History of US Imperialism
Discuss about the American Military Imperialism for Manifest Destiny.
American Imperialism is one of the major policies that has influenced the world politics in the twentieth century and is dominantly active in the recent years. It aims at reaching out and extending political, military, economic and cultural countries to countries beyond the American borders and establishing the United States government control. The concept of US imperialism has involved economic intervention, political influence, military subjugation, and corporate domination for influencing foreign powers to accept USA as its prime ally and accept its policy making decisions and advises in regards to running the government (Maskovsky & Susser, 2015). The prime focus of the discussion is to analyse how successful has the USA’s military imperialism been over the years. Judging the direct conflicts and the military tensions that has occurred between the USA and several other countries such as USSR, North Korea, Middle Eastern nations and several others, the study is to be analysed. In the process, the focus will be on the different political scenarios and the actions taken by the USA government in response to those, to extend their domination over the other nations. These will also help to assert how the political relations has affected the socio economic and political lives of the people of these nations. From the above discussion, a recommendation is to be produced from a neutral point of view to develop better relations for the healthy growth of the socio political and economic relations of the countries. Finally, a conclusion is to be drawn from the analysis, which will summarise the past and present situations and how US military imperialism has successfully played a major role in the influence of the global political scenario.
The history of US Imperialism dates back to the nineteenth century which resulted in the USA to annex 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory in the wake of the Manifest destiny and resulted in the American-Mexican war of 1846 (Acuna, 2015). The term American Imperialism might seem contradictory, as USA is one of the oldest democratic republic of the modern world, but its policies from the advent of its establishment reflects the very notion of imperialism. When the first English settlers arrived in America to forge a new nation, the very idea of imperialism led to the clash with the Native American Indians. The American sense of dominance has been the characteristic feature of the nation since the day of its very establishment (Hook 2010). Even after American independence, Thomas Jefferson bore the idea that USA should be the nest of all powers and from there should flow the influence of freedom to the other countries (Lerner 2017). The imperialistic notion has always been pre-dominant in the American civilization and has been imbibed with the idea of the American dream. The ultimate freedom of the US civilization rests on the dominance of other powers, which reduces the global threats towards America.
Success of US Military Imperialism
USA’s emergence as a world power happened after its active participation in the First World War (Maurer 2013). USA’s dominance and military prowess led the then European superpowers to accept its influence in major global decision making issues, for example the Treaty of Versailles. The Second World War also proved American dominance when USA dropped atomic bombs in Japan (Brau, 2017). The whole world was in awe of the American military power and how much destruction it could make. The subsequent formation of the United Nations and the NATO were also part of the American influence who played a major role in the formation of these organisations (Cox & Stokes, 2012). USA had always had a major say in important matters of the decisions of these organisations and heavily influence them for their own political and economic benefits.
Keeping aside the United Nations, if the focus is shifted to the formation of the NATO, it can be seen as the effort of the USA to create a dominant military alliance to counter the then powerful USSR during the Cold War era (Short, 2009). The military power of the USA was seriously challenged by the USSR and led to several small instances of violence in different parts of the world, one of the most important being the infamous Vietnam War, which dealt a major blow to the USA’s military dominance. The USA and USSR never clashed directly, but the competition for power led to a massive global tension (Blum, 2014). Finally, the American imperialism came out victorious with prevalence and influence over most countries of the world, which prevails, even to the present day.
The success of US imperialism cannot be judged without studying its policies and strategies during the Cold War era. The Cold War can be considered a geo-political tension between the USA and the then USSR. They formed the major superpowers after the Second World War. With the fall of the European powers such as Britain and France, these two nations sought to extend their military and political dominance all over the world. USA and USSR were marked by several political and social differences (Davis, 2015). USSR was run by the Marxist-Leninist ideas by the communist party which had complete control over the media, press and the governance of the satellite states. They grew their domination by funding several other states around the world to be inspired by the left wing politics. The USA on the other hand ran on a more liberal form of presidential republic, backed by the independent media and people free to exercise their rights. The USA took this advantage to extend political and military assistance to the weaker states to form a world support against the USSR (Troitiño, Färber & Boiro, 2017). The formation of NATO was one such strategic move. The NATO alliance ensured America’s military presence in the European continent, thus extending in military imperialism over a major part of the world.
Policies and Strategies during the Cold War Era
However, the two powers never directly clashed with each other but backed several small wars in different parts of the world known as proxy wars to develop their military imperialism. While the USSR tried to corner USA by backing several small states against USA’s imperialistic policies, USA on the other hand extended strategic, political and military assistance to small nations to fight off the communist oppression. Nations such as Japan, South Korea, Greece and Israel were directly benefitted by the USA’s military influence. USA was not successful, such as its crushing defeat in the Vietnam War (McNamara, 2017), but it focused on the farfetched strategy of making a more predictable world political structure with its military imperialism. Joint military exercises with the weaker nations and assisting them to fight off terror, backed USA’s cause and led several small countries to accept USA’s protection, in the process become a part of the USA’s imperialistic domination.
Eventually, the increase of pressure from around the world, and tightening holds in the satellite states of the satellite states of the USSR, belittled USSR’s argument of American imperialism. The Cuban Missile crisis sparked a lot of criticism against the USSR from all over the world (Abrams, 2017). The increasing protests against the mechanisms of the Cold War, and nuclear disarmaments put a lot of pressure on the USSR, which was already suffering from an economic stagnation. The emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, as USSR’s new liberal leader softened their issue (Piirimäe & Mälksoo, 2016). He was solely against the use of Russian troops in crushing protests. His openness and peaceful attitude, USA’s growing influence in the Eastern Europe ultimately caused the collapse of the USSR, leaving USA as the only superpower in the world. The USA’s military imperialism was highly successful in paving such a great world dominance.
The Cold War, which played a major role in the establishment of USA as the major imperialistic superpower, also led to its hostile relation with North Korea. The relationship between the two nations started deteriorating after the Second World War, when the United Nations divided Korea. The measure was a temporary one, but the unification never occurred due to the hostility between the USA and the USSR. South Korea was the bastion of US military troops while North Korea was under the control of the USSR. The influence of the Soviet military government created a negative attitude in the North Korean population against the USA, which was to intensify in the years to follow.
The Collapse of the USSR
The constant military influence and presence in South Korea, has always been a problem for the North Korean government and USSR at the same time. Taking advantage of the Cold War situation, the USA military along with the help of UN forces occupied North Korea with the intention of setting a new government for them, but North Korea was determined not to bow to the American imperialism. North Korea posed stiff challenge to the US military dominance over time.
The later crisis between the two nations started in the post-Cold War period when America was highly concerned with North Korea’s step in the nuclear world. The Nuclear weapons were considered the show of prowess for the USA and its allies, but with the North Koreans getting hold of nuclear arsenal was a concern for USA. Both the countries completely shut down each other, on the terms of political relations and very few bilateral talks were held by the two nations during this age. However, in the meantime America had been influencing the other world powers of the dangers that North Korea could pose to the world in the race of the nuclear armament. America had led the Six-Party Talks in 2007 where USA convinced Russia, China, Japan and the two other Koreas to sit for a conference to develop international political relations with North Korea (Buszynski, 2013). North Korea was convinced to shut down its nuclear facilities and in turn, USA agreed to aid North Korea in attaining political and trade importance in the global market. America after six decades lifted the political ban on North Korea, from the list of state sponsored terrorism (Preble, 2009). The American population welcomed the diplomatic favours towards North Korea as the alternate to the harsh military actions.
The power of American imperialism can once again be seen in this case. In 2013, North Korea threatened the US with ballistic missiles and nuclear ICBMs (Chanlett-Avery & Rinehart, 2013). The American response with friendly military drills in international waters along the Korean Peninsula was a mere show of strength to warn Korea of its military dominance. US military imperialism has cornered North Korea from every sphere, successfully shutting them from the rest of the world, but North Korea still today poses challenge to American imperialism, fully aware of the American military strength, and how it could be matter of seconds for USA to crush them.
Hostile Relations with North Korea
The Soviet-Afghan wars in the Cold War period gave rise to a new era of fundamental Muslim terrorism. The 9/11 incident, shocked the world and dealt a major blow to the pride of American imperialism. The American government responded with full military response routing the Taliban outfit from Afghanistan and Pakistan. America’s invasion of Iraq in the name of removing Saddam Hossain and countering state sponsored terrorism helped the USA gain foothold in the Middle Eastern countries of Asia (Ballard, Lamm & Wood, 2012). America’s political influence and involving the NATO in such military operations shadowed USA’s underlying motive of spreading its military imperialism in the oil rich countries. These operations were presented as counter terrorism activities and gained world support. America’s world domination was successful one again.
Conclusion:
The discussion hence provides a brief analysis of the several case scenarios where USA had influenced political strategies and used military power to spread imperialism and world dominance. Beginning from the Cold War, where USA maintained the image of a liberal nation to corner the fundamental Marxist ideas of the USSR. USA’s extension of political support and military assistance to smaller nations oppressed by USSR let them gain foothold as the world superpower. Challenging USSR’s nuclear armament with its own nuclear tests and creating a global pressure on the USSR against the Cuban missile crisis played a major part of the USA’s strategies to spread its imperialism in the whole world. The formation of NATO was the chief instrument in spreading the American military imperialistic domination all over the world, by being present politically and in military in almost every nation of the world. Moreover, the constant crisis with North Korea and cornering them is yet another example of the American imperialism. North Korea, which poses a great threat to USA’s motive of world domination, has been strategically shut down by the USA. Strong presence of USA military in South Korea and Japan has cornered North Korea and placed them under a political siege, where no other nation has the courage to deal with North Korea, bypassing USA. Lastly, USA’s direct involvement in the Middle Eastern nations along with NATO forces to curb to fundamental terrorism can be seen as another approach of America to establish its military dominance in the oil rich countries to politically gain control of the Middle Eastern wealth. The above discussion hence concludes on the note, establishing the USA as the major superpower in the world politics where it has successfully spread its world dominance with its strong and successful military imperialistic values.
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