Signs of a Dying Empire

[Eric the Green]

(06-27-2019, 05:27 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(06-25-2019, 12:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This topic needs a definition of the USA "empire." Strictly speaking, the USA has divested itself of much of its empire already, after its conquests in the 1890s. It still holds some conquered territories though. It absorbed Hawaii into itself, and holds on to Puerto Rico and Guam. It let the Philippines go in 1946, after successfully seeking to hold on to it in 1899-1902. It let Cuba go sometime ago, and it has stopped joining the other powers to enforce their will on China after the Boxer Rebellion.

By scale alone the United States has been an empire since 1783, when it extended 'only' to the Mississippi River. The British conceded territory nominally theirs but that they could never control between the Appalachians and the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes, and nearly doubled in size again by buying some land that Napoleon didn't really want or could not control. The tricky part of that deal was New Orleans, with everything from Baton Rouge to what are now Great Falls, Denver, and the Twin Cities as throw-ins.

In this sense, "empire" is not a reference to the form of government. If the question is the form of government, then the comparison after 1815 in Europe was to Switzerland. which modeled its political system upon ours. One spoke of the French and Portuguese colonial empires even though France was a republic after 1871 (if you ignore the Vichy regime, an obvious dictatorship) and Portugal was a nominal republic most of the time after 1911. Reference to the blatantly-undemocratic Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" suggests the nature of the system as "evil", with "empire as a reference to scale and military power.

The United States of America is one of the most impressive political entities to have ever existed. Even if there have been empires of greater scale, including the British Empire at its peak, the Chinese Empire and the People's Republic of China, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and the Spanish Empire when it controlled almost everything from what is now the 42nd parallel of latitude in the current American Northwest  or such places as New Orleans and Jacksonville farther east to Tierra del Fuego except for Brazil or is less populous than India, it has few comparisons for power. Two of the most obvious are the Roman Empire when it stretched from roughly Liverpool to Kuwait (neither of which existed at the time) and the Caliphate. It is already one of the most durable. Giving 1776 as its inception, the United States of America has existed continuously for 243 years. If Lincoln could speak of America as "a new nation conceived in liberty... four score and seven years ago"... much time has passed since then. The United States of America has outlasted all but a few dynasties of China, and is 'only' sixty-four years away from surpassing the Romanov dynasty in Russia. The Roman Empire? It lasted a little over twice as long as the United States of America has already lasted -- but with plenty of overthrows of formal leadership until Odoacer found it not worth saving even as a puppet state in AD 476. (The Roman Empire was a rotten entity from its inception). Donald Trump may be rot, but I can't imagine him starting a dynasty as did Julius Caesar. America at its best has been an Empire of Liberty, as in its simultaneous jihad against Nazi Germany and Thug Japan.

Calling the territory of a nation an "empire" does not really fit the definition, as I see it. The various states asked to join the union, and when they have done that, they are no longer imperial possessions. Puerto Rico is still an imperial possession. The only problem is that it is now commonly assumed that states cannot secede without approval. But, they can. And some might in this 4T.

"Empire" refers to the territory a nation controls or possesses beyond its borders; or in earlier times, conquered territories populated by different national/ethnic groups than those of the conquering state. Talking about "the fall of the American Empire" thus does not amount to much, literally; except for its influence abroad which we discussed; its foreign policy of interference or alliance, and sometimes a degree of domination or presence of troops. Its conquest of Iraq was imperialistic, and deliberately so; but upon returning its sovereignty to Iraq its empire there ended, though not its influence. So also pretty-much with other such conquests, such as its invasion of Vietnam, where the USA propped up puppet governments in the south. And Afghanistan too, of course, and parts of Mexico which then became states later. Western Europe and Japan, from which the USA was itself attacked, were conquered by the USA and its allies in world war II, and then became allies of the USA upon release.

On the other hand, we could talk about the American empire that conquered the indigenous nations that populated the land. They were hustled off to reservations, which are supposed to have their own rights. Giving up this "empire" does not seem as relevant to the phrase though, since their population is now so small compared to that of the conquering nation. So if the USA ceded enclaves of territory to the natives, it would now still keep most of its territory.

Quote:For now America seems to be splintering along cultural lines, but those lines are not so obvious as lines on the map as they were in the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. Detroit has more in common with Atlanta than Detroit has with rural Michigan or Atlanta has much to do with rural Georgia.

It might be problematic to split the country, since the division in the country is rural/urban. But, some states are more one than the other. Some states are 50/50, like the two you mention. I assume though that if secession happens, people may move in increased numbers to the half that they prefer. Voluntary "political cleansing."