During the 20th century any imperialist ambitions of the United States were rather muted. Perhaps it was the certainty of mutual annihilation that restrained us, as it also restrained the Soviets. I should prefer to think, however, that it was a natural antipathy of Americans to such ambitions. In general, I think we Americans can be pretty proud of our role in the 20th century. Of course, the Marshall plan to rebuild Europe after the second world war reflected America at its best, as did the creation of a democratic Japan, even if you believe that we did this to offset the influence of the Soviets.
We tend to shoot ourselves in the foot when we allow hubris to gain the upper hand, as when in 1960, still hoping somehow to reinstall our good friend Fulgencio Batista as dictator of Cuba, we rejected the overtures of the new government in Cuba, thus encouraging an insufferably proud Fidel Castro to embrace our enemy, the Soviet Union. We screwed things up on an even greater scale when, at the insistence of the French, we refused to accept Ho Chi Minh as a patriot who would have liked to have used an American model for Viet Nam, thereby forcing him into the arms of Viet Nam's traditional enemy, China.
Every now and then, Americans, like other free peoples, have reacted to difficult problems by flirting with ideas that would be more appropriate for a fascist nation. As the indigenous people of this continent were once massacred or herded into concentration camps on the least desirable land, so Japanese Americans had their property confiscated and were herded into concentration camps during World War II. That German Americans, such as I, were never subjected to such treatment strongly suggests that these aberrations were of racist origin. One might be tempted to think that in the 21st century we Americans have outgrown such primitive emotions, but such an assumption is put into doubt by the recent treatment of people of middle eastern descent, all in the name of "homeland security."
Today we find ourselves fighting "terrorism." According to the modern definition of the term, invented I believe by the Soviets, a "terrorist" is a participant in or supporter of individual (i.e., non-governmental) terror. Originally, the term "terrorism" included acts of governments such as the first French republic during the "Reign of Terror."
From time to time, we have found it convenient to engage in terrorism ourselves. Of course, we justified the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden, and we justified the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as Hitler had justified the blitz in London and the Japanese had justified the sacking of Nanjing. Governments have long considered it legitimate to engage in terrorism to break the will of an enemy people and thus to bring a war more quickly to a favorable conclusion. Someday this "legitimacy" may be called into question, or perhaps such "legitimacy" will eventually be conferred upon acts of individual terror too. Who knows what the future will bring?
The war in Afghanistan brought neither liberty nor democracy to the Afghan people, just a redistribution of power among the warlords. It looks like the effect of the war in Iraq will be similar, due largely to our not having been prepared either to maintain law and order or to preserve the civil infrastructure of the country. Years from now, 2003 will probably be remembered, not as the year in which freedom and democracy were brought to Iraq, but rather as the year that the world famous Baghdad museum and library were pillaged by professional antiquities thieves and a significant chunk of human history was lost.
These are the times when in the name of "homeland security" opportunistic demagogues will call for limiting our freedom or suspending certain rights that we have long taken for granted. It has already begun with the so-called Patriot Acts. Where it will end I don't know, but I retain a faith that, ultimately, Americans will reject such demagoguery.