Anatomy of the American Empire

August 11, 2003

In 1997 US Space Command published a pamphlet titled "Vision for 2020" which laid out US plans to use outer space space to dominate the world.  The beginning of the pamphlet, in Star Wars style slanted text, states, "US Space Command--dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.  Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict."  The pamphlet also says:

Historically, military forces have evolved to protect national interests and investments -- both military and economic.  During the rise of sea commerce, nations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests.  During the westward expansion of the continental United States, military outposts and the cavalry emerged to protect our wagon trains, settlements, and railroads. ... space forces will emerge to protect military and commercial national interests and investment in the space medium due to their increasing importance. ... The emerging synergy of space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority, will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance. ... The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between "haves" and "have-nots." ... Space commerce is becoming increasingly important to the global economy.  Likewise, the importance of space capabilities to military operations is being widely embraced ... there will be a critical need to control the space medium to ensure US dominance on future battlefields. ... The two principal themes of the USSSPACECOM Vision are dominating the space medium and integrating space power throughout military operations.

Despite the public claims of most US politicians, the United States has been pursuing an expansionist and imperialist foreign policy since at least the 1846 Mexican-American war. The goal of US foreign policy is to impose its authority on the globe and to maintain a neocolonial economic system that benefits the wealthy (especially wealthy Americans). To do this it discourages other countries from becoming too powerful, punishes countries that become excessively defiant, and uses various mechanisms of control to compel other nations to comply with US leadership. The empire treats different regions of the world differently; each has its own role to play.

Imperialism is a social relationship in which the rulers of a country or state dominate the population of another country or territory.  Imperialism takes many different forms from overt conquest and genocide to more informal and indirect forms of domination, such as the creation of client states and covert manipulation of other country's governments.  The United States is not the only country that has practiced imperialism, but at present it is the dominant imperialist power.  Past societies that have practiced imperialism include France, Russia, Spain, Portugal, the Incas, and many others.

As a result of its imperialist foreign policy the United States has evolved into an empire.  An empire is a state that practices imperialism on a wide scale, dominating numerous other peoples.  The American Empire is the largest empire in human history, but there have been past empires.  The British, Romans, Aztecs, Germans, Soviets, Persians, and many other states have established empires in the past, but none of them were as big as the American Empire is today.  The United States has been an empire since at least the Spanish-American war (1898), arguably earlier.  After World War Two empires started calling themselves "superpowers" instead because empires had gotten a bad reputation as a result of the many atrocities they committed.  This is an example of newspeak; the two terms mean basically the same thing.

Most leaders of the American Empire prefer to publicly portray American foreign policy as acting for benevolent non-imperialist reasons.  Every country that wants to invade or otherwise dominate another country usually invents some kind of pretext to make the action seem justified.  When Iraq invaded Kuwait they justified it by claiming that Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraq.  When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan they claimed they were "fighting terrorism."  When Hitler invaded Poland he claimed that Poland was a threat to Germany's national security.  None of these are the real driving forces behind the aggression (which usually have more to do with seizing resources and territory for the rulers of the imperialist country than anything else), but imperialists need to fabricate some pretext to make their aggression look justified and rationalize it to themselves. All imperialist powers do this; the US is no different. Whenever the US government wants to launch aggression against some other country they also cooks up some pretext to justify it. In the past the US has used "manifest destiny," "the Monroe doctrine," "fighting communism," "human rights" and a variety of other pretexts to justify subjugating other countries.

The primary goal of US foreign policy is not to "defend democracy" or other altruistic goals but to expand the power of the US ruling elite and to defend corporate profits.  The US has supported numerous brutal dictatorships, even Marxist-Leninist ones.  The US extracts "tribute" from most subjugated countries in the form of open markets and cheap labor.  In general, the main goal of US foreign policy is to ensure that all foreign countries maintain an investment climate favorable to US corporations.  Different parts of the world serve different functions but the overall goal is to subordinate other countries to the needs of US investors.

If another country deviates too far from what the US wants then the US will attempt to overthrow their government and install a regime which will go along with US desires.  This can be a representative government, a military dictatorship, a monarchy or any other kind of government so long as it implements policies favorable to the needs of the American power elite.  It can be a representative democracy so long as the people who are elected follow the dictates of US imperialism; if it isn't the US will attempt to overthrow it and replace it with a regime that will follow the dictates of US imperialism.  This basic goal was stated in Policy Planning Study 23 (PPS23), a top secret planning document written by George Kennan (head of the State Department Planning Staff) in 1948:

we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. ... In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity ... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. ... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

Of course, in practice the government has to talk about those 'idealistic slogans' in order to rationalize their actions and pacify the public.

There is a spectrum of opinion among the elite on what the best way to achieve their foreign policy goals are.  On one extreme we have the "doves."  George Kennan, who wrote the above quote, was on this end of the spectrum.  He was quite pessimistic about the possibility of imperial over expansion (expanding the empire to the point where it is too large to control) and sought to restrain US expansionism.  Where others were more enthusiastic about invention in other countries he preferred a less interventionist course.  In the section of PPS23 which the above quote is taken from he argued that in order to achieve this goal the US should limit its expansion into East Asia.

On the other side of the spectrum we have the "hawks."  One example of this position is National Security Council Memorandum 68 (NSC68), another top secret planning document, written in 1950.  It pushed for a more hard-line policy that would "Strengthen the orientation toward the United States of the non-Soviet nations; and help such of those nations as are able and willing to make an important contribution to U.S. security, to increase their economic and political stability and their military capability."  Unlike Kennan, who merely wanted to contain the rival Soviet Empire, NSC68 advocated an expansionist strategy intended to "encourage and promote the gradual retraction of undue Russian power and influence from the present perimeter areas around traditional Russian boundaries and the emergence of the satellite countries as entities independent of the USSR" and "place the maximum strain on the Soviet structure of power and particularly on the relationships between Moscow and the satellite countries."  It further argued that:

In a shrinking world, which now faces the threat of atomic warfare, it is not an adequate objective merely to seek to check the Kremlin design ... This fact imposes on us, in our own interests, the responsibility of world leadership. ... A more rapid build-up of political, economic, and military strength ... is the only course which is consistent with progress toward achieving our fundamental purpose. The frustration of the Kremlin design requires ... a vigorous political offensive against the Soviet Union. ... the ability to perform these tasks requires a build-up of military strength by the United States ... in any announcement of policy and in the character of the measures adopted, emphasis should be given to the essentially defensive character and care should be taken to minimize, so far as possible, unfavorable domestic and foreign reactions. ... we should take dynamic steps to reduce the power and influence of the Kremlin inside the Soviet Union and other areas under its control. The objective would be the establishment of friendly regimes not under Kremlin domination. Such action is essential to engage the Kremlin's attention, keep it off balance, and force an increased expenditure of Soviet resources in counteraction. ... The execution of such a build-up, however, requires that the United States have an affirmative program beyond the solely defensive one of countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Both hawks and doves have the same basic goals but differ on how they want to achieve them.  Note that both PPS23 and NSC68 were written while a Democrat was president.  Hawk/dove positions do not correspond with party affiliation; movement between them is determined more by the current situation than anything else.  Such policies continue today, although, without the Soviet empire to contain US expansionism, the spectrum has shifted towards the hawkish end.

Full Spectrum Dominance

Not all interventions are directly tied to US investments, however (although some are).  The United States also seeks what planners call "full spectrum dominance," which the pentagon's "Joint Vision 2020" defines as "the defeat of any adversary or control of any situation across the full range of military operations."  The United States seeks to maintain and expand its power over as much of the world as possible.  As the Bush administration's "National Security Strategy of the United States" (NSS), published in September 2002, put it:

our military must ... dissuade future military competition; deter threats against U.S. interests, allies, and friends; and decisively defeat any adversary if deterrence fails. ... the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. forces. ... Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States. ... America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed. ... We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed. ... We cannot let our enemies strike first. ... To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively. ... Policies that further strengthen market incentives and market institutions are relevant for all economies—industrialized countries, emerging markets, and the developing world. ... Improving stability in emerging markets is also key ... Our long-term objective should be a world in which all countries have investment-grade credit ratings that allow them access to international capital markets and to invest in their future. ... Free markets and free trade are key priorities of our national security strategy.

This is a public and prominent document which repeatedly emphasizes that all this is done in order to defend "freedom and democracy" and to fight terrorism.  The numerous references to terrorism are misleading, however, because the document clearly was not inspired by the events of September 11th, 2001.  It has its precursor in a document titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (RAD), published in September 2000 by the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank whose members include Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and many other members of the Bush administration.  RAD reads like a blueprint for the Bush administration's defense policy.  More then a few ideas laid out in it have been implemented, including the invasion of Iraq, repudiating anti-ballistic missile treaties in favor of building a missile defense system, increasing military spending, the doctrine of preemptive war, and the ideas spelled out in the NSS.

RAD called for a "Pax Americana" and argued that, "At present the United States faces no global rival.  America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible."  It further claimed that:

the United States has an unprecedented strategic opportunity. It faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with wealthy, powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and its political and economic principles are almost universally embraced. At no time in history has the international security order been as conducive to American interests and ideals. The challenge for the coming century is to preserve and enhance this ‘American peace’.

RAD directly acknowledges its debt to an earlier document, the "Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999," drafted in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, then undersecretary of defense for policy (the third highest ranking civilian in the Pentagon).  This document is still classified but excerpts of it were leaked, some of which say: 

Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. ... we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. ... we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. ... Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor. ... In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil.

At the time the power elite was still new to the post-USSR world and most were not willing to pursue a policy as aggressive as this.  Wolfowitz was forced to revise the document and it was subsequently buried.  Eight years later RAD stated, "New Circumstances make us think that the report might have a more receptive audience now than in recent years" but that, "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary [sic] change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."  That "new pearl harbor" was 9-11, which further shifted the spectrum towards the hawkish end by reducing domestic opposition to expansionism and providing a potent pretext for imperialism.

In short, the United States intends to dominate the world by force.

The Threat of a Good Example

The policy of maintaining and expanding American power is not new, but the policy of applying it to the whole world is.  In order to protect American investments it is necessary to project an "umbrella of power" within which countries are mostly obedient.  Today that "umbrella" extends over most of the world; in the past it has been smaller.  If the US has insufficient power it may be unable to protect American investments and subordinate other countries to US corporate needs.  This sometimes leads the US to undertake interventions in other countries which, although not directly necessary to protect US investments, are needed to protect American power.

In order to maintain the American empire it is necessary to combat what is sometimes called the "threat of a good example."  If a section of the empire can break off and become independent and prosperous it can potentially be very damaging to the empire, even if it's a small unimportant area.  If a part of the empire breaks off and prospers it could serve as an inspiration for other regions to become independent as well, leading to the loss of large areas of the empire.  This is true even of tiny, poor countries because if a tiny, poor country can become independent and bring a better life to the populace than people in bigger and wealthier regions will tend to conclude that if even a tiny, poor country can do it then certainly larger, wealthier ones can.  It is therefore necessary to insure that no country provides such an example.  If you’re going to maintain a global empire you can't just let pieces of it float off.

As such, the United States frequently intervenes in places which otherwise are not terribly important for the purpose of preventing the threat of a good example.  The most obvious way to prevent this is to make sure no country becomes independent, but if that cannot be done then it is necessary to devastate the country.  If life in the independent country is no better then what it was as part of the American empire, then it will not provide much of an example to other countries.  By devastating an independent country the United States ensures that this will not happen, thereby stopping the threat of a good example.  There are various means of doing this - bombing, invasion, sanctions, destruction of infrastructure, etc.

There are many examples of this “threat” in action.  For example, in 1970 Salvador Allende, a democratic socialist, won the Presidential election in Chile.  Once in power he increased civil liberties, nationalized many companies (Allende believed in a mixed economy), instituted programs of agrarian reform and increased spending on housing, education, sanitation and health.  In his first year unemployment dropped to 4.8% from its previous 8.4%, inflation dropped 12.7% and worker income rose by 50%.  The net effect of Allende's policies was to redistribute income towards poorer groups and to move Chile in the direction of economic independence.

The United States reacted extremely negatively to Allende’s government and placed sanctions on Chile, hurting the economy.  The CIA funded opposition groups and promoted instability within Chile.  On September 11, 1973 the CIA launched a coup that deposed Allende and installed a military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet.  Prior to this Chile had been South America's oldest functioning representative democracy.  Pinochet created at lest six concentration camps, slaughtered thousands of dissidents, reversed Allende's reforms, and implemented an extreme neoliberal capitalist economic program.  The former Nazi Colonel Walter Rauff, who supervised the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz, was employed to help the Junta exterminate its enemies.

Chile has many natural resources and Allende's policies were not favorable to US investors, who controlled much of the copper industry, but the US economy wasn't in great danger if Chile became independent.  The real threat was that Chile would serve as a model to inspire other countries to become independent as well.  Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called Chile a "virus" which would "infect" the region with effects around the world.  Thus it had to be destroyed. (Keen/Wasserman, p. 334 - 341; Blum, p. 206-215)

In the late 70s the Somozas, a US puppet dictatorship in Nicaragua, were overthrown by a group called the Sandinistas.  They proceeded to establish an independent government and began to implement various social reforms, which were not favorable to US investments.  The United States funded terrorists called the Contras to wage a brutal war against the Sandinistas with the goal of restoring a US puppet government.  In addition to attacking military targets the contras were also trained to hit "soft targets" - civilians, health centers, schools, etc.  The contras succeeded in destroying whatever improvements the Sandanistas could make and eventually devastated Nicaragua enough that the Nicaraguans allowed US puppets to return to power.  In 1979 Nicaragua was not that important to the US economy; the country could vanish and few US investors would notice.  But the Sandinistas inspired rebellions in other countries, and so had to be smashed. (Blum, p. 290-305)

The Vietnam War arose out of the need to combat the “threat of a good example.”  The Vietnamese were unwilling to go along with US plans for the region and so had to be crushed.  Partially the war was motivated by the rice, tin, and rubber in Vietnam but the more important motivation was that independent development in Vietnam could serve as a dangerous example to other peoples in the region.  If Vietnam could do it then people in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and other countries might try it and that would lead to the loss of large areas of the Empire.

The US first backed the French invasion of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and their attempt to impose a puppet government. The Stalinist-led DRV had declared independence at the end of the Second World War, in 1945.  By the time the French withdrew the US was providing 78% of the funds for the invasion and engaging in all sorts of covert actions against the Vietnamese.  The 1954 Geneva peace accords between the Vietnamese and French put the DRV in control of the north and the French puppet government in control of the south.  Elections were to be held to reunite the country but the US intervened to sabotage them because they (correctly) believed the Communists (who had played a leading role in the movement for independence) would win the election.  The South Vietnamese government (GVN) was transformed into an American puppet dictatorship and launched US-backed a reign of terror. (Blum, p. 122-127)

In the late '50s popular rebellions erupted against the puppet dictatorship.  The DRV initially refused to back these rebellions because it did not want to get involved in another war, but eventually changed its position.  The rebels eventually formed the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF), which its opponents called the Vietcong.  Unlike the GVN and the DRV, both of which advocated the unification of Vietnam under their rule, the NLF called for a state socialist South Vietnam independent of outside control.  This rebellion began to undermine the GVN and so the United States sent the military in; in 1962 a mainly aerial assault was launched on the South.  In 1964 the United States fabricated a DRV attack on an American spy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin as a pretext to bomb the north and launch a full-fledged invasion of the South the next year.  By the time the US was forced to withdraw it had pulverized the southern resistance, enabling the north to have more influence over post-war Vietnam.

The US government & media, as is standard, systemically misrepresented the conflict in favor of US interests.  It was claimed that the rebellions in the late '50s constituted northern aggression against the south, but the north originally opposed those uprisings (though it did come to dominate the southern rebels later in the war) and even disregarding that "South Vietnam" was an American puppet government imposed by foreign forces.  Attempting to destroy it is no more "aggression" than the French resistance's attempts to destroy the Vichy government (Nazi puppet state) during World War Two. It was also claimed that the forces the US was fighting against an attempt by Chinese puppets to take over the country, but the war began prior to the Marxist revolution in China, and the DRV & NLF had genuine nationalist roots among the populace.  The Vietnam war was a subset of a larger regional war including Cambodia and Laos in which US motives were largely the same as in Vietnam, preventing the threat of a good example.  (Zepezaur, p. 40-41; Wolf, p. 159-210; Chomsky Reader, p. 221-302; Chomsky, The Washington Connection, p.300-336; Heman, Manufacturing Consent, p. 169-296)

Even though the Vietnamese eventually did drive the United States out, it was not entirely a defeat for the US.  The war utterly devastated the country.  A million Vietnamese have cancer because of the Agent Orange used in the war and their economy was crushed.  There is no chance that successful independent economic and social development will occur or that Vietnam will provide any kind of inspiration to separate from the empire.  The US succeeded in stopping the threat of a good example by destroying the country.

There are many other examples of US interventions for this reason - in Indonesia, Guatemala, Zaire, Grenada, Laos and other places.  The official version of the "threat of a good example," the version used in public, takes many forms.  Today it is sometimes called "credibility;" in the past it used to be called the domino theory.  The official version of the domino theory portrays the forces seeking independence as aggressors and a victory by them as their first step on the road to conquering the world or a good chunk of it.  If Vietnam is allowed to become independent Ho Chi Min will get on a canoe and invade California.  This is obviously a bunch of nonsense; none of the countries attacked in this way are even remotely capable of attacking the United States.  But by scaring the domestic population into believing there is a threat to them domestic elites can rally them behind the war. The use of the fear of a foreign enemy to control the population is a very old technique, which the United States is only the latest to use.  Portraying one's own aggression as self-defense is also quite old, going back at least as far as the Romans.

The operative meaning of the domino theory (and "credibility"), how it is actually implemented, is not the threat that an independent country will invade the American homeland but that the "good example" might weaken the empire.  From the perspective of the elite the difference isn't that great, both a military threat and the threat of a good example could lead to the loss of parts (or all) of the empire, but from the perspective of the empire's subjects there is a big difference.

Neocolonialism

Economic and military aspects of the empire are linked. As Thomas Friedman, a pro-capitalist pro-interventionist columnist for the New York Times, put it, "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

The economics of the American Empire are mainly based on neocolonialism.  Neocolonialism is a social relation in which an imperialist nation economically exploits subordinate nation(s) that are formally independent.  The subordinate nation is officially independent with its own nation-state but is economically dependent on an imperialist nation which exploits it.  A local elite controls the state but the means of production are still (mostly) controlled by foreign capitalists.  Neocolonialism is a form of economic imperialism; it is different from old-fashioned formal (traditional) colonialism in which the subordinate countries do not have political independence.  Generally neocolonialism means that multinational corporations from the imperialist nation control a substantial portion of the economy of the subordinate nation(s).

An example of neocolonialism is Brazil.  Brazil is very rich in natural resources and has a substantial amount of industrial development; if you go by natural resources it should be one of the richest countries in the world.  In 1964 a US-backed coup overthrew the elected government and installed a military dictatorship.  This dictatorship was sometimes called "Colonial Fascism" because of its combination of extreme repression (including torture and mass murder) with economic dependence on the United States.  Although there were elements of neocolonialism prior to this period they became much larger as a result of the policies implemented by the new regime.  Its policies greatly favored foreign capital, including free export of profits and reduced taxes on the income of foreign firms.

Essentially, they sold off most of the country's economy to foreign companies.  As a result by 1968 foreign companies controlled 62 percent of Brazil's foreign trade, 40 percent of the capital market, 77 percent of overseas air transport, 82 percent of its maritime transport, more than 80 percent of its pharmaceutical industry, 90 percent of its cement industry, 100 percent of its motor vehicle production, and 100 percent of its tire production.  The majority of these foreign companies were American.  These policies simultaneously brought about immense poverty for the majority of Brazilians (Keen/Wasserman, p. 361-375).   This foreign domination of Brazil's economy (and many other countries' economies) continues today and is an example of neocolonialism.

Those countries that practice neocolonialism against other countries are called the core countries; sometimes they are also referred to as the "first world" or the "global north."  Those countries that are victims of neocolonialism, which are subordinated to the core countries, are called the periphery countries or the "third world" or the "global south."  The United States is the main, but not only, country to practice neocolonialism.  Other countries core countries include Western Europe and Japan.  Most of the world is part of the periphery or semi-periphery including all of Africa, all of South America, parts of Oceania, and a large part of Asia.  The "first world" is rich because the "third world" is poor; the core robs the periphery.

Two significant institutions that implement neocolonialism are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).  Both institutions use the large third world debt as a means of control to make periphery countries implement policies favorable to foreign capital.  Third-world governments in the decades after World War Two who borrowed from the World Bank and private investors created this debt.  This money was meant for "development" to build up the country's infrastructure and as a bribe to keep them on the American side in the Cold War.

In many cases these countries at the time were under US-backed dictatorships that were completely unresponsive to their own population.  Brazil borrowed heavily during its period of "Colonial Fascism."  Much of the money loaned was simply stolen by corrupt US-backed dictators.  Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of the Philippines, and his family/friends are estimated to have taken a third of all World Bank loans to his country for his own personal fortune.  There are no records of where 80% of the money loaned to Argentina during its military dictatorship went.  In most cases the individuals who took out these loans are no longer in power and have run off with their fortunes but the people living in these countries, who had little or no say in taking out the loans, are now expected to pay off the debt.

When Richard Nixon ended the gold standard and devalued the dollar this further increased the debt since most of the loans were taken out in US dollars.  The standard justification for charging interest on loans is that the lender takes a risk and the interest is payment for that risk.  There are many problems with this reasoning, the most obvious being that it doesn't apply to real life.  Whenever investors lose large amounts of money the state steps in to rescue them; there is no significant risk.  This happened with the third world debt in the late 70s and 80s when it became obvious that these periphery countries would not be able to pay off their debts and that some very bad investments had been made.  The World Bank stepped in and bought up the portion of the debt owed to private interests.  This debt is so large that it will never be paid off; it is simply a means of controlling the periphery.

When periphery countries are unable to make the payments on their debt they turn to the IMF for help; the IMF offers loans so that they can make their payments.  In exchange the periphery must implement what are called Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which essentially means handing over their economic policy to the control of the IMF.  Both the IMF and World Bank are controlled by "first world" governments, with the US in the dominant role, and so not surprisingly the policies they implement favor those countries.  SAPs mean cutting education, healthcare and other social services, privatization of state assets (which often includes things like water), making it easier for foreign companies to take over the economy and orienting the victim's economy towards exports (usually to "first world" countries), rather than domestic needs.  In many cases countries must charge user fees for things like going to school or basic healthcare.

Officially these SAPs are supposed to help the economy and get the government out of debt, but they never do that in practice.  Virtually every country where they are implemented goes into a depression.  Argentina, which for a time was the IMF's star pupil, has plunged into a deep depression as a result.  Many other countries have had their economies ruined by these policies - Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, and many more.  Debt has only grown.

Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics and former chief economist for the World Bank, wrote, "a student who turned in the IMF's answer to the test question 'What should be the fiscal stance of Thailand, facing an economic downturn?' would have gotten an F. ... Not only was the IMF not restoring economic confidence in East Asia, it was undermining the region's social fabric. ... All the IMF did was make East Asia's recessions deeper, longer, and harder. Indeed, Thailand, which followed the IMF's prescriptions the most closely, has performed worse than Malaysia and South Korea, which followed more independent courses." (Stiglitz, "What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis")  These policies may ruin the economies of countries on the periphery, but they enrich the owners of "first world" multi-national corporations and, to a lesser extent, "third world" elites.

What is called "free trade" is also a form of neocolonialism.  Imperialist nations implement so-called "free trade" policies so as to open up the economies of periphery countries to exploitation by companies from the core countries.  Multinational corporations can then invest and sell their products in periphery countries, enabling them to run less developed periphery companies out of business and dominate their economy.  Those industries from powerful nations that can't compete with weaker nations' industries are protected by the state so as to ensure that they can out-compete "third world" industries.  For example, when the US steel industry faced troubles in 2002 the Bush administration (a big proponent of free trade) implemented tariffs so as to protect US industries.  Free trade prevents periphery countries from doing the same thing to protect their industries.  The only areas of the economy that are liberalized are those in which the dominant countries can out compete their opponents; in other areas state protection reigns.

American industries which are the most competitive internationally are also highly subsidized - biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness, high-tech industry, etc.  These subsidized industries are then able to out-compete unsubsidized competitors in the periphery.  For historical reasons, in the US this subsidy is done largely through the military.  The state pays for research & development and if the results of that research (such as the internet) prove profitable the private sector takes it over and reaps the profit.  The public pays the cost, a small group of capitalists reap the benefits.  Free trade means state protection and subsidies for the rich & powerful but market discipline for everyone else.

Countries on the periphery often go along with these neocolonial policies because the domestic "third world" elites that control the government profit from them.  Neocolonial policies hurt most people in the periphery, but not all people.  These "third world" elites act as collaborators, helping "first world" countries exploit the population and make their own personal fortunes while doing so.  Ferdinand Marcos made billions as a result of his collaboration with neocolonialism.  In addition, the United States uses various mechanisms of control to ensure that periphery elites do not stray too far from the neocolonial path and the ensure that elites who will go along with neocolonial policies are in power.

Mechanisms of Control

The United States has established client states throughout the world.  A client state is a government that is dominated by another (imperialist) government; it is controlled by a foreign state.  It is dependent on the economic or military support of a more powerful country.  Other names for client states include satellite state, puppet government, and vassal state.  The degree to which the imperialist government controls the client state obviously varies quite a bit.

In some cases the client state is completely controlled by the imperialist state, in others it has a considerable degree of independence.  The fact that Poland and Romania didn't always go along with absolutely everything Moscow wanted doesn't change the fact that they were Soviet client states; the same is true of American client states.  There are also a variety of different ways that can be used to insure that client states are obedient.

As with imperialism in general, the use of client states is not something the American empire invented.  The system of client states most familiar to the majority of Americans was the system used by the Soviet empire to maintain control over Eastern Europe and a few other countries.  This is not a new phenomenon.  Nazi Germany set up several client states during World War Two and the Roman Empire relied extensively on client states.  Napoleon also set up client states in Europe; he set one up in Spain when he invaded the country, deposed the king, and made his brother the new king.  The United States has done the same thing around the world.

The United States uses many different means to maintain control of its client states and dominate the globe.  This includes military force, proxy militaries, enforcer states, CIA terrorism, foreign aid, coups, sanctions and subverting elections:

Military Intervention The military has been the backbone of empires ever since they were first formed many millennia ago.  It is the spear of imperialism.  If an imperialist state's military is strong enough it can simply force its will upon any weaker country.  This is true of the American Empire as well as past empires.  After the second world war the United States declared itself the "global policeman," willing to use military force anywhere in the globe should its interests require it.

After the defeat in Vietnam the empire changed so as to rely less on the US military.  As a result of that defeat military planners had to deal with what they called the "Vietnam syndrome."  Unrest in the homeland would rise quite rapidly in any lengthy military intervention, especially if it resulted in the loss of significant amounts of American lives.  In response, military strategy has been altered.  When US military intervention is used they send in an overwhelming amount of force to insure that they rapidly and decisively defeat their enemy with few casualties on the American side.  In addition the US relies extensively on air power because doing so minimizes US casualties and allows the US to attack an enemy for long periods of time without suffering significant losses.  This insures that a large anti-war movement cannot develop and interfere with the operations of the empire.  If the military does not believe it can rapidly and decisively defeat their opponent with few casualties then some other mechanism of control is usually used.

Proxy Forces Often when military force is needed the United States will use proxy forces instead of its own military.  This involves supporting and funding armed groups that attack whatever enemy the empire has targeted.  These proxies can be rebel armies, terrorist networks, paid mercenaries, other nation-states or any other armed organization.  In addition to funding such groups the US often provides other forms of assistance such as military advisors to help plan strategy, CIA assistance, aerial attacks on enemy targets, and intelligence sharing.  Examples of the use of proxy forces by the empire include the use of the contras against Nicaragua, the Islamic Fundamentalists during the 80s and late 70s against the Soviet's Afghan puppet government, UNITA against Angola, and Iraq against Iran (during the Iran-Iraq war). Proxy forces are often used in situations where combat will be long and bloody or greatly stress the resources of the empire.  Because of the "Vietnam syndrome" the US military cannot be used in these situations so proxy forces are used instead.

Sometimes proxy forces are combined with the US military. One common strategy is to use the US air force to pulverize the target country while a proxy army takes over the ground.  Using only the air force makes large casualties much less likely, thereby avoiding the "Vietnam syndrome."  This was used during the war with Yugoslavia when the US used the Kosovo Liberation Army as a proxy ground force while simultaneously bombing Yugoslavia.  Another example of this was during the war in Afghanistan with the Taliban.  The US air force bombed the Taliban while a proxy army, the Northern Alliance, did the bulk of the ground fighting.  Once the Taliban's back had been broken the US army helped clean up the remaining Taliban forces.  In other cases proxy forces are used to assist full-fledged military intervention as was done in Vietnam, the Iraq war, and elsewhere.

Enforcer States The US sometimes uses one client state to control other client states. It acts as a regional enforcer to keep the other countries in line.  Often this means acting as a proxy force to beat on disobedient countries.  Sometimes these client states will have there own client states and practice neocolonialism in them.  In addition to non-US "first-world" countries, there is a semi-periphery of states that exists between the periphery and the core that is subordinated to the core and part of the "third world" but also acts as enforcer states and exploits other "third world" countries.  The semi-periphery is the better off section of the "third world;" they are economically more dominant and regionally more powerful as compared to other "third world" countries.  They act so as to keep other periphery countries in line and to maintain the empire.  Enforcer states include Britain, France, South Africa, Iran under the Shah, Australia, and Israel.

The CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a key component in the American Empire.  Generally, the CIA attempts to put into power and keep in power groups who will go along with US neocolonial policies and overthrow those who will not.  In addition to gathering information, the CIA also conducts various covert activities designed to defend and expand the empire including assassinations, inciting unrest, torture, raising private armies, coup d'etats, rigging elections, and assorted other terrorist activities.

The CIA has assassinated and attempted to assassinate numerous government officials and opponents of the empire.  Often this is done through a proxy; they hire someone to do it for them.  The agency has attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro over two dozen times.  While Allende was in office in Chile they carried out assassinations of government officials, including General Rene Schneider, in the hopes of getting anti-Allende people who would carry out a coup into higher positions in the military.  One of the worst terrorist attacks in Middle Eastern history was a car bomb detonated in Lebanon by CIA proxies.  The CIA is the largest terrorist organization on the planet.

Foreign Aid Foreign aid is essentially a bribe to keep the countries receiving it in line.  If they get too far out of line foreign aid is reduced or cut off entirely.  In addition foreign aid can also be given to help a country do something that helps US imperial interests, such as attacking one of America's enemies or suppressing rebellions by groups that threaten corporate profits.  That aid can help them achieve whatever goal they had, which can help the empire.

This money is frequently used to buy weapons from US arms manufacturers and therefore, in addition to making other countries dependent on the US, subsidizes US arms manufacturers.  Military aid can also help the US control other countries and implement neocolonialism by establishing links with other countries' militaries.  If you can get the military on your side they may overthrow the government for you.  That's why the US sometimes sells weapons and military aid to countries which are otherwise hostile (such as Iran or Chile under Allende).

Coup D'etats A coup is the overthrow of the government by people in a position of authority, usually by military officers.  The United States has supported, instigated and directly organized many coups against governments with policies it did not like; the CIA has often played a key role in these coups.

Guatemala is a well documented example.  In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala by a landslide in a free election.  He said his goal was, "to convert Guatemala from a dependant nation with a semi-colonial economy to an economically independent country; second, to transform our nation from a backward nation with a predominantly feudal economy to a modern capitalist country; and third, to accomplish this transformation in a manner that brings the greatest possible elevation of the living standard of the great masses of the people." (quoted on Keen/Wasserman, p. 439)  This goal conflicted with the US-based United Fruit Company, which dominated Guatemala's economy.  The various social reforms Arbenz implemented, especially his agrarian reform, threatened their profits.  In addition, Guatemala could potentially threaten to serve as a good example towards those seeking independence.  As one state department official noted, "Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability of Honduras and El Salvador.  Its agrarian reform is a powerful propaganda weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign enterprises has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors where similar conditions prevail." (quoted in Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, p. 25)

So the CIA decided to overthrow this capitalist democracy.  The CIA hired 300 mercenaries and flew in unmarked planes to overthrow the government with the help of reactionary sections of the Guatemalan military.  Arbenz was forced out of power and a military dictatorship initially led by Castillo Armas was installed.  The dictatorship immediately launched a reign of terror against opponents of the regime, killing around 100,000 people over the next 40 years.  Arbenz's reforms were undone and neocolonial policies favoring the oligarchy and foreign companies (like the United Fruit Company) implemented.

Sanctions Placing embargos and sanctions on disobedient countries can be an effective means of punishing them for their disobedience.  Sanctions can often ruin, or at least hurt, the economy of whichever country they are directed at.  This can prove very effective in neutralizing the threat of a good example; if their economy is ruined they will not be providing a very good example of independent development to anyone.  This has been used effectively against Cuba to harm their economy so that they provide less of a good example (although it's probably not as harmful as many of Castro's supporters make it out to be).  Sanctions were also placed on Nicaragua during the period of Sandinista rule for similar reasons.  When Allende was in power the US placed sanctions on Chile to "make the economy scream" (in Nixon's words), which played a significant role in undermining Allende's rule.

Usually sanctions are used in combination with some other mechanism of control.  A country under sanctions for a long enough period of time will see its economy weaken and thus be much easier to attack either with the US military, proxy forces, or through CIA terrorism and coups.  The conquest of Iraq in 2003 by the US military was made much easier by the preceding 12 years of sanctions and semi-regular bombing, which weakened their military and infrastructure.

Subverting Elections Another means of controlling other countries is through subverted elections.  If the US can insure that the section of the elite who will implement the policies the US wants wins the elections then it will help the US maintain control over that country.  The US manipulates other country’s elections by funding pro-American groups, spreading propaganda denouncing whichever group(s) the US is opposed to, and sometimes using violence against those groups.  In the past the CIA has spearheaded these efforts but today the National Endowment for Democracy has taken over that role.  In addition the US sometimes threatens to cut off aid or use force against the country if the voters vote the wrong way, effectively putting a gun to their head.  Subverting elections only works if the military & state bureaucracy already has some degree of loyalty to the empire, otherwise they can overthrow the US-backed candidate should s/he win the election.  Subverting elections is preferable to the empire than overthrowing an elected government because it is less risky but such an overthrow will be attempted if the elections go the wrong way.

The very first National Security Council Memorandum authorized subverting Italy’s elections in 1948.  The CIA feared the victory of leftists in the election instead of the candidates Washington favored (mostly leftover brown shirt thugs from Mussolini's days) and so spent millions of dollars on propaganda and payoffs to ensure Washington's candidates won.  Just in case it didn't work, they also organized a secret paramilitary army with hidden stockpiles of weapons and explosives that would overthrow the government, with the help of the US military, if the wrong people won the election.  Washington's candidates won - they successfully subverted the election - and the use of their secret army proved unnecessary.

The Homeland

This is the heart of the empire - all 50 states ruled by a federal government.  It is obviously one of the most important parts of the empire.  The headquarters of the government and most of the various agencies that enforce the rule of the empire is located here.  The US military is recruited from the homeland and a significant amount of production is done in the homeland.  There are also many natural resources here.  The US elite rules directly, rather then through a client state as in most countries.  Most of the homeland was originally conquered and the native inhabitants largely exterminated.

In the homeland there exists what President Eisenhower called the "military industrial complex," which provides another impetus towards militarism and imperialism.  There are many government bureaucracies who gain greater budgets and power from militaristic policies, such as the Pentagon and CIA.  There are also many corporations who make a considerable amount of money by manufacturing weapons and other equipment for the military and intelligence services.  Both have a vested interest in maintaining a large military budget and have significant power in the United States, which creates powerful pressure in favor of militarism and imperialism.  The main driving forces behind American imperialism are neocolonialism, domination, and the military-industrial complex.  Of these, the military industrial complex is the least important.  American imperialism predates it by at least a century, but it can influence the forms imperialism takes.

In the homeland the empire maintains control of the population through several means and in ways different from most other parts of the empire.  As in all parts of the empire there is a fair amount of force used.  The US homeland has more people in prison, measured both as a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers, then any other country on Earth.  The FBI and other armed agencies also use force to insure that dissent and resistance do not get out of hand (COINTELPRO is a classic example of this kind of repression).

Despite the use of force to occasionally suppress dissent, the regime does not rule the homeland with the same amount of force used in the periphery.  Control of the homeland relies extensively on ideological means of control.  The average American is taught a series of myths and propaganda designed to justify US foreign policy and state-capitalism in general.  From 1945 until the late 80s the Cold War served as the primary myth around which the justification for US foreign policy was made.  In reality, the Cold War was essentially a three-sided conflict.  The American empire fought the Soviet empire and both of them also fought against the "third world."  The Soviet and American empires not only fought each other but the peoples they subjugated to their empires.

Each empire used the other side's (usually real) atrocities to justify its own atrocities, using fear of the official enemy to control their domestic populations.  In the Soviet Union dissidents were demonized as "anti-Soviet" and supporters of the American empire, regardless of their actual political views.  The was also done in the United States, where dissidents were also demonized as "anti-American" and accused of being supporters of the rival empire.  Criticisms of the American empire are dismissed with meaningless catch phrases like "support our troops" or accusations of "anti-Americanism" or "blaming America first."  These kinds of labels are just a way of dismissing an argument without thinking about it or refuting it.

In practice anyone who believed that the government has direct responsibility for the welfare of the people it rules was labeled "communist" by the US during the Cold War.  Virtually anyone the US government (and by extension the media) didn't like was labeled "communist" and then considered legitimate prey.  This was true even in cases where the victims explicitly opposed communism - as was the case with the US overthrow of the capitalist democracy in Guatemala.  As Guatemalan Foreign Minister Toriello said shortly before the 1954 CIA coup, US policy amounted to:

cataloguing as `Communism' every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence, any desire for social progress, any intellectual curiosity, and any interest in progressive or liberal reforms... any Latin American government that exerts itself to bring about a truly national program which affects the interests of the powerful foreign companies, in whose hands the wealth and the basic resources in large part repose in Latin America, will be pointed out as Communist; it will be accused of being a threat to continental security and making a breach in continental solidarity, and so will be threatened with foreign intervention.

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War forced the empire to change its ideology.  In order for the military-industrial complex to justify itself, and to manufacture support for the military interventions necessary to maintain the empire, some new pretext was needed to justify US foreign policy.  Instead of constantly scarring people with the threat of communism they had to find some other boogey man.

Starting in the 1980s, an endless stream of boogeymen were used to frighten the public and thereby justify US foreign policy.  Every couple of years a new "Hitler" is discovered and used to frighten the public into submission.  There's been Gadaffi, Noreiga, Milosevic, Khomeini, Hussein, and numerous other petty thugs that have been demonized so as to control the public.  Demonizing them is usually helped by the fact that they often are nasty characters, but none of them are the kind of threat to the American people they're made out to be.  The military-industrial complex needs to have a constant stream of enemies in order to justify its existence and so any thug (no matter how minor) can be singled out as the "next Hitler."

In addition to this constant stream of "Hitlers" the empire used other pretexts to justify US militarism.  They tried the "war on drugs" for a while, using it as justifications for interventions in Panama and Columbia.  They also toyed with using "human rights" as a justification for imperialist adventures (as was done in Yugoslavia), which is pretty contradictory considering that dropping bombs on people makes their human rights a moot point.

On September 11th, 2001 a new overarching pretext to replace the Cold War was created.  Another "war on terrorism" was declared (the first "war on terrorism" was declared under Reagan and forgotten by the time Clinton was in office).  Virtually all intervention in other countries affairs is now justified as an attempt to fight "terrorism."  Any country the US doesn't like is accused of sponsoring terrorism and having links to Al-Qaeda, even in cases where the country is openly hostile to Al-Qeada, such as Iraq and Iran.  This was used as justification for the US conquest of Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Iraq to Al-Qaeda.

The pretext for the invasion of Iraq shows how extremely effective the American system of thought control is.  By the time the US invaded Iraq 42% of Americans believed that Iraq did 9-11, and the majority believed that Iraq was supporting Al-Qaeda.  Most Americans were fooled into thinking Iraq was a threat to them, even though its military wasn't even capable of reaching the Western Hemisphere.  The United States is actually one of the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world.  Its goal is not to stop terrorism; "terrorism" is just a pretext to justify US imperialism.

Latin America

Like the rest of the "third world" Latin America serves primarily as a source of raw material and cheap labor.  Client states in this region are expected to keep labor week and markets open to US corporations.  This was the first area outside of the homeland to come under US control.  The US has been pursuing imperialist aims in Latin America since the first part of the 19th century.  The northern third of Mexico was conquered in the 1840s and made a part of the homeland.  By the 1940s Mexico had evolved into a US client state due to a combination of repeated US military interventions and the Mexican elite deciding it was in their best interests to be a US client.

Most expansion into Latin America occurred during the late 19th and early 20th century.  The US had to defeat not only native resistance but also European imperialists who were attempting to control this area, included Spain and the British.  Competition between imperialist powers lead to the Spanish-American war in 1898. The US defeated the Spanish empire and took over most of its territory in the Western Hemisphere, including Puerto Rico, where the US continues to practice formal (old-fashioned) colonialism to this day.  Cuba was also taken from the Spanish, where the US imposed one of its first client states.  Other empires were eventually muscled out and the entire region came under the control of the United States.  In the process of taking over the region the US military directly occupied many countries, included the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), Cuba (1898-1902), Haiti (1915-1934), and Nicaragua (1912-1925 and 1926-1933).

Starting in the mid-19th century the US military repeatedly intervened in Columbia and what would later become Panama in order to protect US investments.  In 1903 the US backed an uprising in Panama (which had previously been part of Columbia), that established a US puppet government.  To ensure US control of the country the US military occupied Panama from 1903-1914.  The purpose of this intervention was to build a canal, under US control, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  The US has repeatedly used military force in Panama to insure that the US continues to control the country; the most recent invasion was in 1989.

The pretext used to justify the 1989 invasion was that its ruler, Manuel Noriega, was an evil dictator involved in drug smuggling and other nefarious deeds (the Cold War was ending so they couldn't just call him a Communist).  It's true that Noriega was an oppressive dictator involved in numerous nefarious activities, but he was doing all of those things from the time he came to power (1983) until the US invasion deposed him. Noriega had been on the CIA payroll since at least the 1970s; he was involved in drug trafficking by at least 1972 (possibly earlier). During this time the US government supported him and they raised no complaints about him. At the same time they deposed him in 1989 they were backing many other dictators, like Saddam Hussein, who were just as bad.

Noriega was initially the US’s puppet dictator; the real reason for the invasion was that Noriega was becoming too independent and the US needed a reliable client to control the Panama Canal.  So the US invaded, killing thousands (many of them innocent civilians who hated Noriega) and imposed a subservient white oligarchy.  Both Washington and the US media pointed out his many horrible atrocities when he was a US enemy, yet when he was following US orders both the government and media were silent about his atrocities.  Tyrants go from admirable friends to "villainous scum" when they cross the line and become too independent.

In 1958 the US client state in Cuba was overthrown by a nationalist revolution and, shortly afterwards, a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship under Fidel Castro implemented.  The US reacted negatively and attempted to crush the revolution.  A failed invasion, the Bay of Pigs, by US proxies was launched in the hopes of toppling Castro.  They also used sanctions, assassinations, and other terrorist acts to attempt to destroy the revolution.  The purpose of this was partly to defend US investments in the island but also to stop the threat of a good example.  If Cuba could actually improve the lives of the people living there it would inspire rebellions throughout Latin America - not something the US wanted.  The sanctions and other US attacks on Cuba have partially succeeded in damaging Cuba enough to reduce how much rebellion it could inspire, but not entirely.  Many quality of life statistics show Cuba is doing slightly better then most of its neighbors and they would probably be higher without US sanctions and hostility.  It shows how much of a hell the US has made the rest of Latin America that a police state like Cuba could actually do better.

Many Leninist guerilla wars in Latin America, attempting to imitate the Cuban revolution, were formed as a result of its inspiration.  The US succeeded in destroying all but one of these movements.  The last guerillas inspired by the Cuban revolution are in Colombia where they have been fighting a civil war with the domestic oligarchy (another US client state) for decades.  The US has helped the local oligarchy fight the guerillas by providing them with money and arms, and have also used the CIA, air force, and special forces units against the guerillas.  Originally the pretext for this intervention was the Cold War and the fight against Communism.  After the Cold War ended their pretext changed so that now it was part of the war on drugs (both sides are involved in narcotics trafficking).  After 9-11 the pretext changed again, now it's part of the "war on terrorism" (both sides have committed terrorist acts).  The actual reason for the intervention is to prevent the threat of a good example and to maintain control of Colombia's oil.

During the 1960s and 70s the US imposed a series of military dictatorships on much of South America.  Sometimes the CIA directly organized the coups that brought them to power, other times they were less direct (though still backed by the US).  South America had seen military dictatorships before but these were exceptionally brutal.  The military Junta in Argentina slaughtered thousands of dissidents in its "dirty war" with implicit US approval.

The primary reason the US sponsored these national security states was to crush popular reform movements against neocolonialism that were becoming powerful.  Most of these movements were not Communist/Leninist, but they had to be smashed because they threatened US investments and domination of the region.  Most reformist wanted either some form of democratic socialism or a reformed capitalism independent of foreign powers.  They were all labeled Communist by Washington, because this happened during the Cold War when almost all enemies were labeled Communist.  These dictatorships often increased the popularity of the Leninist guerilla movements, at least in the short term, because the reform movements were destroyed and violent revolution appeared to be the only way to change things.

Eventually both the reform movements and the guerillas were destroyed.  US control and neocolonialism was kept firmly in place.  Once the movements opposing the US were smashed the US allowed the military dictatorships to fall so long as the new civilian-run government was also a US client state.

Many of these dictators and their henchmen were trained in the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly known as the School of the Americas), a terrorist training camp currently located in Georgia.  Whisc graduates have led terrorist operations, military coups, and massacres of thousands of people.  Graduates are responsible for the Uraba massacre in Colombia, the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador, the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit massacre in El Salvador, the La Cantuta massacre in Peru, the torture and murder of a UN worker in Chile, and hundreds of other terrorist actions designed to maintain US power in Latin America.

East Asia

The first territory the American empire acquired in East Asia was the Philippines.  This group of islands was conquered from the Spanish empire in 1898 and made a colonial possession.  No client state was set up; formal colonialism was practiced instead.   The inhabitants wanted to be independent, not go from being oppressed by the Spanish to being oppressed by the Americans.  They rebelled against American rule as guerilla fighters attempted to drive the US from their country.  The US responded by setting up concentration camps and slaughtering thousands of people, which eventually succeeded in defeating the rebels.  After World War two the United States suppressed another nationalist guerilla war (this one got its start as a rebellion against the Japanese, who had conquered the islands during the world war) and then set up a client state.  The islands have been ruled by a series of US client states ever since.

US control over East Asia expanded greatly as a result of World War Two and the resulting destruction of the Japanese empire.  Most of what used to be the Japanese empire came under US control.  Japan is a de-facto one-party state; the Liberal Democratic Party has held power almost continuously since 1955, except for a brief period from 1993 to 1994.  There's a lot of propaganda about how the fact that Japan again became an industrial power after WW2 proves how honorable and great America's rulers are (building up their own enemies etc.).  The truth is that there were basically two choices: keep out of the area and let Japan and the rest of Asia follow their own course or rebuild Japan's empire under American control.  The former was obviously out of the question so the later was pursued.  The basic economic patterns in the area remained mostly the same (with some modifications) as they were under the Japanese empire.

Japan is at the center of a regional economic bloc, what used to be called the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" before the Americans took it over, with their former colonies on the periphery.  Japan practices neocolonialism against other countries and, although subordinated to the US, is part of the core nations.  The US has no problem with Japan exploiting other countries, so long as it is done under their overarching control.

When the Japanese empire fell Korea briefly became independent.  In many places factories & land were taken over by workers & peasants and libertarian socialism implemented.  In Seoul a provisional independent government was set up, although it was quite weak (much of the country was in near-anarchy).  The American and Soviet empires shut this down and divided the country between them.  The Soviets set up a client state in the North (which has now become independent) and the US set up a client state in the south.

Japan and South Korea serve as important weapons producers.  In the period immediately after the defeat of Japan few in the US considered Japan a possible competitor in the foreseeable future.  Its recovery was due primarily to the production and sale of weapons for use by the American empire in the Korean and Vietnamese war.  South Korea's economic development was also fueled by weapons production. Additionally, there are many US forces stationed in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan because they are near independent states and these forces help the US control the region.

Southwest Asia / Middle East

The primary function of Southwest Asia, which has more oil then any other part of the world is, to provide oil for the empire.  Oil is important not only as fuel but also because of its use as an energy source, in food production (petrochemicals), and in construction (plastic).  The US seeks to dominate the world's oil for several reasons.  The first is normal neocolonialism.  The US wants to insure that its companies are the ones making the profits from pumping, shipping and selling the oil; this is true of most valuable resources.  The second is that most of the world's economy, especially the industrialized countries, is dependent on oil to fuel their economy.  By controlling the oil supply the US puts itself in a position of great power.  Should Japan or Europe experience a Communist revolution, or otherwise get too far out of line, the US could cut off their oil and ruin their economy.

After World War One West European empires, mainly Britain, took over the Middle East.  Britain decided to maintain control of the Middle East by setting up a system of satellite states subordinate to their empire; they created most most of the present borders and governments in the region.  The British installed puppet monarchies that were extremely repressive towards their own people, destroying resistance to British rule but causing the population to hate the monarchies.  As a result the monarchies became dependent on the British for weapons and support, without which they would be overthrown, insuring the British could continue to control them.

After World War Two the British Empire declined and the US inherited its system of client states in the region.  Many monarchies turned to the US for support in order to maintain their own position, becoming new US client states, including Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.  The US modified the system the British had established to add another layer of "enforcer client states" between the US and the other states.  The US has used Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Iraq as enforcer states at one time or another.

In the 1940s the US offered the Saudi monarchy protection in exchange for control of its oil, making it one of the first monarchies to become a US client state.  The US has trained its military and police forces and also helped repress revolts against the monarchy.  As a result many opponents of the monarchy have a launched terrorist attacks against the United States, who they blame for backing a corrupt dictatorship.  The majority of people who allegedly committed 9-11 were from Saudi Arabia, as is Bin Laden.

In some places the monarchies the British installed were overthrown, including Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere.  The US attempted to combat these revolts and to install new client states in places where the old ones were overthrown.  The British often helped, hoping to maintain what they can of their fallen empire.  In Egypt, now the second largest recipient of US foreign aid, the US was eventually successful in reinstalling a new client state.

In 1953 another of the CIA's infamous coups ousted the parliamentary democracy in Iran, which had committed the sin of nationalizing Iran’s oil, and reinstated a puppet monarchy, the Shah.  The Shah slaughtered dissidents inside Iran and acted as an enforcer state by attacking other countries in the region that disobeyed the United States.  The Shah was overthrown by a revolution in 1979 and an independent theocratic republic was established.  The US responded by supporting an invasion of Iran by Iraq, which was then ruled by Saddam Hussein.  The US sold Iraq many weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, and intervened militarily to try to give Iraq the upper hand.  After eight bloody years the war came to an end in a stalemate but the US continued to support Saddam after the war was over.

In 1990 there was a border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq over an oil field, leading Saddam to conquer Kuwait.  The US government has no real objection to invading other countries, so long as it's done on their terms and for their benefit.  They have invaded many countries and also supported many other invasions (US in Panama, Indonesia in East Timor, Israel in Lebanon, etc.).  However, if the US intends to maintain its authority (or "credibility" as it is often called) the US cannot just allow countries to disobey it.  Iraq was becoming a major regional power, was never as obedient as the US would like, and had it been allowed to continue on the same course might have become a threat to US domination of the region.  As such the US launched a massive military attack on Iraq, quickly driving them from Kuwait while devastating their military and infrastructure.  The First Gulf war was waged to put the king / dictator of Kuwait (a US client state) back in power.  The US laid siege to Iraq for the next twelve years with sanctions and bombings.  In 2003, after Iraq was effectively crippled by a decade of siege and sanctions, the US invaded and occupied the country.

Israel is one of the main enforcer states in the Middle East and essentially an outpost of the American empire.  Israel has helped the empire by defeating radical nationalists in Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine itself.  It has attacked US enemies like Syria, which is currently independent but used to be a Soviet client state.  Israel also serves as a conduit through which the US can support unpopular groups (like the Contras and apartheid South Africa) covertly.

Israel receives more foreign aid from the US then any other country.  Most of its aid is used to buy weapons from US corporations that are then used to kill Israel's enemies, which are mostly US enemies too.  Funding to Israel started climbing in 1967 in the wake of the Six Days War in which Israel defeated Syria and Egypt, both enemies of the US at the time (this was before Egypt evolved into a US client state), and occupied parts of their territory.  The US started funding Israel because it was beating on US enemies and had proven itself capable of defeating them.  Funding went up again after the Shah fell when the US transferred Iran's role as enforcer to Israel.

Europe

Most of Western Europe became part of the American empire as a result of World War Two.  The German empire was defeated and its territory divided between the American and Soviet empires, which both set up client states.  The US suppressed anti-fascist groups which opposed being subordinated to the US and put people in power who would go along with US designs.  In some cases they manipulated elections to insure that their candidates won.  In Belgium, France, West Germany and other countries the US established secret paramilitary armies just in case the wrong people managed to come to power.  In some cases former SS officers and Nazi officials who had cut a deal with the US at the end of the war organized them.

There were many Nazi officials who had agreed to help the United States at the end of the war in exchange for escaping war crimes trials (others were put on trial in Nuremberg).  One of them was General Reinhard Gehlen, who was Hitler's intelligence chief on the Eastern Front.  He traded the Nazi's intelligence files on East Europe to the United States and helped America establish a spy network that later evolved into West Germany's intelligence service.  The US also gave supplies to remnants of Nazi armies operating in the Soviet empire and employed many other Nazi war criminals to help establish US rule.  These war criminals included SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny, Claus Barbie ("the butcher of Lyon"), Colonel Walter Rauff, and Otto von Bolschwing.  Some of these war criminals were later used in Latin America to help US-backed military dictatorships. (Blum, p. 34-39, 55-64, 104-108; Zepezaur, p. 6-9; Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, p. 8-9; Chomsky, Secrets, lies and Democracy p. 87-91; Alvarez, New York Post, 9/24/00; Simpson, Blowback; Silverstein, "Our Nazi Allies")

Western Europe serves as both an an industrial production center, consumption center and a means of keeping the rest of the world under control.  After World War Two the US instituted the Marshall Plan to rebuild the state-capitalist economies of the European territories they had recently taken over.  The Plan was a giant subsidy for US corporations since all of it had to be spent on US exports.  If US companies want to make money they need a place to sell their goods; the Marshall plan ensured that US exporters would have a place to sell them.  Europe and the rest of the "first world" is where they sell those goods - made largely from "third world" resources.  The Marshall plan also helped enhance US control over the region by making Communist revolution less likely (the bad economy made people more likely to turn to socialism and to want to overthrow the old system) and by transferring Europe away from coal to oil as their primary energy source.

Most west European states are also enforcer states that practice neocolonialism in other parts of the world.  Often they do this in areas that used to be a part of their formal colonial empires, such as Africa and the Middle East.  As the European empires collapsed after World War Two the US attempted to take these regions over and was often (but not always) successful.  The former colonial powers are sometimes used as "attack dogs" to help the US keep control of their former empire; in exchange they get a higher position in the hierarchy of the American empire.

Britain is one of America’s main enforcer states.  As a result of World War Two the British Empire declined and was unable to maintain control of areas within its influence.  Greece after World War Two fell into a civil war between the British client state (run by former fascist collaborators) and Marxist rebels.  The British were unable to maintain control of the country and invited the Americans to moved.  The US helped the Greek government slaughter tens of thousands of people, set up "re-education camps," break labor unions, and torture dissidents.  MI6 assisted with the CIA coup in Iran (MI6 is Britain's version of the CIA). That coup also had the effect of transferring 40% of Iran's oil fields from Britain to the US.  Britain got to keep a portion of her imperial power in exchange for helping the US take over the declining British Empire.  Britain thus gradually went from being an independent empire to being America's attack dog, the top enforcer state.  Similar processes happened with many other west European states, although not always to the same extent.

After the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991 the US began taking over Eastern Europe, which had formerly been subordinated to the Soviet Union.  Former Soviet satellite states are in the process of becoming American satellite states subordinated to both the US and Western Europe.  The empire is opening up their economies to neocolonialism and integrating them into Western international structures like NATO and the EU.  In some cases intervention has been unnecessary; the local elites joined the empire without much of a fuss.  Sometimes joining the empire can benefit elites, although it doesn't do much for ordinary people.

In some cases the elites did not go along and various mechanisms of control were used to attempt to bring them within the empire.  Belarus continues to refuse to open its economy up to neocolonialism and so the US funded pro-western opposition groups during the 2001 election in hopes of subverting the election.  This did not work; Washington's candidates did not win.  There have also been attempts to subvert the elections of other east European countries.

Yugoslavia was also reluctant to join the empire, so the US & Western Europe partitioned it into several small puppet governments.  They played different ethnic groups within Yugoslavia against each other (the Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, etc.), which created a series of civil wars and genocide that tore Yugoslavia apart.  The US even shipped Islamist terrorists from Afghanistan into Bosnia (Aldrich, Guardian, 4/22/02), which further destabilized the country.

One of the last stages in this process was the war over Kosovo, a province in what was Yugoslavia.  The CIA funded a terrorist group called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to attack Yugoslav targets in the name of an independent Kosovo.  The Yugoslav government responded with a crack down that the US called "ethnic cleansing" and used as an excuse to bomb Yugoslavia.  This "ethnic cleansing" was just another pretext; the US was simultaneous funding ethnic cleansing by Turkey against the Kurds.  The bombing of Yugoslavia killed more people then the so-called "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo.  Yugoslavia was devastated and forced to accept NATO occupation.  Not long afterwards the Yugoslav government was overthrown and groups funded by the US & West Europe came to power.  What was left of Yugoslavia was dissolved.

US control over Europe is not as tight as it used to be.  Partly this is due to the fact that they no longer rely on the US but also because they are becoming an economic power as big as the United States.  This is a part of the "trilateralization" of the global economy and the emergence of a global ruling class.

Africa

Like the rest of the "third world" Africa is primarily a source of natural resources and cheap labor.  It is not as important to the US as some other areas of the world and control over the region is often relatively light and left to west European enforcer states.

As elsewhere, the US has imposed many puppet dictatorships when necessary.  In 1960 Congo gained its independence from Belgium and Patrice Lumumba became its first prime minister.  He was an African nationalist who opposed neocolonialism and refused to take sides in the cold war, preferring to build a strong Congo independent of the empires.  This was obviously unacceptable to the US, so the CIA organized a coup, killed Lumumba, and installed Mobutu See Seko as their puppet dictator.  Mobutu changed the name of the country to Zaire.

In the 1990s Laurence Kabila led a rebellion that unseated Mobutu just before he died of cancer and installed himself as the new dictator.  He changed the name again, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Initially it looked like Kabila was going to go along with the US and defend neocolonial interests but he eventually decided against it so the US backed a rebellion and invasion by several other countries, which turned into a large regional war that killed thousands of people and Kabila himself.

In 1965 Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana, published a book titled Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism which claimed that, despite official decolonization, old colonial powers were still dominating the "third world" through less formal means.  He said the CIA was behind many of Africa's problems and that:

In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we have today neocolonialism.  The essence of neocolonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside. ... in an extreme case the troops of the. imperial power may garrison the territory of the neo-colonial State and control the government of it. More often, however, neo-colonialist control is exercised through economic or monetary means. The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power. ... The result of new-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor countries of the world.

Four months after publishing this book Nkrumah was overthrown by a CIA coup.

The US has repeatedly used South Africa as an enforcer state against other states that get out of line.  That was especially the case when it was under apartheid.  One example of this use was the war in Angola, which was a battle ground between Soviet-backed and American-backed forces.  The US backed the terrorist organization UNITA and also backed an invasion of Angola by South Africa.  These interventions by competing empires brought about a civil war that only recently ended, and ruined Angola.

Oceania

Australia (and New Zealand) serve functions similar to Western Europe and Japan.  The rest of Oceania is part of the periphery and serves the same function as the rest of the "third world" - a source of cheap labor and raw materials.  Australia acts as the junior partner of US Imperialism in the region, as its "regional lieutenant."  Australia has sent troops to defend imperial interests in Vietnam and elsewhere.  They also practice neocolonialism in many surrounding countries.  Australia has been doing this as a de-facto US client state since the 1950s.

In 1972 Gough Whitlam, leader of the Australian Labor party, was elected prime minister of Australia.  He implemented a number of social reforms and changed Australian foreign policy so as not to serve the American empire.  He withdrew Australian troops from Vietnam and refused to go along with several CIA operations.  His insubordination was unacceptable to the US so the CIA, allied with domestic opposition groups, launched a campaign to sabotage his regime and throw it into crisis.  They successfully pressured Governor-General John Kerr to launch a "constitutional coup" - applying a rarely used legal clause to dismiss the government and install a more CIA-friendly one, thus returning Australia to its role as a US client state.

Prior to 1965 President Sukarno ruled neighboring Indonesia.  He was a nationalist autocrat and a strong supporter of the non-aligned movement, seeking to build an Indonesia that was independent of both the Soviet and American empires.  His policies conflicted with US interests, not only because of the potential threat of a good example it could set but also because of Indonesia's many resources.  In the late '50s the CIA organized a revolt to try and topple him but it was defeated.  The CIA didn't give up, though, and in 1965 another of their classic coups installed General Suharto in power.  Suharto kept the country in the US camp and slaughtered between 500,000 - 1,000,000 people with the assistance of the CIA in the aftermath of his coup.

In 1975 Indonesia, still under the rule of Suharto's dictatorship, invaded the neighboring East Timor and annexed it.  They slaughtered between a fourth and a third of the population.  In terms of percentage of population it was one of the worst genocides in history, worse then Pol Pot.  The US continued to support Suharto throughout this period of genocide, providing him with weapons to slaughter even more people.  The US only condemns genocide when official enemies are doing it.  When allies/client states do it the US either looks the other way or actively supports it.

Central Asia

This is the most recent region to join the empire; most of it was part of the Soviet empire before it collapsed.  It contains many energy resources, especially oil and natural gas (much of which is in the Caspian).  On Jul 3, 1979 the United States began to aid the Mujahideen, Muslim Fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan.  Osama Bin Laden would join them in the mid-80s.  Afghanistan was right on the border of the Soviet Union and US aid to these terrorists spurred the Soviets to invade.  After the Soviets invaded the US made its aid to the Mujahideen public and falsely claimed it was started in response to the Soviet invasion.  This was a lie - US aid began prior to the Soviet invasion and was intended to bait them into invading.  President Carter's National Security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinsk, admitted as much in an interview with Le Nouvel Observator in 1998.  He said:

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. ... We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. ... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap ... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. ... What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

US funding of the Mujahideen would greatly strengthen the Islamic fundamentalist movement and eventually lead to the creation of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.  One of the terrorists involved in the Mujahideen was Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian.  After the Gulf War he would turn against the United States due to the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia after the end of the war.

The US launched an attack on Afghanistan in October of 2001.  The US used the Northern Alliance, an armed faction opposed to the Taliban (the government over most of Afghanistan), as proxy forces and successfully drove the Taliban out of power.  The US installed a puppet government with Hamid Karzai as head of state.  Most surrounding countries were brought into the US Empire without a fight and the US established bases throughout the region.  None of these countries are remotely democratic, most are ruled by autocrats or one-party states.

The move into central Asia was officially justified as a response to 9-11, however the decision to invade Afghanistan in mid-October (at the latest) had already been made prior to 9-11.  The US even told the Taliban about this, threatening them if they did not go along with US demands.  It is possible that 9-11 was a pre-emptive strike.  The real motivation was to take over territory that had formerly been part of the Soviet empire and to secure control over the oil & natural gas reserves of the area.

American power is not some benevolent force bringing freedom and democracy to the world. It acts to enforce neocolonial economic policies, maintain its own authority over the world, and keep the military-industrial complex funded. It does not even act in the interests of the majority of Americans, but in the interests of the wealthiest Americans and the upper echelon of the American government. To justify its actions the empire invents excuses and lies, but it never acts in a genuinely altruistic manner. We should not believe it when it claims otherwise.

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