The Empire of Tomorrow was Yesterday: Imperial Territoriality, Decline Anxieties, and Global America

This essay provides historical context for the imperial territorial imaginary of the current US administration. The desire to expand and globalize has always been the lifeblood of the American polity. Territorial and non-territorial dynamics and instruments complemented each other to sustain the steady rise of US power to global primacy. The current US administration's foregrounding of territorial expansion, even at the cost of alienating its closest allies, reflects a traditional preoccupation with spatial expansion; but it also brutally dismantles historic non-spatial dynamics of US power, including the transatlantic relationship with its deeply shared history and values. The repurposed historical narrative of ‘manifest destiny’ is instead designed to elevate the current president into the pantheon of America's greatest empire-builders. Such narratives are intended to signal a departure from US global engagements thereby addressing domestic anxieties about the potentially detrimental impact of globalization(s), interdependence, and the world-wide reach of the Pax Americana .