American Imperialism Research Paper

The definition of imperialism is, the policy op imposing economic and political control over other peoples in a way that takes away their sovereignty and takes away their freedom to make political and economic decisions. US imperialism is really no more than the continuance of expansionism carried over from the time before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Imperialism is simply moral realism at work, if a certain society believes itself to be superior and has superior might then the obvious next step is to “spread the wealth” so to speak, with the less fortunate societies in the world. The “White man’s burden” is no more than a furtherance of the religious practices from Catholicism and throughout Christianity. Missionaries carry

the message of salvation and teaching to those whom the religious leaders deem less fortunate or uneducated, without a thought for the cultural and religious practices of the people they are proselytizing to; because they truly believe they are helping.
This same self-justification can easily be seen in the US imperialism of the early 20th century. A populist view would be; we live in the best country on earth with the most advanced and fair governmental system, we need to share this greatness with the rest of the world. However, the expansion of naval fueling stations and our military power, I am sure is what drove the politicians to strive for world expansion. Liken this to the churches who send missionaries to help teach the less fortunate, but wind up owning land all over the world. Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, president of the United States Naval War College, stressed the importance of having a network of naval bases capable of providing fuel and supplies for the enlarged navy, which was necessary to guarantee access to the world markets by the US. These factors together with basic capitalistic principles, easily convinced the US that imperialism was the right thing to do.
The positive aspects of early 20th-century imperialism are easily seen, US military control of the western hemisphere, expansion of production and exportation of goods, added territories to the United States, and establishing the US as a world power. The negatives are I think a lot more complex, the incursion of a higher national debt due to warfighting and paying for annexed lands, the possible stunting or negating of political growth of island cultures, and possibly causing the rest of the world to view the US as a warmongering land-hungry nation.