6 ms·

What a great topic for a great blog. I wonder what this perspective can tell us about the new wave of Chinese expansionism, which becomes somewhat akin to the

• fjdjshsh 2y ago
  The USA was never non expansionist: they either took over the native Americans or the Mexicans.
  • bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    you can argue that the Monroe Doctrine was also a bit of expansionist policy, essentially warning all European colonial powers that the Americas was the U.S.A's sphere of influence.
    • fsckboy 2y ago
      the goal of the Monroe Doctrine was to keep the endless European wars, which at that time were not wars of nationalism but of monarchy, out of the Western Hemisphere. In North America, the French and Indian War and the American Revolution itself were aspects of larger monarchical wars taking place in Europe. it was a sensible doctrine in 1823, and we see 40 years later in 1864 the French under Napoleon III still attempted to install a Hapsburg as Emperor in Mexico.
      • bryanrasmussen 2y ago
        yeah I'm aware of the stated purposed of the Monroe doctrine, nonetheless as noble as it was it also functioned as saying the Americas belong to us, other colonial powers, and we will protect it. The definition of a sphere of influence is "a country or area in which another country has power to affect developments although it has no formal authority."
  • steveoscaro 2y ago
    That ended over well over an hundred years ago, and was when the country was explicitly in expansion mode. And “the Mexicans” in this context were an expansionist Spanish colonial empire too.
    • pessimizer 2y ago
      > That ended over well over an hundred years ago What do you mean by this? The Philippine War started in 1898 in Cuba, and began US world expansion. If you're dating expansion over the continent as overlapping with that (which you should) you're agreeing that there was unbroken expansionism. edit: and what does Spain's (or France's) empire have to do with anything? If I burgle the house of a burglar, it doesn't make me not a burglar. The question was whether the US was expansionist, not a moral judgement about the people who controlled the places it expanded to. You can't say that we weren't expansionist and also that they deserved it.
      • 0x457 2y ago
        > and what does Spain's (or France's) empire have to do with anything? If I burgle the house of a burglar, it doesn't make me not a burglar. To be clear it's not that you're in a burglar's house, it's that you're robbing the same place.
        • steveoscaro 2y ago
          Yes thanks, that was my point, that it's not like the Mexican government had a clear moral argument to that land over the US. Both were break-away colonies expanding over native cultures.
      • thimabi 2y ago
        > The Philippine War started in 1898 in Cuba, and began US world expansion. That is not entirely true. The United States government and/or its citizens acting autonomously had global reach much earlier than 1898. Throughout the nineteenth century, American expansionism was seen in various Central American countries, Ecuador, Liberia and Japan, for instance. In some cases, like in Japan and in Brazil, America’s aggressive policies were thwarted. But it does not mean that there was not expansionism.