When the Empire is strong, it boasts competitieveness, free market policies and an extroverted attitude towards the world. When it feels threatened, it cowers and closes off, tossing its capitalist doctrine aside for protectionist policies. America first ! The campaign slogan of newly elected American president Donald Trump almost comes across as a battle cry. The two words aim to capture in a straightfoward way the frustration as well as the hopes of the American people. The idea is simple : America, as a superpower, has given endlessly to the benefit of others and to its own detriment. Trump has insisted through words, though not yet through actions, that he plans to put an end to this. This message seems to resonate with recent fears and concerns amongst American analysts of a potential overstretch in American foreign policy. America is the country with the most overseas military bases in the world, with a conservative estimate of 750 bases in at least 80 different countries. For reference, China only has one. In 2022, there were near 172,000 American active-duty military troops scattered across 178 countries. These soldiers are not meant to fight wars, but rather to dissuade them. They represent a foothold of American presence in the world, and are a symbol of American dominance to its rivals as well as to its allies. Hence why the majority of overseas American troops are stationed in Japan, Germany and South Korea, rather than in regions with a heightened risk of active conflict. This expensive status symbol partially explains why America is the country with the highest military expenditure in the world. In 2024, America allocated 842 billion USD to its defense budget, whereas China’s announced budget was 230 billion USD, despite the latter’s attempt to innovate its military so as to catch up with the former’s. This exorbitant bill legitimises itself so long as America is in an uncontested, hegemonic power. In order to maintain its position as number 1, America stretches its long tentacles across the globe and suffocates any potential competition to its strength. Hence, its presence in South Korea allows it to paralyse the perceived threat North Korea poses to American interests, as well as counterbalance China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Its presence in Germany allows it to keep Western Europe a loyal underdog to the American empire, never to be a rival. Its expansion in Eastern Europe through Ukraine was meant to assure that even its once defeated rival, the former Soviet Union and current Russia, could not dream of recovering its strength to challenge America once more. Israel serves as a buffer state in the Middle East, meant to diffuse threats of anti-American hostility caused by America’s long-term violent and authoritarian involvment in the region. There are of course no foreign military bases in America, because its relation with its allies is asymetrical. At the head of the Western Empire, America governs as sole Emperor. However, when the Emperor faces a threat no longer from within its Empire, but from a powerful rival nation, it can no longer afford to worry about domestic conflicts, and must instead consolidate its Empire to face off the foreign threat. This is, essentially, the conservatives’ strategy to fight China and its increasing pressure on America’s global dominance.
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