mister

Hello anyone who is reading this but I've been wondering if the USA wil be like rome and become an empire?

Serena

Depends on how much more of the world they decide to imperialize. Even with their imperialist duties over seas, I would still say no at this point.

El Kaiser

What, now? Hardly. Maybe in the past they came close of that, but i don't see this happening in the future.Now there's too much competition

tjadams

Empires aren't so clearly cut & defined as owning or having a puppet government in place as it once was. Conquest of territories takes place more via banking than through bayonet loyalty. I vote no.

Lucius

If you mean like the Roman Republic turning into the Roman Empire, then I would say no.

Nick

Not in the foreseeable future as it's a stable republic with democratic government.
Though it could be possible if a dictator of the neoconservative type made himself president for life and believed America had a God-given duty to conquer Canada or Mexico.

Toltec

Empires are have largely been things of the past since wwii with Britain, France and Portugal disposing of theirs and evemtually even Russia following suit. This doesn't necessarily mean the trend will stop. Europeans may have moved on but have Asians? China is still imperialist, Indonesia has had a little stint and I wouldn't put it past a few other countries. So the US no, but other countries maybe.

Heidi XX

No way! Why would America do that for? Empires actually weaken you're strentgth.
The Roman empire expanded and fell to pieces and the British empire expanded and that fell too pieces,and I o think America has realised this and won't make the same mistake,plus America is allready the most powerful country in the world,so would they make that mistake! (I wish they would though) lol.

Black Dog

America already is an empire. America's political influence and leverage in the world means that it can- and does- set up client regimes, rather like Roman Satraps. However, its model is rather closer to ancient Persia, in that it tends to use money to gain loyalty: the Persians, realising that they'd never beat the Greeks, then decided to use their vast wealth to cause inner turmoil in Greece.

One condition of lend- lease to Britain was that Britain should dismantle its empire, and the major beneficiary of this was America. The combination of IMF and World Bank, (both supposedly independent, but actually American) and American domination of both NATO and the UN means that America can pick and choose which regimes are OK and which are not. The Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, most of Central America, certain regimes in the Middle East and, increasingly, eastern Europe and Africa are now under American sway. A famous Polish concert pianist recently spoke out against this, telling America "hands off his country", as President Obama decided to base Nuclear Missiles in Poland, ostensibly to deal with the Iranian threat, but plainly pointed towards Russia.

America routinely puts in place (and topples) clients who do as they are told, or else. Rather like Roman governors. Noriega, Saddam Hussein, to name just two, and the American antipathy towards regimes that attempt freedom, (or at least, self determination), such as Venezuela, is well known, as they use hostile (and highly corrupt) clients such as Colombia to deal with this. They fear a precedent being set.

These "Satraps" are usually nasty pieces of work. In the Philippines, Marcos was replaced by the no- less corrupt Aquino. With American sanction. The IMF and World Bank routinely threatens to remove aid to those countries who do not put in place "reforms" of their markets, making them a pool of cheap labour or resources for American Big Business, to the detriment of the population. For instance, in oil rich Venezuela, the government tried to put in place public health care and education policies, and were told to stop. Hence Chavez's relatively bloodless revolution, and now Venezuelan oil helps to benefit the whole population, not just the handful of American clients who owned it before.

America does not have to actually occupy a country, and is incapable of it, as recent events in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan show. Unlike Rome or Greece or even Britain, America has way too much political power, and can afford to use other means to make regimes tow the line.

And let us not forget the power of Cultural Imperialism. America has presented itself as the World Standard, and American culture is considered to be the one most countries aspire to. Remember the collapse of the USSR? Ex-Soviet Citizens briefly became "Yankophiles". However, they're quicker on the uptake than most. Even former British colonies, such as India, (despite what the British think), aspire to an American lifestyle and model of society. The world may increasingly speak English, but it is increasingly with an American accent.

So, if a country can dictate even the social and economic structures of other countries, and use force to back this up, and can make/break regimes with almost total agreement with the rest of the world, as well as exploit its labour and other resources, does this not have all the hallmarks of an empire? If not, I don't know what else does make an empire.

Heidi XX

Black Dog, I can't see that. To have an empire you need countries that represent America.
Cananda is have french anyways,so that's not really America,I can only think of Hawi and mexico,that's hardly an empire!
If America did ahve an empire and expanded to asia and europe,I granrennter that America will fall to a scarpe heap.