USA Imperialism
Why its so bad and how does is it compare to the other great imperial super powers of Russia and China ?
The original definition of empire is from latin emirium “to command” , and from mid-14c., "territory subject to an emperor's rule;" in general "realm, dominion;" (an emperor or king being a single man)
Of the 2 countries , USA has been the only continuous government and country since 1776 declaration of independence from Britain and Federal Government formation in 1789 with 13 colony states. Further invasions by USA of American Indians and Mexican territories resulted in contiguous (sharing a common border; touching) 48 states with 47 & 48th being added in 1912.
When USA was declared in 1776 with a mere 13 states the Russian empire was nearly already the vast territory it is today .Where as Russian historical empire was founded on November 1721, when the Russian Senate conferred the title of emperor (imperator) of all the Russia's upon Peter I. Reaching its max territory size around 1886, declining after WWI .The abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917, and the Russian workers revolution marked the end of the empire and its ruling Romanov dynasty when it became the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) then the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when other states where added. Russia didn’t came into existence again until 1991 after the fall of the Berlin wall and USSR when it became a federation like early Canada or Australia or Confederate States during American civil war.
While USA is a “Republic”, ergo both being democracies they are technically not empires. Thou Russia is currently acting more like a dictatorship under Putin. But these days the definitions are much looser and today imperialism generally means territory's that are controlled, not just directly by occupation but through politics , puppet governments (often involving coup supports) , money and other coercions including foreign aid .
Similarities between Russia and USA are ;
- Both have similar number of military personnel (along with china over 1million)
- Both have similar number nuclear bombs (Russia has slightly more)
- Both are permanent members of UN and have power of veto along with China (the other 2 being the France and Britain , whose empires began their end at WWI)
- Both became superpowers after WWII
- Both murder their citizens when it suits them , Russia by poisoning and USA by drone strike.
While Russia is the biggest country with more land mass, here is 12 reasons why I believe USA is a bigger and a worse (more malevolent) empire than Russia in a big part because it effects other country's and the world outside its direct and indirect interference in a big way. Many of these are linked and not necessarily separate but are around a central core.
1) USA versus Russia's ideology and their foreign policy’s
Russia is about security and territory protection and doesn’t pretend anything.
While USA holds itself up as the freedom and democracy example of the world . USA and ergo the world suffers from American exceptionalism, ie the belief that the USA is inherently different from other nations .Proponents of it argue that the values , political system and historical development of the USA are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage . Yet USA is the opposite of that. In reality it is all about pro capitalist protection , anti communist ideology and resource accumulation , which has led to mass intervention around in other countries and democracys the world including establishing hundreds or army bases.
The Monroe Doctrine is the best known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or puppet monarchs. Of course this soon turned into interfering in European countries and states. Not always force but sometimes the threat of force , first used in 1853 by Commander Matthew Perry and given the term gunboat diplomacy in Japan . Nearly every single intervention by the USA with few exceptions, is in the interest of USA . Overthrowing governments that refuse to bend to USA policy and installing puppet regimes more favourable to USAs capitalist goals , acquiring resources, aiding its corporations , growing its economy and preventing left wing governments becoming communist or even just implementing some left wing or socialist/communist policies. Watch here. Stephen Kinzer in his book Overthrow says USA overseas imperialism began when the USA census department said the borders closed 1890, ie no more land internally . USA manufacturing was overproducing and couldn’t sell all its surplus (co-incidentally Marx crises theory) , with weak government and low regulation in the era of the robber barons who needed new markets and resources to expand capitalism and profits . (one of the same reasons for Britains interest , treaty with and colonisation of Aotearoa).
President Roosevelt wanted a big navy which needed coal depots in pacific islands and decided why stop acquiring a port when he can have whole island in late 1800s and annexes Phillipines , Hawaii. Watch part 1 here. In part 2 he explains why after the second world war they could not use the army to over throw countries and governments it didn’t like because after WWII USSR became a super power. Even though USA unlawful behaviour is mostly known after WW2 thanks in large part to misguided Dulles brothers, Major General Smedly Butler gave a speech in 1933 saying war is a racket "I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism". (read here, and here) . Not long after he thwarted a fascist takeover of Roosevelt and USA government. USA is the first and only country to drop nuclear bombs on 2 cities in japan on a civilian population in war in 1945. After WW2 the Dulles Brothers declared in 1952 they needed to roll back communism [notwithstanding Russia was not communist and didn’t have intentions to occupy those countries , just aiding them] so they switched to more covert operations using the CIA.
USA did more than anyone outside of Stalin to stop the spread of “communism” into countries with many unlawful invasions, covert ops and sanctions . USA was a founding member of NATO . The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in April 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. That is it is an anti Russian military setup. Along with its propaganda and lies about communism at home to manipulate public support making communism not on the world agenda to solve economic crisis, poverty , inequality and all social problems . Ergo setting back rational debate and change 70 years so far. USAs still interfering in Cuba and Venezuela today.
Stalin attacked/jailed and murdered unionists and socialists , killing millions to preserve his dictatorship and believed in “communism” in one country which is why Russia is not communist (as in Marxist) after Stalins dictatorship takeover in 1924.
While some of Russias interference and invasions have at times been supporting other countries communist aspirations opposing USAs anti- communism foreign Policy of interference and invasions
Currently Russias main focus is primarily on surrounding countries for security based on geography according to the videos below . It has 20,000 km of borders with neighbours especially Europe which has invaded it many times. It has a lack of all weather harbours. This explains the large ground military (tanks) army versus USAs smaller one.
Russia requires policy like having puppet governments in Belarus and Ukraine . And both of those countries have been Russian before . Russia is named from Rus a Viking term from travel thru Novgorod and Kiev river . As part of Novgrod (Russia) or Kiev Rus territory from 881 until 1250s Mongol invasion - Muskovy was born under that invasion and grew in size to become became independent Russia in 1480, reclaiming Belarus and Ukraine from 1516 .
Because Russia has been invaded many times and the flat geography allows this easily and Russia wants to shorten is western borders by controlling or acquiring Crimea , Ukraine and Belarus . And they want a bulwark against the west and Nato . As Nato has been marching east towards Russia since WWII. In the Bucarest Summit 2008 roatia and Albania were invited to join . Talks were had with Ukraine and Georgia who NAO want in the . Russia wants to prevent this responding it wouldn’t happen. Watch here.
While America doesn’t have that excuse as it only has 2 neighbours Canada and Mexico who USA went to war with to expand and stole land from them both yet they remain territory friendly. USA has no real excuse for invasions and interference overseas .
These 2 videos explains Putin's desire to restore Russia to Russian Empire and Stalins old USSR borders
Not unlike Chinas problem of geography where Mongel and other invasions from the north driven by wealth and fertile food plans of China. China expanded west and built the great wall in unoccupied harsh mountains and desert territory the Great Wall to protect its both its west trade route and its fertile flat land east of the Hu line where most of the population have always lived . Currently 96 % of the Chinese population (who are mostly Han) reside in 43% of this part of the country . This video also explains the colonisation of Tibet for water and on going trouble with Uyghurs etc The great wall was basically began at the beginning of Han dynasty 221BC which is considered so great it gave its name to the Chinese ethnicity and Chinese language characters of China. Watch here.
This is the cause of USAs invasions.
2) Invasions and government interference
USA has invaded more countries more times than Russia depending on when you start counting from , if you start from 1890 (earliest USA data 22 yrs after civil war and 3 yr after purchase of Alaska and the year of the first big census and declaration no more land available – (see below ) and excluding the 1917 Russian workers revolution (as it wasn’t empire building – in fact they withdrew from WWI, USA has invaded nearly 3x more countries than Russia. If you start from after WWII when they both became superpowers and began the cold war then USA has nearly invaded 4x. I used the following urls and added them up in an excel spreadsheet. (these don’t cover may covert ops but its hard to find that data especially Russia) Read USA's here and here, and here. And Russia's here. Another website says “Since 1945, US armed forces have been deployed abroad for conflicts or potential conflicts 211 times in 67 countries. Call it peacekeeping if you want, or call it imperialism. But clearly this is not a country that has kept its hands to itself.” USA used and led UN in the Korean war . USA used and led NATO to invade Libya in 2011 and murder Muammar Gadhafi because of his Soviet leanings and “Gadhafi encouraged other Arab countries to sell oil for Libya’s gold dinar instead of dollars.” This would have reduced Americas currency as the petro dollar and its currency value.
20mn video Are we the baddies ?
USA has attempted regime change in country's that didnt do its bidding 72 times here .
3) Election interference
USA has interfered in twice as many elections than Russia between 1946 & 2000. 81 compared to 36 . Read here.
4) Unlawful detention
Only America has Guantanamo Bay, a coerced base on foreign shore to keep humans illegally without fundamental rule of law like habeas corpus (show the body – to court) applying to reinforce their foreign policy ie justify their overseas wars.
In ironically a somewhat socialist country they hate.
5) Aid
In 2019 of the 47 Billion in aid including military supplied to world by USA, outside of Afghanistan the top 3 recipients of money and military aid were Israel $3.8b , Jordan $1.7b , Egypt <$1.5b – 3 countries bordering blockading Palestine the other 2 , Lebanon (#10) and Syria also get aid. Of the nearly $16.5 billion foreign aid dollars given to the top 10 countries (including Lebanon & Yemen ) , 57% of it ($9.3 billion) was designated as military funds and only 3 countries weren’t middle east countries USA is buying off . Read here. And here. Russia isnt even listed in the top 30 countries giving aid in the Develope Assistance committee 2017. Read here.
6) USA sanctions
USA has sanctions against 2 countries outside the UNs sanctions countries, 2 being “communist” / “socialist” countries . Cuba and __ read here. Resulting in,
7) USA is the biggest threat to world peace
According to Noam Chompsky and many others and to polls USA is the biggest threat to world peace. To quote Noam Chomsky: “The United States and Israel. The two major nuclear states in the world. I mean there’s a reason why, in international polls, run by US polling agencies, the United States is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace by an overwhelming margin. No other country is even close.”
Its not just his respected view. In 2014 a poll of the top 4 countries of greatest threat to world peace Russia isn’t even in the one of them. Read here. In a 2017 WIN/Gallup international survey. The US was the overwhelming choice (24% of respondents) for the country that represents the greatest threat to peace in the world today. Iran is only a threat decided by Americans and Canadians . Read here.
My summation. It started with USAs support of Israel . Arab countries lost the 1967 Arab/Israel war and to punish USA , embargoed USA of oil in 1974 pushing the price sky high thereby inducing USA to meddle more in middle east politics to secure oil , including taking oil money and doing deals with Saudi and ignoring its terrorism funding . Riyadh and Washington together contributed an estimated $3.5 billion to the Mujahideen and Al Qaeda to fight the Russians.
USA meddling in middle caused Blowback and 911 which in turn gave excuse for Americas ‘war on terrorism’ which was really just a war of terror and continuation of earlier foreign policy that destabilised the middle east making USA more than anyone else responsible for Islamaphobia and increase in fundamental Islamic terrorism.
8) USA is a threat to democracy
A lot of people around the world want more democracy, and they see the U.S. as one of the biggest obstacles to that, at least that's according to a new poll out today. Read here.
USA has changed or tried to change regimes 72 times according to Washington Post, article here, wiki
1minute video Michael Parenti USA Imperialism
9) USA has more friends.
USA has more countries it can call on in times of conflict and war. Due to its economy aid and military power I expect.
10) USA lead the world in a false drug war .
Starting from President Nixon initiating the " war on drugs" which was really a war on the people along with racism purely for political gain – but other countries like NZ blindly followed – combined . Its well recognised the "war on drugs" has failed , has fucked up many countries and still continues to do so wasting resources and filling jails needlessly when its a false ideolog . There's better ways to deal with drugs as a medical issue. . Red here and here.
11) Financialisation and corruption
In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), a book by Vladimir Lenin,” describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits.”
“1960s also witnessed another type of revolution: the empowerment of international corporations and of multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. The latter were financed primarily by the United States and our sister empire builders in Europe. A symbiotic relationship developed between governments, corporations, and multinational organizations.”
“The financial world was shaken by another major scandal in 2014. It included a couple of the banks that had been involved in the earlier Libor scandal, and some new ones. Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and the Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to rigging the price of foreign currencies and were fined more than $2.5 billion. Within a year these four banks, plus one other, UBS, would be fined an additional $1.6 billion, along with another $1.3 billion in the case of Barclays, to settle related claims.”
This video (take with a grain of salt as has a little conspiracy vibe) explains that after Britain's fall of Empire it allowed tax havens for financialisation , having 14 of them. While Britain sells 25 % of worlds financial instruments/services with USA about 19%, both a by product and a driver of de-industrialisation. Half the worlds secrecy jurisdictions are in British dependencies . With Cayman Islands being the biggest. Watch here. While this url lists USA as a top exporter of financial service at 27%; Read here. And this webpage lists USA as 2nd behind Cayman islands . Russia's not even in top 20. Read here. Think about USAs prior interference and dominate relationship over Panama and the whistleblower released “Panama papers” from law firm Mossack Fonseca.
12) Corporatocracy.
While finacialisation is about money as a product – moving , accumulating , hiding, trading , loaning it etc
USA Government invaded and interfered in countries specially central America to protect certain USA corporations. Like invading Guatemala to protect United Fruit Company , Cuba for sugar industry etc . Thou that seems to have stopped .
Some of the biggest companies/corporations outside of oil giants are American companies that dominate other cultures and that America government protects (part of 7) Coca cola, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple the founders being some of the richest men in the America and the world . Bill Gates is doing work in foreign countries that those foreign governments should be doing . Good or bad I will leave to you to decide , the point is its control. Amazon and Google pay very little tax .
I don’t see any Russia brands in the top 50. USA has the 8 of the top 10 Read here. Points 9 ,10 & 11 are hi-lighted and connected in this Russel Brand interview with a teacher ? Watch here. Whereas the global south (South America , Africa places Russia is not involved in colonising) , unshackled from colonialism they moved to socialist, nationalism, redistribution of wealth , trade management – systems based on people not profit – they used national wealth to invest in health and education , poverty diminished and the gap between rich and poor countries diminished. Rich nations feel they are losing their access to cheap labour and resources and start interfering.
Despite interventions the global south still rose – in a successful movement called developmentalism – the G7 sat down to prevent this – and in 1980 the developing countries work turned into the third world debt rises – The USA Federal Reserve jacked interest rate to 20% to solve an internal stagflation problem (high inflation low growth and rich wanted more income) – on the strategy of raising interest , caused recession , empty factories (of workers), break unions and decrease price of labour ) . Side effect was Developing third world countries who were not able repay debts came near brink of debt default . Wall Street would have collapsed , so Wall Street went to USA Govt to get them to stop this and USA Govt went to IMF and said you are going roll over their debt , on condition of structural adjustment programs (of 3rd world developing countries) – liberalise trade, cut labour rules, cut environmental rules, privatise your companies and assets, hey presto neo-liberalism which USA was at the entre of not Russia.
13) When USA sneezes the world catches a cold –
USA is worlds biggest economy and when it falters so does the worlds economy . The 1929 share market crash and great depression , 1987 share market crash , 2008 GFC etc . Russia does not have this negative effect.
14) USA is rated as the most powerful country
In both economy and military, USA is rated as the most powerful country and so has the history and the means to control other countries much more than Russia does – with power comes ability and desire of coercion/control. Read here.
a) USA is the biggest economy in the world based on GDP at 20.89 us trillion in 2021 . While Russia's is only 1.448 us trillion and her budget is only $307 billion , behind 13 other countries, including USA
In 2015 USA spent 54% of its discretionary budget of $1.1 trillion on military (excluding another 6% on veterans ) . Google says the 2020 USA budget was 4.79 trillion . govt website of which 1.6 Trillion is discretionary spending. Govt website says military spending $714 billion (without veterans) , down a bit but still higher than Russia's total budget .
b) This enables USA to have the bigger military power . USA spends more than the next 9 biggest military state spenders. here or here “According to the best military analysis, the United States and Russia rank #1 and #2 respectively in military power today. The US dominates the air with far more bases, fighter jets and bombers than Russia but Russia is superior on the ground with more tanks, artillery and land vehicles.(due to point 7 above)” .
c) USA has declared itself no1 superpower
Joe Biden said in 1986 "Where there not an Israel , United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect its interests in the region"
Since the ending of the cold war with Russia in the 1990s the stated foreign policy in the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine declares USA number world superpower and remaining that way in large part by controlling the rest of the world .
Since the ending of the cold war with Russia in the 1990s the stated foreign policy in the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine declares USA number world superpower and remaining that way in large part by controlling the rest of the world. USA has over 800 military bases in over 70 countries around the world to fulfil this . Read here , here , here
Paul Wolfowitz was an american born jewish neo-con son of a into a Polish Jewish immigrant family
Wolfowitz was the sole representative of the Bush administration to attend, speaking alongside Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. at the National Solidarity Rally for Israel in Washington to promote US support and collaboration with Israel. He later planned the invasion of Iraq.
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While this does not exactly tell us today which one controls more countries and territories due to hidden operations like secret service agents and covert operations and trade deals etc behind the scenes out of media spotlight or even how much trade deals and aid influence or coercion is exerted. For eg, Europe relies on Russia for its natural gas so Europe can not be too anti Russian .
With USA being currently the biggest and most malevolent empire does not let Russia off the hook as a saint
malcolm daniel
feb 2021
Up date
Since this was first written Russia has invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022. All the western powers including NZ have donated weapons and money to Ukraine to use Ukraine to fight their proxy cold war . Clearly a political move of selective aid in a large dose of hypocrisy because of their unwillingness to solve other invasions/wars and colonisations.
Apart from facts covered above , in a 6.5 hr documentary called "The greatest story never told" about Adolf Hitler's rise to power and cause of WW2 , it claimed that one of the reasons Hitler invaded Poland was Poland had raised the price of a railway line transporting goods from Germany thru Poland to East Prussia in corridor and that Poland was harming Germans now caught in that same territory (land taken from Germany by Poland after WW1). This is similar to some of the reasons Russia has gone into Ukraine . Rising price of rental of Russia's gas pipeline running from Russia through Ukraine to Europe , treatment and independence of Russians in East Ukraine. Clearly the west has learnt better this time around. Then there's the matter of Ukraine cutting water supply to Crimea.
Russia is still not the bad guy , just not the good guy either.
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