The Beginnings of Empire

by Laurence M. Vance

"We don’t seek empires. We’re not imperialistic. We never have been. I can’t imagine why you’d even ask the question." ~ Donald Rumsfeld (April 2003)

And we can’t imagine why Rumsfeld is so ignorant of American military history, especially since Vice President Dick Cheney calls him "the finest Secretary of Defense this nation has ever had," and especially since the Department of Defense, which he ran for six years, publishes a quarterly report that reveals the extent of America’s global troop presence, now up to 159 different regions of the world.

I have referred to this report ("Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country") in several previous articles. The DOD now has these quarterly reports online for the years 1950 and 1953 through the present. What they show is that the U.S. global empire is not a recent phenomenon. One would think that after World War II, all U.S. forces would have been brought home – or at least brought home from every place except Western Europe and Japan.

Think again.

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