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Every empire has those aspirations.
There are many ways to achieve it through the complex relationships between countries and societies (e.g. soft power, cultural influence, militar control, etc) but an empire willing to try it at any cost with any means will always succeed for longer as an empire...
It mostly started with the cold war. The US was obsessed with stopping the perceived threat of communism. In the process, it discovered the benefits of power mongering and war profiteering.
It most definitely did not start in the cold war. The US was happily invading and controlling the politics of as much of the continent of the Americas well before WW2, with stuff such as the United Fruit Company or the Big Stick Ideology. The 1898 invasion of Cuba and establishment of a military junta comes to mind.
The main reason is that if we stop being the biggest shark in the tank, the next two biggest sharks (China and Russia) can't be trusted to not feast on the smaller sharks. And if they do feast, they will become too large for the American shark to deal with.
I'm sorry, this seems to imply the US doesn't "feast on the smaller sharks". It went as far as threatening Japan with sanctions because they were considering "digital sovereignty" with TRON OS as opposed to Windows at some point. Japan is almost a non-optional ally.
And also one good solution of preventing someone from doing that is arming the smaller sharks. Yet USA seems even more against more equal spread of technologies and weapons than the "next two sharks".
I think it's even simpler than this. I think any government/state/group with power wants to hold and expand it. I'm not sure there is a group of people that exist that wouldn't work to exercise control if they could. And I'm not defending the US, I just think it may be an inherently human thing to do.
I’ve heard a theory that when new presidents come into office they usually aren’t interested in being involved in conflicts. What happens is that something will happen in the world and the newly elected president will have an enormous amount of power at his disposal. Wanting to do good in the world the president will typically go for it.
I wish I could recall the name of the theory or provide references; maybe someone else can chime in.
Hammer/Nail Theory?
I don't know the name of the theory, but it's sure noticeable that candidates have diverse values while sitting presidents act earily similar.
A generous assumption could be that they have consistent advisors.
A realist assumption could be that they have consistent funding sources.
A particularly dark assumption is that they face the same threats to their loved ones.
And of course, an adorable meme child says "Why not both?"
America isn't the brand the they created as their image.
People just distract themselves from reality... We aren't even natural humans anymore we are products created by their marketing psychological manipulation absence of the essence of true humanity.
Something's going on. And people should start acting like it. Things haven't been okay for a long time regardless of left or right presidents. As if a criminal enterprise has gained control of the nation and is spreading to other nations. I don't mean America is spreading... I mean, if not just an essence, the organized crime that is orchestrating a coup in America is also out for other nations, and that world domination and world conquest is still a very real dream to eyes of many.
There is something stronger than trump and his minions. Something well funded. And remember America is young. There world wide organizations older than America.
If your not thinking with the mind of "the game"... Like criminals... Then you aren't ever going to get a above or conquer what's grabbing America by the balls and spreading across the globe.
Don't ever get marketed and manipulated by that emotional glorious pride again it's promoted that way to get you to live for it instead of genuine humanity. We have been somewhat desensitized to traditional war... But there's a psychological social war... And fighting it means more than protesting... Because it's all in the mind.
People weren't lying... I'm not lying... Snowden wasn't lying.... Bushnell wasn't lying... The people that go crazy and snap doing horrific things... Weren't lying... They just don't know how to handle the weight.
When you come to, and realize... You understand the war has been there for a long time and honest genuine humanity is far far behind.
Most of the Republicans and Democrats both citizens and politicians are gone already, as pawns, without an understanding of the real game. Like kids used by cartels, gangs and mafias. There is a bigger enemy that isn't marketed to people. The real enemy hides while using people as pawns.
Just like America itself England can be blamed. Since there are already a bunch of WW2 answers, I'll go back to post WW1 where England and France decided to carve up the middle east in their own interests. This created a bunch of countries with boarders that made little sense, mainly so one big influencal leader could give countries to his family members. Then jump ahead to an Australian showing up in Iran agreeing to look for oil and if he finds any he keeps 90% of the profits for 60 years. Once he found oil and made a bunch of money England said that is too good of a deal and just took over the company and changing its name to BP. Iran said this deal sucks and demanded a better deal, England said fuck you and went and asked America to step in and help them keep their deal. America sent the CIA in to cause problems, and the CIA was successful. The new leader still forced England to accept a more fair deal, but pissed off the people of Iran. So when the dictator was overthrown the new leadership was founded on a very popular policy of death to America because the CIA did what England asked them to do.
Please be respectful. Millions of Americans just protested the Trump administration's policies during the No Kings Day gatherings. Citizens are not the same thing as their administration. Please do not broadly label them the same. Thank you.
You can ask, but you will still keep getting side-eyes. Source: am Hungarian.
We're accustomed to the side-eyes. Feel free to continue those.
(If possible) I'm absolutely going to visit your country and ramble on about how my great-grand-something is from there, and how good it feels to be back, and then I'll buy souvenirs and permanently incorrectly adopt parts of your heritage that amuse me. That's all on me. Guilty on all counts.
But I'm not a fan of my government being a pain-in-the-ass on the international scale.
As a pain-in-the-ass American, I value having a non-pain-in-the-ass government, so that I can still travel the world and be...uh...myself.
Uh...I maybe could probably have presented this better...
Eisenhower warned us.
You could argue that the US was pretty much bullied into that role by Nazi Germany and later on the CCCP.
You sure are an american since you dont know your own history.
City on a hill bay bay /s
I don’t think “Americans” is a good term considering a little over half of Americans prefer non-interventionist policies. Ironically, interventionist policies are bipartisan, with a large portion of both democrats and republicans taking neo-isolationist approaches to American foreign policy. Intervention can be one of four major fields referred to in politics as DIME (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic). Examples would include UN for diplomatic (we intervene via power held in the UN), 5 eyes for informational (we allow NSA to spy on allies, as long as those allies provide us with material about our own citizens), military (republicans prefer big bombs and boots on ground, Obama loved his drone strikes), and economic like NAFTA.
I feel you may be viewing this solely from a military perspective which is why I wanted to highlight these other means. Liberal IR theory actually encourages DIME, via rule of law and consensus via other democratic nation states, I.e. if Canada, and the EU want us to intervene in the Middle East, should we mind our own business? Liberal IR theory would suggest not, and that we are not being a world player. The main hypothesis in Liberal IR theory is actually the same as its more aggressive big brother called Realism or more commonly known form as “Realpolitik”. Both posit that the international order exists in a form of anarchy and it is the responsibility (whether hegemonic or multipolar) to control this anarchy via law ( for liberalism) or via power (for realism).
Generally, more of the academics you will read on this topic whether liberal or realists will claim that Americans were pulled in via a vacuum and didn’t force its way in. There are also deeper theories in this about Bipolar and regional hegemony that better explain the post WWII world. Pre-Soviet collapse, the first world appreciated the aggressive American approach as it lent a balance against the aggressive USSR. If it weren’t for the USSR, America would have returned to the western hemisphere and not intervened unless asked to by Western Europe