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Originally Posted by TLAM Strike
Since the days of Teddy Roosevelt the US has went out and protected the less fortunate and tried to maintain peace in the world while other nations have been trying to gobble up territory or settle old scores.
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Or at least that is what they teach you to believe (and many of us as well, whose school books also happen to be written in the United States).
You have a valid point that up until, and including, WWII this was exactly what other countries were doing in one form or another. And there's no denying that many things the US has done have had a benevolent impact (the Marshall Plan is a prime example). But is this the full story of US intervention? Is its foreign policy really driven by a desire to maintain peace and help the less fortunate around the world? I think not, on both counts.
Let's look at "gobbling up territory", as an example. How well has this worked out for the old Imperial Powers? I would say not too well if you look at the world today where almost all of the former colonies have achieved independence - sometimes, as in the case of the US itself, at the cost of a expensive and bloody war for independence. Has the US been ruled by a succession of leaders too out of touch to see this? Obviously not (exception being the current President).
There's a much more modern and effective way of achieving imperial style wealth and power without conquering anyone: economic imperialism. Like the imperialism of old it transfers the wealth and resources out of the client state and into the imperial power, but without all of the expense and mess of old fashioned colonialsm with its need for occupation and risk of rebellion. Its a subtler, kinder imperialism that all Western countries wage but that the US wages better than anyone.