The Empire’s Justification

The American Empire’s goal is expansion of the regions under its dominance, seemingly without any limit. That is why the U.S. continued to push and push after the Cold War ended and that is why it pushes to this day.

The Empire’s justifications to the American people of fighting for freedom and fighting terror do not hold up under scrutiny. They do not explain the Empire’s actions. Neither do its appeals to prevent dominoes from falling or not appeasing aggressive forces.

There is yet another basic justification for the expansionary push of the American Empire, not articulated but understood, which is that if “we” good guy Americans don’t dominate some territory, then some other bad or worse guys will, like the Russians.

This rationale sounds persuasive because it’s human nature to want more and want to control more. It appeals to Americans who think of themselves as good guys who have a responsibility.

Yet this rationale falls apart too under scrutiny. Domination, whatever its dimensions, is costly. There are many regions and countries that are not worth trying to dominate by a given empire or by the American Empire. North Korea and Vietnam were not worth the fights. The U.S. is throwing in the towel in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. has not attempted to overrun Cuba. The U.S. would be foolhardy to introduce its forces into Ukraine.

Not every region or country is contested by any of several rival empires. Some are best left alone by all empires, and no good guy vs. bad guy conflict emerges. The U.S. could not dominate Vietnam. The Chinese historically have not done so either. The USSR found that it could not dominate all of its regions. The U.S. cannot dominate Iraq and Afghanistan. The costs are too high.

Even if another empire dominates some country, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for us Americans as opposed to how the empire addicts among us like McCain, Menendez and Graham feel about it. Just because some empire dominates some land, like East Germany or Hungary, it doesn’t automatically mean that it is threatening us or the peace of the world.

Empire addicts like to create contests in foreign countries and then play them up as if our lives here in America depended on an American win in some distant land. However, those of us who are normal Americans unaddicted to national power games can get along just fine and prosper without these contests, conflicts, and wars. If Venezuela went communist or Nicaragua went communist, we’d survive. The sky won’t fall. Sooner or later, political systems that don’t serve the populations will meet with resistance. Often they ameliorate, as has the USSR system. Vietnam united under communism hasn’t proved to be a mortal enemy. Look what has happened to Communist China.

The threats that occupy the minds of vocal warmongers and empire addicts are nearly always exaggerated and remote. Every molehill is turned into a mountain. Every petty dictator or strong man becomes a Hitler. The fact is that if America does not control some piece of turf or ocean and someone else does, even an unfriendly or brutal somebody, it usually has no impact on our lives. After all, most of the world has been occupied by peoples other than Americans ever since people began settling here. America grew in wealth for near 300 years (1600 to 1898) without worrying about dominating overseas lands. Why should it be so paranoid now as to think that it is a big threat if some other country controls some region or other?

America has no responsibility to stop every expansionary alteration by some country via a U.S. intervention. The territorial borders now in place are not sacrosanct. A large variety of circumstances and conditions can lead to conflicts that involve changes in governments, changes in states and changes in borders. The U.S. and world peace are not automatically threatened when such changes erupt. There is no moral obligation to intervene on behalf of one side or the another. Most of the time, the situations are morally and pragmatically unclear anyway.

Lately, the interventions of the U.S. are unilateral and aggressive. If China has some semi-serious or even serious dispute with another major country like Vietnam, Japan or Indonesia over some islands or over drilling rights in disputed ocean waters, the U.S. should certainly not intervene. Nevertheless, there have been treaties entered into that provide a tripwire that will bring the U.S. into such conflicts. What theory lies behind such a foolish obligation? It’s the domination theory mentioned above. If “we” don’t control some patch of land or sea, then some rival will; and that threatens us. Well, it doesn’t necessarily threaten us at all.

Because John Foster Dulles pushed for some mutual defense treaties 60 years ago without any idea of what the costs and benefits might be here and now, we do not have to have our hands tied by such obligations. The U.S. has all sorts of such treaties that should be repudiated. NATO is something that the U.S. should have withdrawn from once the USSR went away. SEATO was dissolved in 1977. That should have been the template for NATO.

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3:42 pm on November 22, 2014