United States imperialism

Red countries have been invaded or militarily intervened in by the United States since 1798.

United States imperialism consists of policies aimed at extending the economic, political, cultural and military influence of the United States over areas beyond its boundaries, especially considering the Marxist definition of imperialism as originally defined by Lenin, but other aspects of imperialism as well, such as military operations and economic terrorism.

Doctrines followed (and sometimes proposed by the U.S. government itself since its inception) such as Manifest Destiny, Monroe and his Roosevelt Chorolary, the Big Stick, the National Security Doctrine, etc. and events such as the conquest of the West, the Mexican war, the banana wars, the Spanish-Cuban-American war and, more recently, the Vietnam War, the U.S. blockade against Cuba, the war in Afghanistan, etc. have made "American imperialism" a term accepted by the greater part of the international community.

The United States has interfered in the elections of 45 foreign countries and organized over 132 CIA and military interventions around the world since 1890, in addition to almost 100 before 1890.

History

Between 1798 and 1827, the United States participated 23 military interventions, including in Greece, Libya, and Cuba. It did 71 interventions between 1831 and 1896 on all continents except Antarctica. The U.S. did 40 interventions between 1898 and 1919.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a US government institution that compiles information on behalf of Congress, the United States launched at least 251 military interventions between 1991 and 2022. The report documented another 218 US military interventions between 1798 and 1990. This adds up to a total of 469 US military interventions since 1798 that have been acknowledged by the Congress. Of the total 469 documented foreign military interventions, the Congressional Research Service noted that the US government only formally declared war 11 times, in just five separate wars. In an analysis of the report, journalist Benjamin Norton noted that the data excludes the independence war been US settlers and the British empire, any military deployments between 1776 and 1798, excludes the deployment of the US military forces against Indigenous peoples, when they were systematically ethnically cleansed in the violent process of westward settler-colonial expansion, and the US Civil War, and further noted that all of these numbers are conservative estimates, because they do not include US special operations, covert actions, or domestic deployments.

Death toll

Austin Murphy estimates that U.S. imperialism and colonialism have intentionally killed over 11 million unarmed civilians, including five million indigenous people, a million Filipinos, 500,000 German and Japanese people, over 500,000 Indonesians, over a million each of Vietnamese, Iraqis, and Koreans, and over 500,000 Cambodians. This is a low estimate and Murphy acknowledges that the deaths of indigenous people in North America alone is over 18 million.

Military bases

Map of U.S. military bases and troops deployed abroad.

The United States has 750 military bases around the world in at least 80 countries. It also has 173,000 troops deployed in foreign countries. The country with the most U.S. military presence besides the U.S. itself is Japan, with 120 bases and over 53,000 troops. Japan is followed by Germany and then South Korea.

In addition to having bases and troops in South Korea, the U.S. military has maintained command over the South Korean military since the Korean War in the 1950s. South Korea has operational control of its military under armistice conditions, but the United States would take over in wartime, and the U.S. combatant commander would be able to direct, organize, employ, assign command functions to, or suspend the duty of subordinate South Korean commanders and forces. In essence, if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea would supply the overwhelming majority of the fighting force, which would then be placed under U.S. operational control.

Economic domination

A map of countries facing economic sanctions imposed by the United States, according to SanctionsKill.org.

The United States bourgeoisie uses various economic methods to shape and control the development and economic policies of other nations and force them into subordination and perpetual debt and under-development. This can be seen through institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), institutions in which the U.S. plays a key role in managing. Economic sanctions are another major method by which the United States manipulates and destroys the economic development of other countries. Freezing or seizure of assets, often under the guise of sanctions, is another method commonly used by the United States to stifle and disrupt foreign economies and enrich its own by excluding its own companies and institutions from sanctions while freezing and confiscating the assets of the target country.

World Bank

Main article: World Bank

Since its origin, the president of the World Bank has been a US citizen proposed by its government. The US is also the only country to have a de facto right of veto at the World Bank, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Countries must also join the International Monetary Fund to be eligible to join the World Bank Group.

Historian and political scientist Eric Toussaint asserts that the unstated agenda of the World Bank is to "subordinate the public and private spheres of all human societies to the capitalist imperative of seeking maximum profit" which results in stagnation and deterioration of the living conditions of a great majority of the world’s population, concurrently with greater and greater concentration of wealth, as well as contributing to the deterioration of the natural environment.

International Monetary Fund

Main article: International Monetary Fund

According to a 2016 article by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) regarding voting shares in the IMF, the U.S. "dwarfs all other member countries’ voting shares" and the CEPR's co-director stated that "IMF governance structure [...] ensures that the U.S. and Europe will continue to control the Fund."

Former IMF senior economist Davison Budhoo wrote that through extensive and systematic statistical fraud the IMF imposes its policies on developing countries. He explained that the IMF "manipulated, blatantly and systematically, certain key statistical indices so as to put ourselves in a position where we could make very false pronouncements about economic and financial performance" and that the consequences of these policies led to massive poverty and starvation, noting that the IMF's policies are made in "utter disregard to local conditions" and lead countries to "self destruct" and "unleash unstoppable economic and social chaos". He also stated that the routine policy packages of the IMF "can never serve, under any set of circumstances, the cause of financial balance and economic growth" and "can only serve to accentuate world tensions, expand even further the already bulging ranks of the poverty-stricken and destitute of the South".

During the 1980s and 90s, the IMF dramatically expanded its reach by making assistance conditional on borrowers committing to extensive market reforms. During what are known as the Third World Debt Crisis, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997–98, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the IMF exercised enormous pressure on states in receipt of loans, demanding they commit to austerity and major transformations of their domestic economies. Failing to agree to these terms not only jeopardized the IMF’s assistance; it also jeopardized access to other sources of foreign capital, since the existence of a prior arrangement with the IMF was used by other lenders to determine a country’s creditworthiness. It is by this method that the IMF brings countries into subordination under U.S. dominance. Although the IMF's policies are certainly heavily influenced by neoliberalism, they are also an extension of older colonial and imperialist methods of domination that can be traced back to long before the 1980s and 90s.

Economic sanctions

Main article: Economic sanctions

According to Sanctions Kill in a 2021 article, US sanctions affect a third of humanity with more than 8,000 measures impacting more than 40 countries and that the U.S. far exceeds any other country in the number of countries they have strangled with economic sanctions. Lauren Smith notes in Monthly Review Online that it is not unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. alone that devastate a targeted country, it is the imposition of secondary sanctions upon foreign third parties that represents the final blow to its economy and people. These measures threaten to cut off foreign countries, governments, companies, financial institutions and individuals from the U.S. financial system if they engage in prohibited transactions with a sanctioned target—irrespective as to whether or not that activity impacts the United States directly.

In an internal memo regarding Cuba, U.S. officials discussed how imposing "economic dissatisfaction and hardship" on Cuba would be an effective means of deposing the communist government, stating that because Castro enjoyed majority support among the people, their only option to reduce support for him would be "to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government" by "denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages". The US embargo of Cuba is one of the oldest and strictest of all US sanctions regimes, prohibiting nearly all trade, travel, and financial transactions since the early 1960s.

Freezing and seizure of assets

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claims that the U.S. simply confiscates Venezuela’s money under the guise of sanctions, noting that the U.S. is experienced in such illegal affairs, giving Iraq, Libya, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama as examples. According to Lavrov, "US companies operating in Venezuela are excluded from the sanctions regime. Simply put they want to overthrow the government and gain profits at the same time."

In 2003, President Bush signed an order to take possession of the Iraqi government assets that were frozen in 1990, before the Persian Gulf War. As a result, seventeen of the world’s biggest financial institutions were told by the Treasury Department to hand over $1.7 billion in frozen Iraqi assets that the U.S. government intended to place in an account at the NY Fed.

In 2015, it was announced that $67 billion in Libya’s assets remained frozen from 2011. In 2018, it was announced that Libya’s assets had decreased to $34 billion. The UN Libya Experts Panel is “looking for answers” to explain the disappearance of $33 billion in frozen assets.

Since 2021, the U.S. Biden administration has blocked Afghanistan’s central bank from accessing roughly $7 billion in its foreign reserves held in the US. Along with sanctions on government officials and a cutoff of aid, this has contributed to a severe collapse of Afghanistan’s economy.

Unconventional and covert warfare

Unconventional warfare consists of military and quasi-military operations other than conventional warfare, and may use covert forces, subversion, or guerrilla warfare. This is typically done to avoid escalation into conventional warfare as well as international conventions. Covert or unconventional warfare may be conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force. Unconventional means are regularly used in service of the U.S.'s primary strategies against revolutionary, anti-imperialist, and communist influence, which include "containment" (preventing the spread of communism and communist influence) and "rollback" (forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by regime change).

In Afghanistan, the Carter administration began providing covert military assistance to Afghanistan's Mujahideen in an effort to drive the Soviets out of the nation and to raise the military and political cost of Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

Under the Reagan Doctrine and the regime-change policy of rollback, the United States provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "roll back" anti-imperialist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The doctrine was part of the administration's overall strategy to win the Cold War, after the policy of containment was deemed insufficient and that "rollback" of revolutionary governments was necessary. Neoconservative Jeane Kirkpatrick argued in 1979 that Third World revolutions were illegitimate and the products of Soviet expansion, an example of a common justification for the rollback strategy. According to political analysts Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould, "it was the Heritage Foundation that translated theory into concrete policy. Heritage targeted nine nations for rollback: Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua, and Vietnam".

For instance, the U.S. supported the Contras in Nicaragua as part of the rollback strategy. From an early stage, the rebels received financial and military support from the United States government, and their military significance decisively depended on it. After US support was banned by Congress, the Reagan administration covertly continued it. These illegal activities culminated in the Iran–Contra affair, in which U.S. senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, hoping to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua.

Information and psychological operations

See also: Central Intelligence Agency, Operation Mockingbird, CIA influence on public opinion

The United States uses a multitude of tactics in controlling the flow of information in order to achieve its political warfare goals, through numerous agencies, agents, and front organizations such as many NGOs and broadcasting organizations. These propaganda campaigns are directed at both the U.S. public as well as internationally. These operations provide support for the military and economic goals of the U.S. and help the U.S. stoke and conduct color revolutions to overthrow foreign governments.

By country

Chile

Two months prior to the election of the socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile in November 1970, the U.S. ambassador to Chile, Edward M. Korry, sent a message to National Security Advisor Henry Kissenger and another Department of State official stating that the preferred candidate of the U.S. should know that "not a nut or bolt will be allowed to reach a Chile under Allende" and that "Once Allende comes to power, we shall do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty".

After Allende won the election, the U.S. Ambassador repeatedly met secretly with the opposition candidate, Eduardo Frei Montalva, to urge him to annul the election. The CIA pursued a more forceful set of operations to pressure Frei. The political action program had "only one purpose," CIA Director Richard Helms told the National Security Council, "to induce President Frei to prevent Allende's election by the Congress on 24 October, and, failing that, to support—by benevolent neutrality at the least and conspiratorial benediction at the most—a military coup which would prevent Allende from taking office." The CIA's extensive efforts to promote a military coup in Chile, known as Track II, were revealed by the U.S. Senate Select Committee led by Senator Frank Church in the mid-1970s.

A 2007 article published by NACLA describes the "triad" of the imperialist U.S. policy toward Chile under Allende, which consisted of covert action, public policy, and economic policy being used together to promote their agenda and stir up the conditions for a coup:

CIA operations constituted the covert leg of what U.S. officials called "a triad" of policy approaches to Chile. The public approach, according to National Security Decision Memorandum 93 titled "Policy Toward Chile," was defined as a "correct but cool" diplomatic posture. Overt hostility, cautioned recently declassified SECRET/SENSITIVE strategy papers prepared for Henry Kissinger on the day of Allende's inauguration, would "serve Allende's purpose of rallying the Chilean people around him in the face of the 'foreign devil.' " The third leg of U.S. policy has come to be known as the "invisible blockade" of loans and credits to Chile. For years historians have debated if such a blockade existed, or whether Allende's socialist economic policies led to a loss of economic credit. Recently declassified NSC records on Chile show conclusively that the Nixon Administration moved quickly to shut down multilateral and bilateral foreign aid to Chile—before Allende had completed a month in office.

The article further explains that at the World Bank, U.S. officials worked behind the scenes to assure that Chile would be disqualified for a pending $21 million livestock-improvement credit and future loans. Unable to simply veto loans, the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs prepared a series of questions for a World Bank delegation to pose to authorites in Santiago in an effort to show that Allende's economic policies did not meet criteria for credits. In addition, the president of the Export-Import Bank agreed to "cooperate fully" with Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Charles Meyer on the discontinuation of new credits and guarantees to Chile.

As president, Allende sought to nationalize major industries, expand education and improve the living standards of the working class. He clashed with the right-wing parties that controlled Congress and with the judiciary. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d'état supported by the CIA. As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, he gave his last speech vowing not to resign. Later that day, Allende committed suicide.

Following Allende's death, General Augusto Pinochet refused to return authority to a civilian government, and Chile was later ruled by a military junta until 1990.

As part of an early covert propaganda effort to cast the new regime in a positive light, the CIA provided $9,000 to, according to declassified documents, "cover travel costs for three Christian Democratic Party members to tour Latin America and Europe explaining their party’s decision to support the new Chilean government." The CIA also requested additional funds to help the Chilean Society for Industrial Development purchase a network of radio stations to use in promoting the new regime, and sought $160,000 to assist the near-bankrupt PDC to pay its bills and continue to function as Chile’s leading political party.

In a 1976 Henry Kissinger met with Pinochet in Pinochet's office, prompted by a public controversy over the human rights abuses under Pinochet, as well under the pressure of the fallout of the Watergate scandal and the domestically unpopular Vietnam War. Trying to give Pinochet slack and let him know that the U.S. imperialists supported him, but needed to give him a public slap on the wrist, Kissinger stated to Pinochet:

In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward Communism. We wish your government well. At the same time, we face massive domestic problems, in all branches of the government, especially Congress, but also in the Executive, over the issue of human rights. [...] But this is a problem which complicates our relationships and the efforts of those who are friends of Chile. I am going to speak about human rights this afternoon in the General Assembly. I delayed my statement until I could talk to you. I wanted you to understand my position. We want to deal in moral persuasion, not by legal sanctions. [...] In my statement, I will treat human rights in general terms, and human rights in a world context. [...] I will also call attention to the Cuba report and to the hypocrisy of some who call attention to human rights as a means of intervening in governments. I can do no less, without producing a reaction in the U.S. which would lead to legislative restrictions. The speech is not aimed at Chile. I wanted to tell you about this. [...] I want to see our relations and friendship improve. I encouraged the OAS to have its General Assembly here. I knew it would add prestige to Chile. I came for that reason. We have suggestions. We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. Otherwise Chile would have followed Cuba.

Kissinger also stated that "It is unfortunate. We have been through Viet-Nam and Watergate. We have to wait until the elections. We welcomed the overthrow of the Communist-inclined government here. We are not out to weaken your position." Kissinger told Pinochet that "It would help you if you had some human rights progress, which could be announced in packages" saying earlier in the conversation that "If you could group the releases [of prisoners], instead of 20 a week, have a bigger program of releases, that would be better for the psychological impact of the releases" and that "if you could give us advanced information of your human rights efforts, we could use this". Kissinger clarified early in the conversation that "None of this is said with the hope of undermining your government. I want you to succeed and I want to retain the possibility of aid."

Iraq

The sanctions on Iraq implemented in August 1990 by the UN Security Council Resolution 661, included a total financial and trade embargo. Not only was Iraq barred from exporting oil (its main income source) on the world market for several years, but it was also prevented from importing products from abroad. This ban included healthcare equipment and medications, even including radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics, requests for which were consistently blocked by United States and British advisers, which translated into immeasurable suffering for Iraqi citizens. According to UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, the death rate of children below five crossed 4,000 a month due to the lack of food and basic medications caused by the sanctions – that is up to 200 babies and toddlers dying avoidable deaths a day.

When asked about half a million Iraqi children who died due to US sanctions, Madeleine Albright, ambassador of the United Nations at that time, said in 1996, that it was a "hard choice" but that "the price is worth it."

Thirteen years after the sanctions were first implemented to supposedly pressure the Iraqi government, the US opted to invade the oil-rich country anyway under the false pretense that Saddam Hussein managed to amass weapons of mass destruction despite the embargo. The sanctions achieved none of their supposed political goals that the imperialists claimed, only their unstated actual goal of completely economically devastating the country and killing its citizens in order to weaken and subdue it.

In 2003, President Bush signed an order to take possession of the Iraqi government assets that were frozen in 1990, before the Persian Gulf War. As a result, seventeen of the world’s biggest financial institutions were told by the Treasury Department to hand over $1.7 billion in frozen Iraqi assets that the U.S. government intended to place in an account at the NY Fed.

The U.S. bombing of Iraq directly killed approximately 50,000 civilians. The U.S. sanctions and destruction of infrastructure and farmland caused over a million deaths, including many civilians. Notably, one of the more recent uses of the highly destructive incendiary weapon napalm was by U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In 2010, documents leaked by Chelsea Manning showed that the majority of Iraqis killed by US forces were civilians.

In 2016, Barack Obama dropped a total of 12,095 bombs on Iraq.

Japan

According to a 2021 Al Jazeera article, "nearly half of all US military deployed abroad, some 80,100 American personnel, are stationed in Japan with 53,700 and South Korea with 26,400."

Japanese citizens oppose and protest the U.S. military in Japan through the anti-base movement. Okinawa, which was initially colonized by Japan in the 1800s, remained under US administration until 1972, and throughout this period, the United States built additional military bases in the prefecture. Since 1972, Japan has administered Okinawa and has allowed US bases to remain there, in accordance with the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty, which permits US bases in Japan.

Korea

The division of Korea into north and south occurred after Korea's liberation from Japan. Meant only to be a temporary division while Korea stabilized, the U.S. has never given up military control over the South. The U.S. military government in Korea re-instated Japanese colonial-era collaborators to their positions, re-instated Japanese colonial-era grain collection policies, violently disbanded the widely popular Korean People's Committees, and solidified the division of Korea despite widespread opposition among the populace at the time of division. This is exemplified by the events of the Jeju uprising, where the people expressed their opposition to the U.S.-led decision to officially split Korea via the formation of the southern Republic of Korea, and were met with violence that killed approximately one-tenth of the island's population. The U.S. installed the dictator Syngman Rhee in the ROK, an expat who had been living in the U.S. for decades, while an internal document of the CIA at the time acknowledged that "imported expatriate" Rhee would most likely begin "ruthless suppression of all non-Rhee Rightist, Moderate, and Leftist opposition" after coming to power.

During the Korean War, The United States dropped "635,000 tons of bombs in Korea (not counting 32,557 tons of napalm), compared to 503,000 tons in the entire Pacific Theater in World War II" and "at least 50 percent of eighteen out of the North's twenty-two major cities were obliterated."

Several of the massacres of civilians conducted or observed by the U.S. military in Korea as well as by the U.S.-backed Southern regime have since been officially admitted to by the U.S. or the South Korean government, or by both, or corroborated by Koreans, U.S. veterans, journalists, and other eyewitnesses. Regarding the Korean War, U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay stated "Over a period of three years or so, we killed off—what—twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?"

According to the South Korean People's Democracy Party (민중민주당), writing in a 2020 Liberation School article, South Korea "is a complete colony occupied by the U.S. military, is politically oppressed by the U.S., and is economically subordinate to imperialist countries, including the U.S." and states that "true peace is possible only without imperialism; the head of imperialism is the U.S. We have an opinion that a true peace movement should be an anti-imperialist movement and an anti-U.S. movement. We believe that the progressive and peace-loving forces of the world can and must conduct an anti-imperialist, anti-war struggle, to halt all wars in the world by U.S. troops and to withdraw all U.S. troops stationed overseas."

Libya

In 2015, it was announced that $67 billion in Libya’s assets remained frozen from 2011. In 2018, it was announced that Libya’s assets had decreased to $34 billion. The UN Libya Experts Panel is “looking for answers” to explain the disappearance of $33 billion in frozen assets.

Philippines

When the United States seized the Philippines from Spain in 1898, most of its territory was controlled by a Filipino resistance army. The United States fought a war against the resistance until 1902 and sporadic uprisings continued until 1915. The United States killed over 600,000 people on the island of Luzon alone and hundreds of thousands more died from starvation and disease throughout the Philippines.

Venezuela

Venezuela has been the target of hostility from the US imperialists due to its significant reserves of oil, as well as its recent trend of electing left-leaning progressive governments which prioritize social programs and the implementation of what some observers describe as Socialism of the 21st century. The hostilities directed at Venezuela have manifested in the form of economic sanctions and multiple coup attempts, among other forms of interference.

In 2017, the US and its allies in North America and Europe imposed sanctions on Venezuela targeting individuals in government, state institutions, and access to international credit. Since then, the US and its allies have expanded sanctions to target Venezuela’s major industries, banking sector, and international food aid. These measures have acutely impacted the economic situation in Venezuela, and created shortages of medicine, food, and fuel that have led to widespread suffering. In 2019, the Center for Economic Policy Research published a study estimating that 40,000 deaths in Venezuela from 2017- 2018 could be attributed to US sanctions.

In his 2020 memoir The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton, former National Security Advisor under U.S. President Donald Trump wrote regarding Venezuela:

Shortly after the drone attack [on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on August 4, 2018], during an unrelated meeting on August 15, Venezuela came up, and Trump said to me emphatically, “Get it done," meaning get rid of the Maduro regime. “This is the fifth time I've asked for it,” he continued. [...] Trump insisted he wanted military options for Venezuela and then keep it because “it's really part of the United States.”

Vietnam

The United States killed at least a million Vietnamese civilians with bombing campaigns in the Vietnam War. The U.S. killed about ten times as many civilians as actual Viet Minh soldiers during the bombings. The total number of Vietnamese people killed, including soldiers and civilians killed indirectly through starvation, may be more than three million. During the Vietnam War, up to 400,000 tons (362,874 metric tons) of napalm was used by the U.S. against the Vietnamese.

Ukraine

In 2014, the IMF asked Ukraine to raise taxes and cut social spending. Yanukovych's government refused because the changes could cause hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs. In 2014, the United States of America helped finance and arm the Euromaidan coup d'état to overthrow the government of Ukraine.

Yemen

The United States has been supporting Saudi Arabia in a proxy war in Yemen that has killed at least 10,000 civilians and left millions homeless. Yemeni ambassador Ibrahim al-Deilami noted in an interview with Press TV that the United States has been fueling the war in Yemen, and, in fact, the Saudi-led military aggression against his impoverished country all started in Washington, adding that "Even US military advisers are active there to lead the aggression." According to a report in Democracy Now, "CNN’s senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir says what is happening in Yemen is not a natural disaster but a 'man-made catastrophe' directly tied to U.S. policies. Elbagir says, 'Not only is the U.S. profiting from the war by selling weapons to the UAE and Saudi Arabia,' but it is also ignoring the impact on civilians."