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125 years ago the USA’s imperialist/militarist interventions outside the borders of the continental United States began in earnest with the Spanish American War, in 1898. During this war the US replaced Spain as the colonizing power over Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines.
In response, a US Anti-Imperialist League was formed. Among its more well-known members were Mark Twain, Samuel Gompers, Jane Addams, Felix Adler and Grover Cleveland.
Maybe what we need today is something similar, something which explicitly names “imperialism” as a continuing evil which must be fought. But the last year of devastating war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine argues for it being very clearly not just an anti-US imperialist entity but one which opposes all forms of imperialism.
The Ukraine/Russia war continues to be, at root, a battle for national self-determination by Ukraine against an imperialist power, Russia. Disturbingly, there continue to be leftist groups and individuals in the US who deny this fact. To them, the only imperialism that matters is US imperialism.
There’s no question that the dominant imperialist power in the world today is the United States. The US military budget is now $858 billion dollars a year, and there are 700 US military bases in over 80 countries. Russia has 35, and China has 5. That $858 billion is 40% of what the world’s countries combined spend on their militaries, and it is greater than the military budgets of the next 12 countries combined…
