United States As "the World's Policeman"
The early United States expressed its opposition to Imperialism, at least that distinct from its own Manifest Destiny, in policies such as the Monroe Doctrine. Beginning in the late 19th and early 20th century however, policies such as Woodrow Wilson's mission to "make the world safe for democracy" were often backed by military force, but more often effected from behind the scenes, consistent with the general notion of hegemony and imperium of historical empires. In 1898 Americans who opposed imperialism created the Anti-Imperialist League to oppose the US annexation of the Philippines and Cuba. A year later a war erupted in the Philippines causing business, labor and government leaders in the US to condemn America's occupation in the Philippines. They also denounced them for causing the deaths of many Filipinos.
After the second world war the United States became identified with Western interests generally in a global conflict of spheres of influence with the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States did not diminish its global ability to project force, remaining "the sole superpower" and what has been called a "unipolar" situation of domination by it globally came into force.
Since the end of the previous century Battlespace domination has been an open and variously reported policy of the U.S. Department of defense and U.S. Administrations stated and restated in various Quadrennial Reports, force posture statements, etc. in execution of its role as sole remaining superpower. The 2010 QDR indicates a change in perspective and it is unclear how the policy of the first decade of the 21st century would be sustained through the anticipated fiscal environment of the second.
In 2005, the United States had 737 military bases in foreign countries, according to official sources. As of 2010 US Military spending is about 43% of the world total. Only a handful of countries spent a larger portion of GDP on military in 2010 and of these only Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates spent more than US$10 billion.
Read more about this topic: Imperialism
Famous quotes containing the words united states as, united states, united, states, world and/or policeman:
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Sean Thornton: I don’t get this. Why do we have to have you along. Back in the states I’d drive up, honk the horn, a gal’d come runnin’ out.
Mary Kate Danaher: Come a runnin’. I’m no woman to be honked at and come a runnin’.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“The idea that information can be stored in a changing world without an overwhelming depreciation of its value is false. It is scarcely less false than the more plausible claim that after a war we may take our existing weapons, fill their barrels with cylinder oil, and coat their outsides with sprayed rubber film, and let them statically await the next emergency.”
—Norbert Wiener (1894–1964)
“If you don’t have a policeman to stop traffic and let you walk across the street like you are somebody, how are you going to know you are somebody?”
—John C. White (b. 1924)