US GLOBAL EXPANSIONIST AND REGIME CHANGE POLICIES
The mainstream narrative insists that we fear Russia because of its expansionist policy. Just as the domino theory against communism was the battle cry that got us involved in Vietnam, so too do we hear the same cry about Russia’s expansionist goals. If Ukraine falls, God knows who is next! Maybe it’s time for some severe self-introspection on expansionism, interventions, and attempted regime changes promoted and supported by the United States.
FROM MANIFEST DESTINY TO IMPERIALISM
Manifest Destiny: A phrase coined by John O’Sullivan in 1845 is the idea that the United States is preordained—by God—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. The philosophy drove 19th-century US territorial expansion and was used to justify the forced removal of non-whites, including Native Americans and other groups. At a certain point, Mexico proved to be an obstacle that stood in the way. So, driven by the spirit of Manifest Destiny and territorial expansion, in 1845, the United States entered an all-out war with Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war in 1848, added 525,000 square miles of US territory, including all or parts of what is now California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. The lofty idealism of Manifest Destiny didn’t end with a war with Mexico and the dislocation and brutal mistreatment of Native Americans, Hispanics, and other non-European occupants of the territories that would become the United States. Manifest Destiny morphed into the policy of imperialism.
Imperialism is when a country exercises power over another through various control methods. Motives for overpowering and controlling may include economic, cultural, political, moral, and exploratory. Expansion is justified by the theory of social Darwinism, or “survival of the fittest.” In this case, it is not about the survival of a species but of a nation or an empire.
Expansion continued outside the US when military forces were dispatched to Central America and the Caribbean more than 40 times between 1900 and 1933 to ensure that pro-US governments were in power. U.S. Marines occupied the Dominican Republic (1916–1924) and Haiti (1914–1934), taking over the countries’ customs houses so they could collect their debts. Nicaragua suffered two prolonged occupations (1912–1925 and 1927–33) as the US tried to subdue nationalist uprisings.
In an article written on June 7, 2022, by journalist Becky Little for the History Channel, she writes:
Throughout its history, the United States has used its military and covert operations to overthrow or prop up foreign governments to preserve US strategic and business interests.
For example:
Hawaii
In January 1893, a small group of white business and plantation owners, with the support of a US envoy, went to Hawaii to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom and annex its islands. This led to a coup d’état that ousted the Hawaiian monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani, from power.
Cuba
In 1898, the same year the US annexed Hawaii, its victory in the Spanish-American War also gave it control of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as US territories and an excuse to begin a military occupation of Cuba. After President Theodore Roosevelt asserted America’s right to intervene militarily in Latin America in 1904–05, the US started to do so more frequently in the Caribbean Basin countries, including the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, Honduras, and Cuba.
Iran
In 1953, the CIA orchestrated a coup against Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, to consolidate power with Iran’s shah (or king), Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Declassified CIA documents claim the coup—known internally as Operation Ajax—was designed to prevent possible “Soviet aggression” in Iran. Still, Iranian-American historian Ervand Abrahamian has argued the real motivation had more to do with securing US oil interests.
Guatemala
In August 1953, President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to remove Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. The CIA’s primary motivation for ousting Árbenz was the fear that his land reforms would threaten the interests of the American-owned United Fruit Company, which owned 42% of the nation’s land and paid no taxes. The CIA recruited and armed hundreds of Guatemalan exiles and foreign mercenaries, then transported them to the Guatemalan border, where they launched an “invasion” in June 1954. CIA planes bombed Guatemala City and strategic sites while the agency’s radio station broadcast misinformation. This unsettled the population and wore down the resolve of Guatemala’s military leaders, who, after nine days, persuaded Arbenz to resign.
Congo
In 1960, the Republic of the Congo declared independence from Belgium and democratically elected its first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Shortly after he assumed power, President Joseph Kasavubu pushed him out of office amid a Belgian military invasion. Worried that the ensuing unrest provided fertile ground for Soviet incursion, the CIA encouraged and assisted attempts to kill Lumumba, arguing he was a communist leader akin to Castro. The CIA helped facilitate Lumumba’s capture in 1960 and his assassination in 1961.
The Contra war in Nicaragua
Between 1981 and 1986, Ronald Reagan’s administration secretly and illegally sold arms to Iran to fund the Contras (counter-revolutionaries), a group the CIA had recruited and organized to fight the socialist Sandinista government led by Daniel Ortega, who had led a popular revolution against a dictator in 1979. In 1986, details of the Iran-Contra Affair became public, resulting in congressional investigations. Ortega’s Sandinista government ended in 1990 with the election of opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro as President amid reports that the United States had provided funding to help her win. Unfortunately, this US’ low-intensity warfare’, which involved the arming of thousands of ‘Contras’ (counter-revolutionaries), left 30,864 people dead and 20,064 wounded.
Afghanistan
When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it established an interim government led by Hamid Karzai to replace the warring Taliban government and the oppositional Northern Alliance. Karzai’s rule continued in 2002 when he became head of Afghanistan’s transitional government. In 2004, he became President of the U.S.-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He was succeeded in 2014 by Ashraf Ghani. Ghani was President until the Taliban retook power in 2021, when the US formally ended its war and abandoned Afghanistan, leaving behind 7 billion dollars worth of military equipment.
Iraq
Unprovoked and waving the banner of WMDs in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Government. As in Afghanistan, the US attempted to establish an interim, transitional, and more permanent government. The United States formally ended its war in Iraq in 2011. Since then, the country’s government structure has remained in flux. It should be noted that the US still maintains 12 unwanted military bases in Iraq.
And the list goes on.
VIETNAM
The Vietnam War was an 18-year-long, costly, and divisive conflict that pitted the communist Government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified the conflict. Over 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War. More than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. The war spanned several presidents, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. All along, the government used propaganda to convince us that it was a fight to defend democracy over communism, and if we did not “nip it in the bud,” it could lead to the domino theory. If one country falls into communism, others will follow. Eventually, in the 1960s, opposition to the war, especially from the nation’s youth, bitterly divided the country. This division continued even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of US forces in 1973. Many returning veterans faced adverse reactions from opponents of the war, who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians, or supporters, who saw them as having lost the war. Additionally, the exposure to millions of gallons of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, dumped by US planes in the dense forests of Vietnam, permanently affected civilians and soldiers.
WHO WON THE WAR?
Many still debate that question, but the fact remains that, besides the heavy loss of lives on both sides, the United States never achieved its goal of a united democratic Vietnam. In 1975, the country came under communist control and became a one-party state ruled by the People’s Army of Vietnam, which still rules today. Nearly 50 years after the war’s end, the country is emerging as a rising power at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region. The irony is that, although it’s still under communist rule, Vietnam’s foreign policy aims to act as a “friend and reliable trading partner of all countries in the international community.”
