So you can’t have all three, something has to give. And white supremacy demands that non-white people not have rights and power.

Republicanism requires that these people be citizens with equal rights and power. Overseas expansion inevitably means acquiring non-white populations. He says you can have any two of these, but not all three. The US has powerful interests pushing for republicanism (i.e., representative constitutional government), white supremacy, and overseas expansion. Immerwahr’s view is that historically, this stems from a “trilemma”. Frankly, it makes little sense, so how could we understand it? It is logically inconsistent, and confusing to the point that most Americans don’t even understand it. This “empire” that doesn’t want to be an empire is an unusual political philosophy. “Baselandia” is the “pointalist” American empire today, consisting of hundreds of military bases governed by US law, but not part of the US polity. Immerwahr argues that this pattern changed after world war due to technological changes that allowed global communication and transportation without occupying large territories. And this meant, above all, that the people are not citizens (or at least have no representation) and US constitution does not apply. These places were under the authority of the US government, but were not part of the US.

This legal formulation carried forward from the late nineteenth century to claimed islands and land around the Caribbean and Pacific. “Indian country” and the ill fated native inhabitants were treated as US territory, but not part of the US until statehood-generally after the removal, elimination, and suppression of the previous inhabitants. The book traces the history of this approach to empire all the way back to before the official independence of the US. Leaving overseas territory off the map and out of the conversation “hides” the fact that they are ruled by the US, essentially as colonies. By defining the states, the mainland, as “the United States”, and various overseas territories, bases, and zones as something else, the US has an empire, but it is not acknowledged.

Immerwahr’s thesis, conveyed in the title and cover art, is that the US has sort of had it both ways. Is the United States an “empire”? Does it, or has it ever, had “colonies”?Īnd if the US has an empire, where is it on the map? How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr

How to hide an empire immerwahr