Ovi Magazine Issue #24: Nationalism - Published: 2013-01-31

The Incoherences of Nationalism
Soon the USA had become an
imperialist nation in the common sense
of the term. Alaska was purchased in
1867; Hawaii and the Philippines and
Cuba and Puerto Rico were annexed as
colonies in 1898, as the result of the
war with Spain. Other possessions
were picked up by the bye, such as the
American Virgin Islands and American
Samoa.
The Spanish colonies and nationstates
began to call the USA “the
Colossus of the North”. And it is
obvious that the USA had become a
world power by 1900.
Three chapters followed.
Interventions in World War I and II,
and, third, a long series of peripheral
wars in many places on the globe, in
order to “contain” regional powers
that the US was hostile to, usually
on an ideological basis. In all these
endeavors the US was partly successful,
and suffered little in comparison to the
other nations in these conflicts.
What a lucky nation it is! A
documentary film I saw some years
ago contained the following scene.
A French woman in her 40’s or 50’s
speaks into the camera. She relates
that under the German occupation
from 1940 to 1944 the people of her
town were universally miserable, and
were treated very hostilely by the
occupiers. Her mother consoled her
with the thought, “don’t worry, the
Americans will come and liberate us.”
And it came true.
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This is a remarkable fact. In both
of the greatest wars in all history, the
USA was not initially a party to the
conflicts. While the other powers
wore one another out, the Americans
refused to enter the war, partly out of
a sense of superiority and partly out
of a strong legalistic bent. When they
did enter these wars, the effect was to
inject a vast new and fresh army into
the conflict on one side, and tip the
scales in their allies’ favor. Casualties
were comparatively light.