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What we’re seeing with the Navy is the result of a US disinterested in flexing any sort of naval muscle for but its most strategic allies in the traditional realms like securing shipping lanes.
“Hallmarks of a dying empire” implies, somehow, a loss in territory or capability. Neither is true for the US. There just simply isn’t a compelling reason to maintain the same level of naval readiness that they had in the last.
The United States extends tax to citizens and businesses living or operating outside its sovereign territory. United States citizens and businesses are large property and commerce owners in countries globally.
While the United States is not directly appointing governments and directly managing policy language, it does influence indirectly. This is one pillar of difference between how it operates and a traditional empire. My perspective is this is a difference without distinction.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/03/28/all-th...
Strictly speaking, that makes it a hegemony, not an empire.
If aliens came to earth no matter where they land. Really they ought to go see the US president.
Russia was always a counterpoint to that but while obviously a super power it didn't have the same military and political power as the US does.
They achieve that through multiple means mostly cash cash money money. But also creating organisations and influencing participants to make the decisions it wants.
Stuff like getting everyone to agree to using dollar under Bretton woods system.
It's copyright beliefs, it's war on drugs etc.
The US rejected imperialism but insisted on global reserve currency status in 1944. Bretton Woods and later the petrodollar is how the US can benefit from a consistent trade deficit and its Navy is how the system is enforced. (see what happens to countries that think otherwise over the past 50 years).
Nothing? Because none of the wars that the US has been involved with in the past 50 years has involved a country that took any steps to avoiding the use of dollar in international trade [1]. And several countries have taken such steps without much reaction from the US.
Why the hell does this canard keep living on?
[1] Well, okay, you might count the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a US-involved war. But an exemplar of the supposed US penchant for invading countries that dare thumb its nose at its hegemony it is very much not.
The entire point was to create a system to defend against the Soviets effectively by bribery via the US economy.
Empire is when you keep people subjugated against their will. The US is the opposite of an empire.
I can speak to my experience in Hawaii (that is the only place on the list I have lived). There is a significant and vocal minority of Native Hawaiians (and supporters) that would very much like to have their country restored. The Kingdom of Hawaii was illegally overthrown and the US apologized for its direct involvement in the overthrow: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-107/pdf/STATUTE-....
To the point of preference of staying a part of the United States, the majority in all of the Territories (and the State of Hawaii), I assume, would prefer to remain in the United States, yes. However, that is a disingenuous question. The most recent territories have been a part of the United States for almost 100 years, that is, several generations. What else would these populations be in favor of? Indeed, the people of Hawaii, given a choice in 1875, would have preferred the reinstatement of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
That to me shows a lot of enthusiasm for joining the US.
But of course, 60 years later, you can always find some vocal minority with a nostalgia for an idyllic past that never existed.
arrow sharpened this result to a needle point in the 01940s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...
the nature of government is that it keeps people, individually, subjugated against their will; police that can only arrest people who want to be arrested, prisons who can only imprison people who want to be imprisoned, or armies that can only beat armies that want to be beaten, are not effective police, prisons, or armies
empires have always worked by having subject governments willingly accept their subjugation by the empire; the 'willingness' of guam or samoa or hawai‘i to be governed by the usa is no different
democracy is still better than dictatorship or other forms of monarchy, but it is a mistake to confuse the decisions of democratic governments with the desires of their citizens
people are forgetting their history
Now, here's the funny thing. Lots of people who hold the view that the US imperialistic, find various excuses for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some even go as far as claiming that the US aid to Ukraine is nothing but some further proof of the US imperialism.
I'd be very curious to hear where you are on that.
Those you mention do not want to leave the United States.
1865? Military suppression of secession is not a voluntary federation... it sure looks like an empire to me since then. The focus on non-contiguous regions to meet the definition of empire feels beyond what is required given empires can be contiguous.
Can a state democratically secede in the modern age? My (non-US) understanding, is no, it's "unconstitutional". Pfft.
The United States is not an empire, it has an empire (that is, it is the hegemonic power that functions as the metropole of an empire.)
We don't need to worry about China, they'll handle ending themselves themselves.
The national debt is far lower, as a percentage of GDP, than in the 1950s.
U.S. GDP grew at 3.2% annualized rate in the most recent quarter, negating fears of a recession.
When I worry for the future of the U.S., it is mostly because I see so many Americans willing to confidently assert untrue things.