I hope this fits here, if not I apologize. I found this article while doing some research and I thought it might make pretty good exchange.

An Empire of Liberty? by Ryan McMaken

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Well, I can't argue with Kagan's premise that America is and always has been aggressively expansionist. But I can take issue with his assumption that it's the natural order of things.

I like McMaken's assertion that liberal goals require liberal means. You can't "liberate" people with despotism.

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I admit to not having read the link, but any thesis
asserting continued US historical expansionism is
in my opinion false.

I believe "expansion" should be defined as acquisition
of permanent territorial sovereignty.

There is no doubt that the "Mainifest Destiny" doctrine
was real, and that its ends were accomplished through
expansion mostly at the expense of Mexico. However,
this doctrine was limited only to part of North America,
and having been fulfilled has not been revived past its
original limited aims. The Mexican border has been fixed
since 1853, and the only permanent sovereign expansion
since then has been Alaska in 1867, and Hawaii in 1898.
The final status of Puerto Rico, also acquired in 1898,
has not been determined. The other small island territories
are not significant.

Since then the US has made no permanent territorial
expansion, and has returned sovereignty to Panama
and the Philippines.

The tens of millions of American soldiers stationed overseas
in the the last 100+ years has not bought the US a square inch
of territory, except, as Colin Powell mentioned, enough ground
in which to bury our fallen.

I do not think even 1.0% of the American people or their
representatives has any interest in adding to what we now have.

Agreed.

Not quite. The expense was borne solely by the existing indigenous population who called this land their home.

If you had studied American expansionism through the lens of Federal Indian Law and an unbroken chain of broken treaties, you'd see that the acquisition of permanent territorial sovereign land by the U.S. has continued to this day.

Every square inch of land that the United States claims sovereignty over was once someone else's home. We own it now because we either signed a treaty (and later broke it), or outright took it through force of arms--sometimes by killing the former occupants.

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Well said--too many forget the price NAs paid for "Manifest Destiny".

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Well I have to assume that everyone on this forum thinks that America is the best country to have ever existed, except for those who do not live in the U.S. of coarse. So with that in mind, do you guys think that the NA's sacrifice was worth it?

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I left the Indians out of my comments because
they did not constitute sovereign powers in the
modern sense, and Mexico did.

I am aware of the dispossession of the Indians.
The only rationalization I have ever been able to
arrive at has been crude Utilitarianism (ie the greatest
good for the greatest number): voluntary immigrants
to the US have numbered 50-100 times the Indian
population of what became the US, and they and
their descendants surely enjoyed better lives than
they would have had they remained in their native
countries. This obviously fails to account at all for
the complete trammeling of the rights of the Indians.

Regardless of questions of ownership, though, it remains
true that US expansionism was limited in North America,
and that there has been no addition to US terrirtorial sovereignty
there for 139 years. Since then overseas the US has relaesed
much more territory to its own independence than it has
retained. I think this is strong evidence against the validity
of labelling the US as still expansionist.

Interesting question. I'm not sure I'm even qualified to offer an opinion. You should ask a Native American.

I don't believe America is the best country to have ever existed, because I have no other basis from which to compare. The only place outside of the U.S. I have been is Toronto. But I like living here, and I have no intention to move. I just want to travel more. Ask me after I have been around the world a few times and I will be able to tell you which country I think is the best.

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Not to quibble, but they were (and are, sort of) sovereign powers in their own right and had been for thousands of years.

I agree that we have not annexed new lands in almost 50 years. But since we've been a country for 230 years, that means that America has been expanding its territory nearly 80% of its time in existence. Since WWII our focus seems to have been less on territorial acquisition, and more on extending our sovereign power to defend our interests around the globe with military bases.

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I guess you could say they had a tribal form of sovereignty.
There were several Indian groups who did establish true nation
states in a modern sense. In what became the US the Iroqouis
federation came the closest I know of to modernness.




What have has the US annexed since the Spanish-American War,
which ended 106 years ago, except perhaps for some small Pacific islands?

It seems to me the US has been non-expansionist for the
most recent 45% of its existence, and has in the last 50 years
only given up sovereignty.

Afghanistan and Iraq are not exceptions in my view because
as soon as the enemy governments were destroyed the US
began taking steps to promote self-government. Its successes
to date in these areas are debatalbe, but that is another topic.




I define "sovereignty" as territorial possession. A system of
alliances and military bases is not sovereign because the other
parties may request our departure, and such a request would
be honored, I believe, in all cases except where military conflict
is now taking place. Even in these latter cases the goal is not
permanent acquisition.