Armenia will perhaps move closer to the US – not so much because of the Armenian government but because of the Armenian population – like all the rest of the world population many are looking up to the US like insects towards the light …
The Anglo-American culture has flood the world and English has become lingua franca … the US has managed to portray itself as the country of the free – even if that is far from the truth. The US is far from free – neither for the people living in the US or the world population.
Just like the American Dream was a dream for the few but a neighmare for the many the freedom valuated in the US is comforting the few rich and powerful while the rest live powerless in poverty.
The US has been turned into a police state just as the whole world is kept under the surveillance by the US, which function as some kind of world police. The US has been engaged in what has been called perpetual war for perpetual peace: A perpetual war for perpetual peace. War for peace. War has become business. Once again the rich benefit while the poor has to pay.
After WWII, the Old Right became the strongest force resisting a foreign policy of anti-communism that became the heart of the Cold War. One reason: They thought a Cold War would lead to imperialism abroad and totalitarianism at home, because power would need to be centralized in the executive branch.
The Truman Doctrine was the official beginning of an aggressive ’peacetime’ intervention during which America became the world’s policeman. ‘Friendly’ nations were often bought off by supporting cooperative but repressive leaders. Unfriendly ones often experienced economic sanctions and the arming of their domestic opponents.
The new face of America’s perpetual war has some cosmetic changes. The enemy is terrorism, not communism. The goal is liberation and democracy, not containment. The battleground is arid soil, not Asian jungle. The soldiers are not drafted but volunteers or mercenaries.
But it all seems oddly the same because the fundamentals are identical. Through unending war, America has utterly deserted any commitment to neutrality abroad. And the Old Right was correct; the domestic government has become a behemoth and power is centralized in the hands of the executive.
The elimination of the neutrality rights of nations is now so complete that neutrality can be challenged even when no declaration or act of war has occurred. Merely viewing a nation as a potential ally or enemy now warrants intervention, up to and including a military presence.
In 1821, John Quincy Adams declared that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” America is now abroad. And she is the monster.
JERUSALEM – In response to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, the Palestinian National Authority has announced that it will recognize Texas as a state of Mexico since it was violently annexed by the United States in the 1840s. Then what about California?
What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Spanish Empire then claimed and conquered it.
In 1804 it was included in Alta California province, within Spanish New Spain Viceroyalty. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención Estadounidense en México (United States intervention in Mexico), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848.
It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which was not formally recognized by the Mexican government, who disputed the Treaties of Velasco signed by Mexican caudillo President/General Antonio López de Santa Anna after the Texas Revolution a decade earlier.
In 1845, newly elected U.S. President James K. Polk, who saw the annexation of Texas as the first step towards a further expansion of the United States, sent troops to the disputed area and a diplomatic mission to Mexico. After Mexican forces attacked U.S. forces, the United States Congress declared war.
The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war and enforced the Mexican Cession of the northern territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States. Mexico acknowledged the loss of what became the State of Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the U.S. The losses amounted to one-third of its original territory from its 1821 independence.
Before the secession of Texas, Mexico comprised almost 1,700,000 sq mi (4,400,000 km2), but by 1849 it was just under 800,000 square miles (2,100,000 km2). Another 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2) were sold to the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, so the total reduction of Mexican territory was more than 55%, or 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 km2).
In much of the United States, victory and the acquisition of new land brought a surge of patriotism. Victory seemed to fulfill Democrats’ belief in their country’s Manifest Destiny, a term used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico and also used to divide half of Oregon with Great Britain.
Historian Frederick Merk says this concept was born out of “a sense of mission to redeem the Old World by high example … generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven”. Historians have emphasized that “manifest destiny” was a contested concept—Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it.
Historian Daniel Walker Howe writes, “American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity … Whigs saw America’s moral mission as one of democratic example rather than one of conquest.”
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy which opposed European colonialism in the Americas. It began in 1823, however the term “Monroe Doctrine” itself was not coined until 1850. President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to the Congress.
The Doctrine was issued on December 2, at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved, or were at the point of gaining, independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires.
It stated that further efforts by various European states to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.” At the same time, the doctrine noted that the U.S. would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.
The doctrine asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence. The separation intended to avoid situations that could make the New World a battleground for the Old World powers so that the U.S. could exert its influence undisturbed. Since the United States at the time was not known as a powerful country, the Doctrine was not internationally taken seriously, however, since Great Britain agreed with it no countries challenged it.
The term “America’s backyard” was then coined during this time as a reference to Latin America. The United States supported the Spanish colonies’ independence because they wanted to keep Spain and other European countries out of the Western Hemisphere, out of “America’s Backyard”.
America’s backyard is a concept often used in political science and international relations contexts to refer to the traditional area of influence of the United States, and major sphere of influence, which was Central and South America for a long time.
This manifested itself in the Louisiana Purchase (from France), Alaska Purchase (from Russia), 1812 War (against Britain), Spanish–American War etc. Big stick ideology, big stick diplomacy, or big stick policy, refers to President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
The term has recently been prominent in popular media with reference to threats to US national security (including Russian military exercises and Middle Eastern terrorism) used to contrast such threats at home with those on traditional fronts in Europe or the Middle East.
By the end of the 19th century, Monroe’s declaration was seen as a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets. The intent and impact of the doctrine persisted more than a century, with only small variations, and would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.