Re: "What foreign countries do we control?"
We have incorporated lands from many 'foreign nations' into our nation, expanding it thereby many times over.
Indian nations too many to mention were conquered and absorbed.
Lands were conquered and seized from the Spanish Empire, the French and the British Empires, Mexico, etc., thereby feeding the growth of the American Empire. Lands were bought (on very good terms, I might add <G>) from the Napoleonic Empire and the Czarist Empire.
Hell, our 50 states alone (many incorporated into our national DNA via way of conquest) collectively would meet many if not most of history's requirements for the term 'empire'.
California ALONE has the SEVENTH LARGEST economy in the entire world for God's sake!
Not to mention all of the OTHER qualifiers I've already enumerated:
... the most powerful economy and most powerful military in the history of the entire world... with military basing in over 122 foreign nations and a military budget matching the entire rest of the globe added together... not to mention the leading global exemplar of the Republican form of government, and the leading advancer of scientific knowledge on the planet... why would this fail to qualify a nation for modern 'empire' status?
By every objective measure, we far surpass all the fabled empires of history: the British Empire, the Napoleonic Empire, the Czarist Empire, the Hapsburg Empire, the Hunnic Empires, the Roman Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Chinese Empire, the various Islamic Empires, the Aztec and Olmec Empires, etc., etc., etc.
In fact, no empire from the pages of history can rank up to the US....
How many nations have we warred with... and beaten? (Hell... just count how many we have warred with in the past century or so, 'officially' or 'unofficially'... Fairly sure --- 'good guys' that I'm convinced we are though --- that we hold the record.)
What's so WRONG about running with the big dogs of history? We EXCEED them in most every 'big guy' measure there is....
(We AIN'T exactly a small agrarian-based regional pipsqueak of a country any more. Haven't been for a long, long time. Simple truth of the matter.) |
