidarity.
By engaging in social and political activism, women contributed to a
more nuanced understanding of imperialism, exposing its complexities and
fostering dialogue on the ethical implications of empire.
Moreover, sexuality and attitudes towards gender roles and
behaviour played an important role in American expansionism. Regarding
the war in Vietnam, the idea of American 'manliness' entered the
conscience of those in support of ground involvement, pushing ideas of
gender roles and that manly, American men shouldn't avoid conflict.
These ideas of sexuality extended as far as President Johnson, who
wanted to be presented as a 'hero statesman' to his people, highlighting
further the effect of gender roles on both American domestic attitudes
as well as foreign policy.
American Empire and capitalism
Writers like William I. Robinson
have characterised American empire since the 1980s and 1990s as one
which is a front for the imperial designs of the American capitalist
class, arguing that Washington D.C. has become the seat of the 'empire
of capital' from which nations are colonised and re-colonised.
In Mass Communication and American Empire, Herbert I. Schiller emphasized the significance of the mass media and cultural industry to American imperialism, arguing that "each new electronic development widens the perimeter of
American influence," and declaring that "American power, expressed
industrially, militarily and culturally has become the most potent force
on earth and communications have become a decisive element in the
extension of United States world power."
In Communication and Cultural Domination, Schiller presented the premier definition of cultural imperialism as
the
sum processes by which a society is brought into the modern
[U.S.-centered] world system and how its dominating stratum is
attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social
institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and
structures of the dominating centres of the system.
In
Schiller's formulation of the concept, cultural imperialism refers to
the American Empire's "coercive and persuasive agencies, and their
capacity to promote and universalize an American 'way of life' in other
countries without any reciprocation of influence." According to Schiller, cultural imperialism "pressured, forced and
bribed" societies to integrate with the U.S.'s expansive capitalist
model but also incorporated them with attraction and persuasion by
winning "the mutual consent, even solicitation of the indigenous
rulers."
Newer research on cultural imperialism sheds light on how the US
national security state partners with media corporations to spread US
foreign policy and military-promoting media goods around the world. In Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry, Tanner Mirrlees builds upon the work of Herbert I. Schiller
to argue that the US government and media corporations pursue different
interests on the world stage (the former, national security, and the
latter, profit), but structural alliances and the synergistic
relationships between them support the co-production and global flow of
Empire-extolling cultural and entertainment goods.
Some researchers argue that military and cultural imperialism
are interdependent. Every war of Empire has relied upon a culture or
"way of life" that supports it, and most often, with the idea that a
country has a unique or special mission to spread its way of life around
the world. Edward Said, one of the founders of post-colonial theory, said,
... 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 with the
notion that cultural imperialism is an intentional political or military
process, and instead argues that it is the innocent result of economic 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. Many countries with American brands have incorporated these 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.
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 whether the United States would still maintain its prestige
without its military and economic superiority., In terms of soft power, Giles Scott-Smith, argues that American universities:
acted as magnets for attracting up-and-coming elites, who were
keen to acquire the skills, qualifications and prestige that came with
the 'Made in the USA' trademark. This is a subtle, long-term form of
'soft power' that has required only limited intervention by the US
government to function successfully. It conforms to Samuel Huntington's
view that American power rarely sought to acquire foreign territories,
preferring instead to penetrate them — culturally, economically and
politically — in such a way as to secure acquiescence for US interests.
Matthew Fraser
argues that the American "soft power" and American global cultural
influence is a good thing for other countries, and good for the world as
a whole. Tanner Mirrlees argues that the discourse of "soft power" used by
Matthew Fraser and others to promote American global cultural influence
represents an "apologia" for cultural imperialism, a way of
rationalizing it (while denying it).
American expansion through artistic expression
The
United States' imperial mission was the subject of much critique and
praise to the contemporary American, and this is evident through the art
and media which emerged in the 1800s as a result of this expansion. The
disparities in the art produced in this period show the differences in
public opinion, thus allowing us to identify how different social
spheres responded to US' imperial endeavors.
Landscape painting by Edward D. Nelson - A View to the River, 1861
The Hudson River School, a romantic-inspired art movement which emerged in 1826 at the height of nineteenth-century American expansion depicted sublime
landscapes and grand natural scenes. These paintings which admired the
marvels of unexplored American territory emphasized this idea of the
United States as a promised land. Common themes explored among paintings within the Hudson River School include: discovery; exploration; settlement and promise.
These themes were recurrent in other displays of artistic expression at this time. John Gast, famously known for his 1872 painting titled American Progress similarly displays themes of discovery and the hopeful prospects of American expansion. Notions of manifest destiny
is also emulated in art created in this time, with art often used to
justify this belief that the White Man was inevitably destined to spread
across the American continent.
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