Strap up, this is going to be a long one.

"Texas is now ours," O'Sullivan wrote, "She comes within the dear and sacred designation of Our Country" despite other powers "thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent." Later that year, O'Sullivan wrote again that the U.S had the right to claim "the whole of Oregon", "by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us." By the right of God then, did America have the right to expand throughout the continent, and perhaps further beyond.

The United States, if you may recall, rose itself in a war for independence against the colonial British Empire, which was already emerging as the greatest of the great powers. As Jefferson wrote, governments "should not be changed for light and transient causes", but after "a long train of abuses and usurpations", "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government." Jefferson describes the "absolute Tyranny over these States" by the king, describing at length how he repeatedly abused his power at the expense of the freedom of the people. Earlier then did the slogan, "No taxation without representation," quickly become popular. And if you squint your eyes, Manifest Destiny looks a lot like the divine right of rule, doesn't it?

The first notion of American imperialism did not come from O'Sullivan or someone like him, though. It came from George Canning, the then foreign secretary of the British Empire, who proposed that the U.S and Britain jointly agreed to prevent further European colonization. Monroe at the suggestion of John Quincy Adams agreed to discuss this, and out of it came the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted that the Americas would no longer be subject to future European colonization. More-so, though, America had an active role to play in this. Canning cleverly got the U.S to commit to protecting British foreign interests (because no one else other than Britain had a major role) by framing it defensively. Yet this rhetoric of America being emboldened as a protector would serve as the catalyst for what comes next with Polk and O'Sullivan.

O'Sullivan's idea of expansion took off quickly and is popular now even today, as conservatives believed the U.S should span from coast to coast: Manifest Destiny. At the time this was the Democratic Party, who also were the proponents of slavery. James K. Polk, a Democrat himself, wanted to admit Texas to the union despite the slave-state imbalance it might bring about, and was elected president on this issue. Congress and Polk passed into law the annexation of Texas, with Polk then sending soldiers into the disputed territory in Texas's ginormous claim to bait Mexico into starting a war and giving Polk a casus belli get congressional approval.

The initially smaller but substantially better trained, organized and equipped American forces decisively won this war, even if it was somewhat costly. By the end of the war, Polk was a patriot and a hero, and perhaps the most influential player in American politics. Following his presidency, a substantially popular figure, with Zachary Taylor, a major general during the Mexico-American War becoming president following him. America as an imperial power was already becoming a very popular idea.

It was roughly fifty years after the Mexican-American war that this notion of American imperialism once again grew. By 1890, the U.S.A "had by far the world's most productive economy", producing "twice as much as its closest competitor", the British Empire. Yet with the exception of islands with bird poop and the purchasing of Arizona, New Mexico and Alaska, there was no need to expand further. And when there was, it was for strategic reasons or through economic means. Violence wasn't needed. The U.S did not need to be a military power, and it wasn't. Yet with all this economic power, the U.S needed a way to exercise it. Manifest Destiny was back on the table, baby!

Yet other factors too influenced this notion of American imperialism. Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" (1899) discusses how the U.S.A had to take up the burdens of the "savage war of peace", to "veil the threat of terror", to "seek another's profit" and "work another's gain." Other rhetoric too focused on a civilizing mission. America, the democratic, peaceful protector could be a powerful peacekeeping force that could, and should, do a whole lot of good, as the argument went. Senator Albert Beveridge described the "Almighty's infinite plan" where "debased civilizations and decaying races' were to disappear 'before the higher civilization of the nobler and more virile types of man." for the United States to form an empire. He explains, "We must obey our blood and occupy new markets, and, if necessary, new lands."

With President McKinley came the Spanish-American War. The United States had various interests in the region, wanting a stronger trade relationship with China, and due to conservatives pushing for America to have a greater role in global politics for the reasons described above. Feeding this were conservative newspapers sensationalizing Spanish atrocities. The American public wanted expansion, and American exceptionalism seemed all too eager to spread. And then they blamed the Maine on Spain, providing once again, a clear casus belli. Once again, the American Empire bested the Spanish one, fighting both in the Pacific theaters and the Caribbean ones. Spain, a dying power, just couldn't compete with the newly vitalized Untied States. Cuba itself became an American protectorate through careful legal maneuvering, and annexed Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.

President McKinley justified his decision to annex the Philippines in a meeting. He describes "one night late it came to me this way" that he couldn't return the territory to Spain or France, and that if he gave them independence "they would soon have anarchy and misrule." It follows naturally then that "there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them." Yet this, perhaps was at the expense of the people who lived there, with the Philippine-American War following the Spanish one, as the U.S brutally oppressed Filipino forces of the First Philippine Republic to the point of committing systemic atrocities in "reconcentration camps", and repeatedly using slurs. Among these atrocities was the first time the U.S ever used wartime water torture to its enemies. McKinley claimed the U.S came "not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends", and that this was "benevolent assimilation." But this assimilation looked less and less benevolent as time went on.

The United States didn't stop there, though, with the excellently named Banana Wars, referring to U.S fruit companies who had interest in the production of bananas, tobacco, and etc. The U.S, wanting to protect the interests of companies, project geopolitical influence (for the same reasons emboldening it as above), and advance its military interests to preserve its control over neighbors did it launch intervention after intervention. The U.S launched interventions in Panama to ensure the construction of the Panama Canal, interventions in the Caribbean to further solidify its control following the victory against Spain, and various interventions, including that of Nicaragua for a 21 year period starting in 1912. Nicaragua, as it just so happened, was the only other viable option for an alternative route, so the U.S decided it needed to control it as well. Throughout this period, the U.S installed friendly regimes that would protect its interests. It wasn't until Franklin D. Roosevelt with his "Good Neighbor Policy" that the intervention and others like it ended.

With World War One did the U.S see its substantial role in global politics become even more significant. The role of the U.S economy demonstrated the influence of the U.S even before their entry into the war, as banks provided billions of dollars in loans, particularly J.P Morgan & Co. In today's money, they lent over fifty billion dollars, allowing the allies to buy munitions, food, and materials needed for the war effort. This was controversial, as then Secretary of State William Bryan wrote to President Wilson that money "is the worst of all contrabands because it commands anything else." Bryan emphasized that he knew "nothing that would do more to prevent war than an international agreement that neutral nations would not loan to belligerents," emphasizing the dangers of such "powerful financial interests."

Originally, president Woodrow Wilson emphasized in an address to Congress that the U.S "must be neutral in fact as well as in name." However, Wilson privately granted these loans, despite his Secretary of State emphasizing the danger, and even resigning in protest of that decision. Three years later, when the United States entered World War One, senators critiqued his decision. Senator Robert Follette invoked the fifty billion in today's money of bonds and "enormous profits", before describing how "this war, like nearly all others, originated in the selfish ambition and cruel greed of a comparatively few men in each Government" who "profit and power for themselves." Senator George Norris spoke with a sharper tone, arguing that the U.S.A was "going to war upon the command of gold" and "sacrificing millions of our countrymen's lives in order that other countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money." Yet the United States entered the war anyway, against these protests.

American imperialism was about power, and it was about money. It had been no different for the British Empire before it, which profited earnestly off of the struggle of Americans themselves, as well as off the cheap labor of colonized territories in Africa and India, and the extraction of resources from the Middle East. The United States was a great power now, and perhaps one of the greatest that its European neighbors would now be forced to contend with.

Of course, such reasons might not seem different for World War Two; despite the passing of the Neutrality Acts, the Lend-Lease Act was passed nonetheless to loan money to Britain to allow them to continue to buy American arms. But the act was from the government, not from the private sector, and was based on natural security, applying to nations "whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States." Roosevelt said that the United States "must be the greatest arsenal of democracy" and act on the "spirit of patriotism." The United States was now an active power, one that could influence the affairs of others to enforce its vision of the world.

With the crippling oil embargo placed on Japan as United States advisors taunted them with what General Tojo described as "an ultimatum" with the conditions of withdrawal from China and Indonesia, Japan was forced to enact "the dangerous operation" to save itself from "a serious illness" that could cripple it within a few years. The imperial role extended to its economic power as well, as like other imperial powers, it could wage wars without stepping onto the battlefield. Although it did step onto the battlefield this time... well.

After the fall of the Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany was The Cold War, and we can't get into it right now. But suffice it to say, as Truman describes in the Truman Doctrine, the U.S would "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." If you think about it, that could be used to justify any foreign intervention given how broad "outside pressures" could be, and depending on who the "free peoples" are, with its interventions in Korea, Vietnam, and in Latin America. Suffice it to say, the threat of a foreign adversary and with the United States' new superpower status, the United States both had the means and was emboldened to exercise its geopolitical influence anywhere and everywhere.

But the modern American Empire does not stem from Manifest Destiny or the mission to civilize, nor does it come from the Cold War. In fact, the fall of the Soviet Union lead to a period of broadened peace, consumerism and individualism in the United States, with Americans far more concerned about domestic happenings than the world itself. Prominent conservatives like Irving Kristol lamented this "business culture", finding that it "lacks any political imagination." Kristol went on, asking "What's the point of being the greatest, most powerful nation in the world and not having an imperial role?"

No, the modern American empire came from the movement of neoconservatism that was emboldened after 9/11. After that day, this decade of individual culture in a world of peace where foreign affairs seemed distant was so far away. Before that day, Clinton's natural security adviser found "no credible near-term threat" to the nation, but now, the price of freedom was clear. America was rejuvenated, "more mobilized, more conscious and therefore more alive" than ever, with its "alertness, grief, resolve, even love" awakened. As the Bush administration noted, Americans were "unlikely to slip back into the complacency" of the prior decade. Bush noted in his 2002 state of the union address how the U.S would no longer "wait upon events while dangers gather" but instead "shape the environment." Bush described in his commencement speech how the U.S "must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge." Once again, the U.S would need to play a proactive, imperial role.

Still, some critics recognized it as something else. As historian Andrew Bacevich wrote, "the principal aim of U.S policy was not containment but 'regime change' in states hostile to the United States. The 9/11 attacks provided the pretext to implement that agenda." Bacevich called it a "war of choice", "the 'imperial' project." Bush initially described how the U.S was "not into nation-building", but "justice" with his invasion of Afghanistan. But it wouldn't stay that way.

"There are no weapons in Iraq, and there were no weapons at the time of war," said Charles Duelfer after his eighteen month investigation on behalf of the C.I.A. The premise of the invasion in Iraq was wrong. "The road to Jerusalem, many neoconservatives believe, leads through Baghdad," wrote Norman Podhoretz, describing how if the U.S was "serious about transforming Iraq into a peaceful, democratic state, the positive effects will be 'contagious.'" Bush's Deputy Secretary of Defense spoke describing how they settled on WMDs for "bureaucratic reasons" only. Iraq was a nation-building exercise, a way for the U.S to export its ideals and influence across the globe under the pretense of 9/11. But again, economic concerns prevailed. In 2007, senator Chuck Hagel, reflecting on the war, described how "the one issue that will keep us in the region" is "a critical, vital national security interest of the United States. It's the oil... and the control of that oil."

The notion of the American Empire, over the past two hundred years, has evolved deeply. From Polk to McKinley, Wilson to Bush, the United States has wanted to expand and exercise its influence again and again. And while specifics vary, many things have remained the same. The United States engaged in these operations repeatedly for economic control, entering wars and invading countries to protect national economic interests or to protect the investments of private companies, as highlighted in Cuba, the Philippines, and in World War One. It also did so to expand its influence, to demonstrate its ability to control the world, and realize its status as world superpower, as it did in Texas, in Japan, and in Iraq. And lastly, it did so to force its values onto other countries, in practically every case, but especially in the Philippines. The United States has used its economic, military, and cultural power over this world to shape the world to its whims. Although it has often avoided direct territorial expansion, it has repeatedly intervened to influence governments to its whims and protect its interests.

The American Empire was, is, and perhaps still will be for a long time.