And during that 250 years, it's been the undemocracies starting the fights.

The Empire began as the Roman Republic fell away. Rome's fighting with the Etruscans is all pretty murky, as records of that era were almost totally lost. No telling who was more of a republic, a democracy, or a whatever, not for sure.

Oh those poor, abused dictators! How sad -- that it's necessary to lift their boots from humanity's collective neck!

I can't think of a single example of this in the last hundred years, and really, in the US case, only fights with Indian tribes (Indian being what Native Americans call other tribes, a usage that may as well be respected) in the century previous. One may cite the Confederate Constitution during 1861-65, I suppose -- but just how completely democratic was it? Slaveholding's still a big smirch.

I understand that history ALWAYS has its "yes, buts."

In the other pan of the balance, we have the not very democratic Serbians capping the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in 1914, we have the not very democratic Japan invading China in 1935 et sequelae, and the never to be mistaken for democratic Falangists taking Spain in 1936 and Nazi Germany's, and Italy's, declaration of war of December 11, 1941.

Examples so large and so generally distributed, pierce, ought really to be given their due.

We can't return to a habit we never had, Ibram. Look over the times before and after what was really a very brief period, very late in the era of modern empire building, pursued halfheartedly only, and soon abandoned. The Philippines aside, the largest land area involved was the Canal Zone -- and these were both temporary things. No, I think I could give a well supported argument against this extremely-imperialist theory, and make it persuasively too.

You could do the same, with some research with this in mind -- a sort of "see if I can prove or at least argue this" that would be somewhat different, I think, from what you're reading in high school texts these days. You see, there's never room to fit all the details in unless you're writing a shelf-full like Will and Ariel Durant. And even they could only fit in so much -- they had to prioritize, and they have a lot more detail on European history.

Heh. It is indeed a habit we never had if you look only at the times we didn't do it.

So, looking at Serbia at that time, and looking at Austria-Hungary, you have come to the conclusion that the Serbians were undemocratic and the Austro-Hungarians were?

We were Imperialists when it was fashionable, but in doing it because it was fashionable, we never got good at it.

Britain, France Spain, Portugal, Germany even the Scandinavian countries did it better. They all moved in and completely ingrained their character into the local mores and customs.
The US, on the other hand, treated these "possessions" like red headed step children. We didn't really make, or even accept, them as family.

Some American companies and individuals certainly exploited the natives, but in most cases, our interests were primarily Navel support, which made some natives pretty wealthy.

We meddled in their politics to the extent of protecting our interests, by controlling the national leaders and not be asked to leave. We didn't really try to sway the general public toward are system of democracy or teach them much of anything.
The local politics was left to it's own devices, as long as they weren't revolting against the national leaders.

Because of this failure in assimilate their society, when we left, they viewed us not like distant kin but more like former employers. :yelgreedy

Bruce, so what you're saying is we did just enough to get the help we needed, but still left the locals to decide whatever they wanted instead of going in and completely taking over a country and making them do whatever we wanted? Like we got the support we needed without destroying what individuality they had?

prettymuch, yes.

No. No one mistakes Austria-Hungary for a democracy.

The only people who think the US is not imperial are US citizens, and not even all of them think that.

I find that very interesting.

What's so wrong with being imperial? The British did it for some time. Don't you want to be like the British?

We are even more like the British now. We got David Beckham now.

lol...lucky you. Between him and his wife, I'm not sure which is worse. I don't think either of them can read yet.

She is waaayyyyy worse - at least he has am actual talent.

The most recent empires, those of the very undemocratic Soviets and the very undemocratic Communist Chinese, were more successful than I'd want any Communist to be at calling the U.S. names and making the world's naifs, fumblers, and fifth columnists (some in newspapers) believe it.

Consider the source, Aliantha -- I do. Then consider their converts, their shills. Perhaps they were too influenced by the despairing note struck by ex-commie Whittaker Chambers? Perhaps they were too taken in by the habit of thinking like a religion in thinking of communism? Garbage in, garbage out, isn't it?

Communism's got nothing to sell to humanity, and it should be humanity's business to reject it, even with Bombs. As in "The."

Sure, if communism is broken and cast upon the fire to be burned away from human political thought forever by peaceful means, I'm happy. If some part of it is torched by radioactive flame, the Rose of Sauron, I'm less happy -- nukes pollute -- but it's still acceptable to one who understands communism's horror. But no matter what, delenda est...

Anyway, what's this about David Beckham's literacy, or not-?

Yeah, we didn't want more territory or people to become part of our family. We just wanted to use their island to support our Navy, and supply materiels/labor that we would willingly pay for. Do what you want but don't interfere with out operations.

The fly in the ointment is Americans, being Americans, got involved with the natives on a personal basis. The lives of many of the natives and our military/support people got very intertwined and codependent. And you know, breaking up is hard to do. :blush: