America Has Always Been An Empire

Fears of the ‘E word’ need to be put aside

President Trump’s quick capture of Nicolas Maduro inspired both rapturous praise and vicious criticism. Common among those opposed to the move is that it smacks too much of empire. The Old Republic would apparently never violate another country’s sovereignty. It would just mind its own business, regardless of what happens in the world. These critics believe empire is thoroughly un-American and we should abandon it in favor of our cozy front porches.

This thinking imagines Americans were just parochial hobbits until NEOCONS turned us away from our little hobbit homes to hurt the nice people of the third world.

This view of America as an isolated shire prior to World War II is dewy-eyed hogwash. We’ve been an empire since the Founding. We were never a little homespun republic that kept our head down as crises broke out in our backyard and refused to encroach on anyone’s territory. America was built on conquest and asserting our place in the world. That doesn’t justify the idiotic liberal internationalism of the past 30 years or so. Far from it. The American Empire, in its proper form, serves the national interest, not some abstract human rights agenda or the demands of a foreign nation. That’s true Americanism, not neoconservatism.

One of the more articulate critics of Empire on the Right is libertarian Tom Woods. He wrote a lengthy X post in response right-wingers praising the empire. He caricatured his opponents’ view, arguing they think “true ‘America First’ means domination of other countries by the U.S. regime.” I don’t think any Trump supporter or Online Rightist believes that, but it does make for a good contrast to his view of America First, which he describes as:

[W]e have problems enough in this country to keep ourselves occupied until we’re all six feet under, and despite the temptation to take our eyes off that ball by maintaining an empire, our primary concerns are here at home.

Most America Firsters would agree that our primary concerns are here at home and not abroad. Woods implies that we should strive for a smaller America. He quotes G.K. Chesterton, a favorite author of the hobbit-minded, saying we should be prouder of being a small entity rather than a great one. He cites Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas Jefferson, and Bill Kauffman to similar effect. Woods’s overall point is found in this quote from Kauffmann: “You can’t have a healthy home and a worldwide empire.”

That’s delusional nonsense. We, in fact, need an empire so Americans can have a backyard in the first place. Things that happen overseas can and affect our own communities. Let’s start with Maduro. This is a despot whose government created a migrant crisis and pushed its worst criminals to come to the United States. Maduro’s Venezuela is a narco-state that helped spread deadly drugs to our communities. He was a rogue dictator who caused tremendous instability in our own backyard. What happens in Latin America often affects us. It’s why we’ve been involved in the region for the last 200 years.

Taking out Maduro can help Americans with our domestic issues. It ensures a friendlier government can take over, quickly welcome deported Venezuelans, and keep its people from trekking northwards to our border. It can stem the flow of drugs and create more stability in the region. It also offers the opportunity to secure more oil for American consumers. Citizens would obviously benefit from those results.

Empire is typically seen as something that only benefits the “elites,” but it’s something all citizens are invested in. Empire keeps the sea lanes open, allowing our products to safely travel the world and for imports to reach us unmolested by pirates and terrorists. The average American depends on the dollar’s global dominance to have a good job and the opportunity to own a home. The dollar depends on America’s military might to survive. If we pulled back from our overseas bases to our hobbit holes, it would destroy our economy and ensure more Americans have no home or hearth to call their own.

The natural beneficiary of us giving up on Empire would be China. Rather than America enjoying our scones and ales unbothered by the world, we would have a yoke placed on us by CCP functionaries in a world order dictated by the Middle Kingdom.

Americans don’t like to acknowledge this, but it is undoubtedly true that our high quality of life (compared to the rest of the world) is dependent on the empire. If the empire disappears, so does the American dream. That’s a matter that directly affects every single American. Maintaining the empire is critical to the daily lives of our countrymen.

These facts upset popular American beliefs. We think of “empire” as bad and like to envision we’re completely different. It ignores how we came to be a state that spread from sea to shining sea. We like to think of ourselves as a pleasant republic that never did evil imperial things until the recent past. We just naturally grew to become a world power thanks to democratic values. We’re always the Rebel Federation and never the Galactic Empire. It’s why the underdog is always the national favorite.

We have to come to terms with how our country came to be. We are the product of British imperialism. Without it, the Anglo settlers who made this country would’ve never settled here. As soon as we arrived, we began expanding. This came at the expense of Indian savages who tried, several times, to wipe us out. Fortunately, they lost. Every war we fought against a foreign power was out of what could be called imperial impulse. The Revolution was motivated in part by the British restricting settlement in the West. The War of 1812 was caused in part by British opposition to further westward expansion. The Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American Wars were ones of conquest. So were our wars against Indians. Every state not part of the original 13 was created by the course of Empire, whether through conquest or purchase from another imperial power. Thomas Jefferson imagined America as an Empire of Liberty. Manifest Destiny sought to make that dream a reality. Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Theodore Roosevelt, and many other great Americans were imperialists of one sort or another.

We’ve been involved in Latin America since the days when Founding Fathers still walked the earth. Our history is filled with interventions in the region since our leaders recognized it as our backyard and what happens there affects us. The purpose of the Monroe Doctrine was to keep the Old World and make the New World our sphere of influence.

All of these events testify to our country’s true nature.

Leftists gleefully acknowledge this imperial nature to cast America as a villain. But empire is only a bad thing when in the hands of bad people, such as communists. It’s a good thing in our hands. We would’ve never been a great nation if we allowed the majority of this continent to remain a wilderness ruled by Indians and wild beasts. We would’ve remained easy prey for the empires of the Old World and our nation would’ve been quickly snuffed out after the Revolution. Empire made American greatness possible.

That speaks to another error of those wanting America to be an isolated Shire. They imagine that we can just retreat to our front porches and the rest of the world won’t bother us. The hobbits in the Lord of the Rings suffered from the same delusion, but at least their idiocy could be blamed on ignorance. The same can’t be said of right-wing commentators who, supposedly, study history and current events.

As Trump says, it’s a nasty world. History is one grim chronicle of the strong doing what they can and the weak suffering what they must. One must be capable of violently protecting your interests in order to survive. Those who can’t suffer oppression and death. America retreating from empire simply offers the world up to predators who will carve up the globe to their delight and to our misfortune. We won’t be protected from this new world order simply by burying our heads in the sand. We will see the consequences of it in our daily lives as our citizenry becomes subject to the whims of China and other hostile powers.

In a vicious, kill-or-be-killed world, only the American Empire offers the hope of order and stability for our people. There’s no other alternative.

Supporting the empire doesn’t mean one backs every decision made by the empire. One can embrace the empire and still recognize Iraq and Libya as grave mistakes. It doesn’t mandate unquestionable loyalty to Israel, nor does it require we need to spread “our values” all over the globe. We want an empire that puts the national interest first, and Trump has shown the willingness to do it.

The battle is not over whether we remain an Empire or “return home.” It will be over whether nationalists or globalists hold the reins of the imperial system.

The Empire is here to stay because we’ve always been one. The day we cease to be one is the day we’re no longer America. We’ll be just like the Old World Tom Woods warns about: weak and utterly dependent on the mercies of foreign powers. That’s a nightmare for anyone who cares about their home and hearth.