freediver wrote on May 10^th, 2025 at 7:07pm:

Of course... imperialism is about wealth, resources and power... as it was since tribes could control vast lands and as it is today with super-states.

Do you think empires need red uniformed soldiers and generals and colonels issuing TFNs to nations, or do they sell their debt, collect protection money in the form of, say, submarine deals where the buyer state pays but does not commit the seller to delivery at all, or overthrows hostile governments and installs dictators and extracts the wealth of these foreign states as 'tributes' from the installed government, or dictates foreign policy to foreign states?

Or do you think the US sails the ocean doing good deeds like Grasshopper?

As Jeffrey Sachs commented recently, "If Canada and Mexico think they're truly independent from the US, let them invite China to establish military bases on their respective territories... Let me advise them... don't try it."

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 10^th, 2025 at 7:27pm:


How much 'tributes' revenue does the US collect from its 'empire'?

At what rate are Americans settling this 'empire'?

Or do you actually think the British established an empire for the sole purpose of giving free military aid?

You keep ceding points about how America's empire does not do the key things past empires did that made them empires. But you are yet to give a concrete example of how it is similar. Selling military equipment to us does not cut it. If the US does not occupy it's empire in the conventional sense, does not colonise it's empire in the conventional sense, and does not extract revenue from it's empire in the conventional sense, then perhaps the empire is all in your imagination? You have made an absurd leap from disagreeing with our federal government's relationship with the US to concluding that we are part of their empire. You cannot see the wood for the trees.

So its an Empire because Niall said it is, in the title of his book?

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 11^th, 2025 at 7:56am:

To extend Ferguson's comment further, imperial powers do not need to ask to be invited, nor wait for an invitation, to determine their initial physical presence/direct influence, or any extension/contraction of their physical presence/direct influence anywhere within their reach.

To summarise Sir Niall Ferguson’s book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Ferguson argues that the United States has become a global empire, comparable to the British Empire, by, among other things, establishing global trade and world markets with itself at the centre, using military projection of power, but lacks the long-term commitment of personnel and resources needed to manage its empire.

That, while the American empire has a colossus of potential, it is also at significant risk of self-inflicted overreach and decline.

Presciently, he warned that domestic financial problems, rather than external threats, would be the primary cause of the US empire's downfall.

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 11^th, 2025 at 10:30am:


You must have misunderstood him. It sounds like you are saying America has become a global empire by, among other things, not being a global empire.

MeisterEckhart wrote on May 11^th, 2025 at 10:30am:

The issue Sir Niall Ferguson highlights with the US administration of its empire is that, unlike the British, who had the Scots and Celts willing to leave Britain and live permanently in imperial outposts, Americans expect to be back stateside after they've completed their relatively short tours of duty.

That, while it has fully-equipped foreign-soil bases capable of prosecuting a major war and governing a foreign country, US personnel's desire to return after only a couple of years means that it's less effective at establishing stable, long-term US-friendly political systems and regimes. US individual personnel just do not spend enough time in US outposts to become as effective local administrators as the British.

This is evidenced by American impatience with Iraq. After the Iraqi defeat and the US decapitation of the Baath Party, Americans expected Iraqis just to get on with it alone and establish a Western-style democracy - a task that might take 50+ years, if at all.

Then in Afghanistan, where the US just walked away, having muddled through for 20 years in a country that has a historical reputation of being unconquerable... and nevermind even being there for 50 years.

Fergusson has paralleled Caesar Trajan's imperial overreach in Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Hadrian's withdrawal, having acknowledged that overreach, with the US invasion of and its disillusionment with Iraq.