Imperialism is an ideology that does not stem from the US though for a time we adopted the framework soon after the revolution had been won. Why? Why would America adopt a policy that represented everything that they hated about Britain? Why start a nation reborn on the foundation that reminds us of the very life we wanted to escape?<\/p>\n
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Imperialism offers an opportunity at expansion at rapid rates. It was through imperialism that nearly every world power gained and acquired new territory. A major way in which America used imperialism to quickly rise as a world power was through military force. The Spanish-American War was The US’s\u00a0 way of quickly acquiring foreign territory. With their victory over Spain they colonized Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. While thinking about imperialism, and specifically American imperialism, it begs the question of what that says about who we are as a nation. In the defense of American imperialism, as a newborn nation, we were vulnerable. With world powers like France and the threat of Britain returning to begin a second war, it is in fact fair to say that The United States were in need of expanding and growing their new born empire, but at what cost? Does that threat in and of it self make imperialism acceptable? I’m not sure.<\/p>\n
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When thinking about what American Imperialism says about the US as a country, I think it is no wonder we view ourselves as so important. American exceptionalism in my eyes is a result of professing the narrative that the United States is “big”, “strong”, and “brave”. Through American imperialism we shaped the minds of our ancestors into believing we were inconceivably stronger than all other nations. On top of this, we had just taken down arguably the strongest nation in the world, granting us our freedom. Not only was Britain a world power, but we were nothing more than a collection of colonists that in no way should have been able to defeat the British military. All things considered I think our American exceptionalism stems from the birth of our nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imperialism is an ideology that does not stem from the US though for a time we adopted the framework soon after the revolution had been…<\/p>\n