So it's not an empire in any normal sense of the word:
Unlike the Roman and British empires, the American empire for the most part is not one of territorial conquest (although the U.S. occupation of foreign territories is happening with increasing frequency). America’s empire is a subtler, more informal version along the lines of Ancient Sparta. The United States exerts more control over its allies’ foreign policy than over their domestic affairs, although it probably would not allow major allies to become authoritarian or totalitarian states. Furthermore, the empires of old gained resources and plunder, captive markets for their exports, and tax revenue from their territories. The United States gets none of those things from its allies and client states. (U.S. allies even refuse to fully open their markets to U.S. exports and investment.) Instead, it gets a bill—in blood and treasure—for the defense of nations that are now rich enough to defend themselves.
The primary source of big government is rent seeking by politicians and everybody else:
Conservatives should oppose an American empire, because war is the primary cause of Big Government
Isolationism hiding out here. The US is not supposed to participate in the world and pursue its own interests?
Conservatives worry about the nation’s security, but the United States does not need an empire to ensure it; America has two great oceans as moats, weak and friendly neighbors, and the most potent nuclear arsenal on the planet.
I see a quasi straw man here. Actually, where the US has sincerely tried to bring free markets and democracy they have been successful. Time for this guy to take a history course:
The abysmal track record of attempts to bring democracy and free markets to countries coercively shows that such interventions usually fail to restructure fractured and violent societies.
The US is no longer remote. The world has shrunk. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about:
The republic’s founders realized that America’s geographical remoteness vis-à-vis other nation-states allowed the luxury of distancing itself from entangling alliances and foreign quarrels, defining its vital interests narrowly, and adopting a policy of military restraint. In an age of catastrophic terrorism, the founders’ original foreign policy is more relevant than ever
The historically relevant thing is the response to Barbary pirates.
There's nothing here to interest either a thinking liberal or a thinking conservative.
The article is stale.
Your namesake would not be impressed with it. |
