American wars-

[SturmChurro]

Is'nt much of the USA's history of wars, still now just because of either imperialism or us just getting our nose, so to speak, in other peoples business.

[Sher Khan]

Of course.

But it's an inevitability, being both an economically gifted and geographically isolated nation. We become either staunchly isolationist or very interventionist depending on the era, with the question of what's 'home' and what's 'abroad' fluctuating now and then.

[motiv-8]

You mean as opposed to British history, French history, <Insert country here>'s history? What you have described is the History of States.

American interventionism on a grand, coordinated scale is a rather new phenomenon. Like, sixty years ago new. Some call it the "Accidental Empire."

[SturmChurro]

Farther back-Like the Spanish-American war, we exaggerated what was going on with the cubans rebeling against Spain and how Spain treated them, we were waiting to go to war, then the U.S.S Maine blew........

[Sher Khan]

A bit much to say we, though. You had a time when all kinds of groups seemed to agree on one thing - America should stop being isolationist and do something. You then had yellow-journalism printing what people wanted to hear rather than what was actually seen.

Finally, the good old fashioned public outrage that sends normally docile and apathetic public opinion swing in a completely different direction. All it takes then is a government amenable to this drastic shift in the public to do something about it.

[SturmChurro]

A bit much to say we, though. You had a time when all kinds of groups seemed to agree on one thing - America should stop being isolationist and do something. You then had yellow-journalism printing what people wanted to hear rather than what was actually seen.

Finally, the good old fashioned public outrage that sends normally docile and apathetic public opinion swing in a completely different direction. All it takes then is a government amenable to this drastic shift in the public to do something about it.

Yes, Jouralism was a major role in deciding that war, they knew they would get more papers sold id there was war, when they just flat out said Spain blew it up, didn't even try to go find out what happened, but the United States had been wanting Cuba even before The Civil War.

[Sher Khan]

It was one way to get the moralists and the general public on board for a venture against the Spanish.


Our attitude has a lot to do with not worrying about border security and threats that plagued many other continents. Strategic prerogatives for national security could be relatively ignored by the American people (compared to, say, how someone in Paris, Vienna, or Istanbul would feel about their neighbors doing something).

Flanked by massive oceans, we felt safe from European or Pacific problems and belligerents while confident that this hemisphere was our problem and our worry (we didn't feel hesitant to intervene in North or South America).

[SturmChurro]

It was one way to get the moralists and the general public on board for a venture against the Spanish.


Our attitude has a lot to do with not worrying about border security and threats that plagued many other continents. Strategic prerogatives for national security could be relatively ignored by the American people (compared to, say, how someone in Paris, Vienna, or Istanbul would feel about their neighbors doing something).

Flanked by massive oceans, we felt safe from European or Pacific problems and belligerents while confident that this hemisphere was our problem and our worry (we didn't feel hesitant to intervene in North or South America).

Yeah, we were more interested in trade at the time than being attacked by a country across the world. Taking all those islands off in the ocean as "Pit Stops" to fuel our trade ships.

[Old_Scratch]

I don't see the history of the USA to be any more full of wars than that of any other nation.

[CobraStallone]

I don't see the history of the USA to be any more full of wars than that of any other nation.

Like Canada, or Switzerland, or maybe Australia?

[Civil1z@tion]

Like Canada, or Switzerland, or maybe Australia?

All three of whom have favorable geoegraphic locations/larger states defending them which enable their relative international inertness. The Swiss alps are a formidable barrier which makes invading Switzerland more trouble than its worth. Australia is the most isolated developed country on Earth (besides maybe New Zealand) and furthermore has been under the protection of first Britain and the United States. Canada is in a similar situation as Australia and was first defended by Great Britain and then the United States. These nations either have nigh-impentrable borders or are dependents of much larger states. Very few nations have the luxury of being not worth the immense trouble of conquering and being dependent on another state means your foreign policy in general will be mostly dictated by your "benefactor". In essence you've already been conquered so how the hell are you going to go around conquering?

[CobraStallone]

All three of whom have favorable geoegraphic locations/larger states defending them which enable their relative international inertness.

The US has unfavorable geographic location? It had to defend itself from the treat of it's neighbors Iraq and Vietnam?

[Civil1z@tion]

The US has unfavorable geographic location? It had to defend itself from the treat of it's neighbors Iraq and Vietnam?

Other posters have made good points (furthermore with Australia they had imperial dominion over much of the South Pacific post-WW2), but there is one more point to be made.

Canada and Switzerland. The Swiss had a magnificent army in Early Modern Europe, but they didn't have enough men to conquer France the Italian city-states or the various states of the Holy Roman Empire (especially since they would have been put under the Imperial ban and thus had to face the whole empire as adversaries). Since they're land-locked they couldn't expand overseas where the technological advantage of their weapons would off-set their small numbers and thus Switzerland ends up being non-imperial. Canada was arguably very imperial in taking over all the territory of the Native Americans from the Atlantic to the Pacific (they were just the US in miniature in regards of continental imperial expansion). They didn't expand overseas because they were already a part of the British Empire. Australia was also rather imperialist in dispossesing the aborigines and then with establishing protectorates in the South Pacific.

Now before you go thinking you just happened upon bad examples, lets mention a few other little-known imperialists. The Swedes maitained and empire in the Baltic for over 100 years in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Thailand had two Southeast Asian empires before the arrival of Europeans (the second of which become the modern Thai state). Africa has seen several major imperialist ventures of Africans the three biggest being Ghana, Mali, and Songhai (in order from earliest to latest and smallest to biggest). Poland maintained control over a good number of non-Poles in the medieval and early modern periods and only the extreme weakness of the Polish government prevented poland from being a major empire in the modern period. Whenever a state has the opportunity to become an empire it does so.

[motiv-8]

Like Canada, or Switzerland, or maybe Australia?

Wow, let's see geographically isolated and politically insignificant states. Great comparison.

FYI the Swiss were forced into their tradition of neutrality after spending quite some time as one of the most militant collection of states this side of the Napoleonic Wars.

[Barry Ferguson]

Like Canada, or Switzerland, or maybe Australia?

Switzerland which was one of the most feared country's in Europe?There's a reason they guard the Pope.
Canada and Australia did not have independent foreign policies for most of their existence. By 1945 Canada had the fourth most powerful military and third largest navy in the world
Also, the US has not been in a war since WWI that Canada and Australia weren't involved in

[G-Megas-Doux]

Usually history is a list of recorded events so war will figure in those events because history is just a long term news reel. No one really has a monopoly on war it is a natural part of the human condition, part of the competition for resources and produce. If you have friction over a point of view all it takes is escalation and then you have all out violence. Let’s face it how many people here would have hit someone else who was arguing opposition points over the internet if the person was on front of them? Maybe you would control yourself but there is bound to have been a time when something was irritating enough that you wanted to. To be violent is to be human, self control is just a choice. Old-Scratch is right in the grand history of the world it would be something for anyone to be more violent then most. War is just violence on a mass level.

[Ænema]

Isn't that why Britain went to war? People seem to exaggerate how Imperialistic America is/was. Just look at the 1700s to early 1900s at the major European powers, they were far more imperialistic than America was.

[Civil1z@tion]

American wars fall into two basic categories: attempts at expansions and attempts to maintain the status quo. Earlier American wars (basically pre-WW1) were almost all attempts at expansion (such as the failed attempt to take Canada in the War of 1812). Post-WW1 the position of the United States as the premier economic and military power of Earth was established and the Two World Wars, the invasions and wars of the Cold War, and even the First Gulf War, were all attempts to maintain a favorable status quo in world. Post-9/11, American wars have swung back to expansionism though expansion of the US's sphere of influence not US territory. We were attacked by militants harbored in Afghanistan no doubt, but the purpose of the war was to expand the American sphere of influence in order to prevent future attacks. The rise of mass casualty terrorism has made the US feel that we need to expand our sphere of influence in order to counter this movement. Its possible this was an anomaly under Bush jr. and that we'll now move back to status quo wars, but that remains to be seen.

[ivan_the_terrible]

“The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty”. - Simon Bolivar


This quote has always fascinated me.

[conon394]

Just second a point motiv made already.

or Switzerland

You do realize how many mercenaries they supplied to Europe for quite a long time and just how hard core their rep was right?


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Farther back-Like the Spanish-American war, we exaggerated what was going on with the cubans rebeling against Spain and how Spain treated them, we were waiting to go to war, then the U.S.S Maine blew........

So you object to he US seizing colonial assets form some other colonial power??? Its not like Cuba or the Philippines voted to join Spain

Yes, Jouralism was a major role in deciding that war, they knew they would get more papers sold id there was war, when they just flat out said Spain blew it up, didn't even try to go find out what happened, but the United States had been wanting Cuba even before The Civil War.

Given similar circumstances what European nation would not have done the same at the time if it had any interests in the matter and was not 4 tier? Did Austria and Germany panel a blue ribbon commission lead Hercule Poirot the figure out who killed Franz F.