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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32962 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Why does America need to be a hegemon? It is one of the richest countries in the world - the richest per capita since the 19C. It didn’t feel the need for an empire then.

Your causal links are reversed, there.

America is rich because it is absolutly secure, has maximim prestige, is incredibly credible, and controls the global reserve curency.

All those qualities are confered on the US (and on NATO/NAFTA/whatever other treaty partereners it has to a lesser extent) BECAUSE America is the hegemon.

Thus, much like Rome, imperial china, spain, france, england, and etc; being a Hegemon makes you rich makes you the hegemon. Losing your hegemon cred puts you in danger of losing your riches.

Empires can be expensive and will in effect make the US poorer in the king run. And civilisations need to think about the long run.

This is something people say, but is just not true.

Empire is expensive when it starts to colapse. The solution then, is to not let it colapse.

In any case; the USA is in a unique position where they have managed to defer most of the inherently wealth destroying on the ground work to their hegemonic junior partners; and they get to reap most of the benefit of the expensive part of empire; excepting our little short 20 year neo-con adventure in the middle east.

The 19th century was America's century of conquest. Natives, Mexicans, and almost the British Canadians were displaced or conquered.

Canada held on to its independence by the skin of their teeth. Most of Mexico was conquered. Modern day Mexico is the minority of their territory that escaped US conquest.

Being from Britain, American Hegemony is great. America might be the world's first large Empire with such enthusiastic imperial satellites.

Which 19th century are you thinking about?

Many would argue that the US absolutely did engage in bloody imperial conflicts in 19th century, ranging from the support of the Texas succession against Mexico, the Mexican-American war which was a major war of territorial expansion, the civil war against separatist, the various Latin American interventions, and of course the buildup to the Spanish-American war, which saw the US become a formal empire right at the end of the century.

Moreover, the 19th and then pre-WW2 20th century was absolutely a period of repeated American anti-imperialist actions to thwart, counter, or militarily defeat imperialist actions. The Monroe Doctrine, hypocritical as it was, was generated as a way to deny imperial conquests to those who would have otherwise been able to enforce them. American China policy was not only about getting American access to the China market, but preventing and rolling back other empires from exclusive market and political control. The Spanish-American War was driven in the leadup on a wave of anti-Spanish Empire yellow press and fervor. This doesn't even go to the influences those born in the 19th century had in the mid-20th, where the US even threatened to militarily intervene against the British and the French empires over the Suez Crisis.

If you want to appeal to the 19th century US, it's kind of important to remember that the post-Civil War reconstruction was an aberation, not a norm of pacifism. When the US had the ability, it absolutely was the sort to get involved to defend its interests... and regularly framed those interests in opposition to imperialist efforts.

Yes. That’s totally true, and I should have asked in the post why the US wants to be a world hegemon, or empire, which wasn’t the case at the start.

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