Brief History of American Empire

Why build an American Empire empire if you don’t know how to manage it? Why build an American Empire if it leads you to ruin?

These and other questions I’ll attempt to explore in a series of articles about the state of the American Empire and how in my opinion a well managed Empire may be a good thing. Certainly a much better thing for every nation of the world than the incompetent management of the Empire that we have today.

But first a little history.

The British know a thing or two about empire. For almost four hundred years the British Empire was the largest, most successful empire in the history of the world.

The much discussed Roman Empire was small potatoes compared to the empire that the British built. The new American Empire has much to learn from our British friends. If only American leadership was open to learning.

The term “British Empire” dates back to the mid fifteen hundreds during the age of European exploration to all corners of the globe. At it’s peak in the 20th century the British Empire truly was a world empire. The British ruled over 25% of the world’s population and had outposts and garrisons in every part of the globe.

The phrase “the sun never sets on the British Empire” was true. One fairly small island nation, the population of Great Britain today is only about 70,000,000, with few natural resources other than coal, (the North Sea oil fields weren’t discovered untill well after the days of empire) ruled over much of the world.

How did the British manage to accomplish such a feat? How did they working from a small base become such a super power?

The answer is that the British developed an extremely well disciplined military force, especially a powerful navy, and were able to match that raw power with effective diplomacy and professional administrators. The British realized early on that to hold onto your empire you must be able to manage it well.

Basically, if the British wanted something their diplomats were skilled at negotiating whatever it was they wanted because they didn’t enter negotiations naked. They were backed up by the world’s most powerful military and were not reluctant to use that military to advantage when necessary.

Some of you may say how awful. How dare the British run around the world taking what they wanted for selfish reasons? What about the rights of the people that they gained control over?

My answer to that is simple. We live in a world that has finite resources. The strong will always dominate the weaker peoples of the world because that trait is hard wired into humans. The strong have always dominated world affairs and I expect always will. It may be sad to some to admit it but taking what you can from the people of weaker nations to create a better lifestyle for your own nation’s people is the way of the world.

In the globalized economies of today’s world the ways of more powerful nations may often be camouflaged but the principal of the rich and strong taking from the poor and weak is still very much with us. We just don’t like to think of it in those politically incorrect terms.

To the British’s credit they did not just take but gave back many things in return to the nations that they ruled. The British were highly organized and competent administrators. They used this organizational ability in every nation they dominated to establish an efficient government run by professional bureaucrats.

The British developed the infrastructure of the nations they controlled. As technical advances became available the British introduced them and caused good roads, bridges, seaports, railroads, electrical grids, clean water, and all of the items that a nation requires to function properly to be put into place.

Of course, the British enriched themselves in the process. After all, that should be the purpose of Empire. To take what you need from the nations and peoples that you dominate in order to enrich your own nation.

However, it is well worth noting that part of the British self enrichment process involved supplying the nations they ruled with infrastructure items that did in fact improve the lifes of the citizens of those nations as well as further enrich British companies who helped to plan, engineer, supply materials for, construct, and manage the completed facilities. As the British used local labor to build these projects they helped to create a lot of jobs.   

I stress that the British, while establishing firm control, were smart and enlightened enough to realize that in order to keep control they had to show that their governance lead to an improved life for the people that they were governing.

Ironically, the British Empire ended after the allied forces victory in World War Two, a victory that they were very much a part of. The problem for the British is that their participation in two great world wars, WW1 and WW11, within a short period of time, exhausted their human and financial resources.

Even a great empire can overreach its available resources and then enter a state of decline.

Unlike their American cousins, the British tradition required as a matter of honor that the sons and daughters of their leading families serve in the British armed forces. The ranks of the British elite were decimated by the brutal trench warfare of WW One. With further heavy tragic losses in WW Two the war weary British leadership was ready to back away from their empire.

Even though they had won the war they lost the empire. The cost in human resources and financial resources had become more than they were willing to bear.

The Americans now had their opportunity to establish an empire. The Americans, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, prior to entering the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, shrewdly supplied war materials but didn’t officially enter the war during the first couple of years of World War Two.

Supplying the British and the Russians with war materials kick started an expansion of the US economy and brought the US out of the grasp of the great depression.

The use of war to keep the economy going became a permanent part of the new American Empire, one that is very much alive today.

As you will see the American people have never been very comfortable with the concept of an American Empire. Many will deny that an American Empire even exists.

I’ll also write in detail how American leaders have never gotten the concept of Empire down right. An empire is supposed to enrich a nation, not lead it down the road of financial ruin.

I’ll be writing quite a lot about the American Empire so if this subject interests you please do visit again.

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