We speak English because, in 1763, Britain beat France and took control up to the Mississippi.
In 1776, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, and within seven years, Britain accepted the loss.
In 1803, the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase.
During the 19th century, American settlers expanded throughout North America, with the number of states rising from 17 to 45.
After the Mexican–American War of 1846 to 1848, the United States gained a huge territory, including California and New Mexico.
In 1867, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia.
In 1898, the U.S. military defeated Spain and took Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. That same year, Washington annexed Hawaii.
But those days are over.
Since defeating the Germans, Italians, and Japanese in World War I and World War II, we understood what military expansionism looks like from the other side. Since then, the United States has developed a higher sense of morality and ethics in international relations. We now ground our national aspirations in the growth of our economy rather than war and the growth of our territorial size. This refocus from dominating foreign lands to dominating technology and industry has helped us evolve from an agricultural to an industrial and now technological power.
We led the civilized world in shifting away from what was often bloody empire-building toward norms of human rights, territorial integrity, and freedom of the seas. Ironically, this moral leadership on the global stage helped the world trust us, which led to the expansion of our military bases globally, improved our security, and caused those like the Russian and Chinese regimes that still followed the old ways to claim the emergence of a global “American imperialism” and “U.S. hegemony.”
Had we lost the moral high ground in the 20th century, we might have lost Western Europe to the Soviets. China could have taken over Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. North Korea would likely have vanquished South Korea. Maintaining our global military footprint rested upon our allies’ trust in us and the security benefits we got from keeping these powerful economies from being swallowed by our adversaries. Had they done so, they could have grown more economically and militarily powerful than ourselves and conquered parts of our own territory.
Looking forward, there is nothing wrong with territorial expansion if that territory joins us because it wants to do so. There is nothing wrong with offering to buy another country if that country willingly sells and we treat our new residents as equal citizens. This is especially the case if one of our authoritarian adversaries threatens to conquer a country—through force or elite capture—and thereby decrease our own security and that of democracy more generally.
There is nothing wrong with invading countries to remove terrorists and dictators who could one day threaten us and who have no democratic legitimacy of their own. However, other types of military invasions—such as those carried out by the Germans and Russians against Europe, and the attempts currently made by the Chinese regime against Taiwan—would cost us the moral high ground that much of our economic and military power relies upon.
Without the moral high ground, people around the world would be more hesitant about investing in U.S. businesses, real estate, and technology. That international desire to invest in the United States makes the U.S. dollar so powerful. Most everybody wants to buy U.S. assets, so they are all willing to take the U.S. dollar in trade as something equivalent to gold.
Meanwhile, whichever country took the moral high ground from us would then be able to replace the dollar with its own currency. It would be the trusted investment destination, its economy and military would grow, and it could attempt to conquer our territories. We would have lost our chance at leading the world toward the U.S. vision of an ethical international system.
