Imperial USA

Is the United States an empire?

First, the case against. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the United States has been on the winning side of major wars only twice: World War I and World War II. Korea ended in a stalemate when China supported the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK, and crossed the 38th parallel. The no-man's land between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea remains the most land-mined in the world, rivalled only by Afghanistan.

Vietnam ended humiliatingly. Fifty eight thousand dead US servicemen and the US was compelled to negotiate. The US did not win the Afghanistan war; the Soviet Union lost it. It is the US's adventure in Afghanistan that gave rise to al Qaeda, the Chechen insurrection, and the rise of the hard-to-destroy Taliban.

After decades of sanctions, the US is making a political rapprochement with Cuba and Iran. Russia is newly resurgent. China is set to buy up even more US debt in the coming decade. Even simple police actions seem to flummox the US. Somalia became Blackhawk Down. Libya became "leading from behind." It can't decide whether it hates Syria's Assad enough to side with ISIS or vice versa. By the by, if it hadn't screwed up in Iraq, ISIS would not be the force it is now.

Richard Nixon was in charge when the US abandoned the Gold Standard and 35 years later the Great Recession hit and hit hard. US unemployment skyrocketed. Big banks collapsed. Major manufacturers had to be rescued. The BRICS threatened to rise sooner rather than later. The contagion spread and the seeds planted in the US have reaped a bitter harvest in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.

And yet. 

The USA remains a mighty military and economic power. Even when its economy brought it to its knees, it still managed to outspend the ten next pretenders combined. Even when unemployment in the US approached double-digit growth, it still managed to employ more engineers and other professionals than the next five industrialised countries combined.

It remains a cultural powerhouse. The way we speak, talk, walk, act, eat, drink, socialise, educate, innovate, write, pray, love or hate are influenced by the US. There are those still clinging on to the faded dream of Rule Britannia, but they all want greenback and not sterling. We may bitch mightily about ukoloni mambo leo, but like it or not, when we bring out the shiniest silver and give up policing in favour of US Marines' policing us, the US is an empire in all but name.

Think of this way. China may hold the largest chunk of US debt, forgetting the lesson Japan learnt in the lost decade of 1995 to 2005, but the US still commands the greatest chunk of the Special Drawing Rights in the International Monetary Fund. With that alone, never mind the mightiest nuclear arsenal known to history, the US can alter the fortunes of continents. In the past decade alone, it has done so twice. If the hegemon that is the US is not an empire, then what is it?