Is the United States an Empire? This question has been floating around and outside our country for decades, but,  what's the real answer? The New York Times states, “America Is an Empire in Decline. That Doesn’t Mean It Has to Fall” (NYT, 2023). So are they right? How did the United States universal rule begin? In this Op-Ed I assure you all of these questions you may have will be answered. Although the United States’ cultural domestic issues like racial injustice and its struggles with health care divides its population, weakening our position on the world stage, I argue that U.S. soft power and economic influence across the world along with the use of hard power, in the form of military sanctions in Europe, has forged the United States into a dominant empire. This is significant because even with all of its domestic issues, the U.S. is still able to have a large influence internationally which helps it maintain its empire. 
The United States has used many ways of taking over and dominating land for centuries, but one of the most effective, and passive, strategies the United States uses is soft power. Soft power is defined as the capacity to persuade others and make them align with someone or something’s interests voluntarily, and the U.S. uses this to strengthen its position and influence on the world stage. One of the most significant examples of the U.S. executing soft power successfully is the U.S. efforts in Africa, including the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. (Wagner, 2014) These uses of soft power are mostly to gain more political and social influence, and economic improvements. To cite just one of many examples, the African Growth and Opportunity act, which allowed a select amount of African countries access to U.S markets with reduced tariffs helps African countries to grow and improve themselves financially, but also permits the U.S to gain better relationships with African countries and economic reform.

Another way that the U.S exercises influence with other countries around the world is its economic impact in the form of soft and hard power aka “smart power”(WAGNER, 2014). Economic sanctions used by the U.S across the world is just one way the U.S inflicts hard power, an example of this is sanctions placed on Russians and Russian businesses. The United States Department of the Treasury said this in regard to its sanction in Russia; “Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is imposing nearly 100 sanctions on Russian elites and Russia’s industrial base, financial institutions, and technology suppliers as the United States continues to leverage sanctions and economic restrictions to undermine Russia’s capacity to wage its war against Ukraine.” (TREAS, 2023). As this example indicates, the United States is using its economic sanctions around Europe to inflict hard power but also to build better relationships with other countries like Ukraine which is an example of soft power. These uses of economic influence to apply hard and soft power to countries around the world show us how the U.S maintains such a strong and powerful empire.

The last, and probably most brutal way the United States maintains a strong empire is its use of hard power in the form of military bases and presence across the world. Although some of the problems with hard power are its temporary nature and the difficulty of maintaining an empire solely with hard power, there are early examples of the United States administering hard power throughout the world to gain land and control. In the 19th century the U.S expanded into the Philippines, gaining the U.S unpopulated territory and allowing the construction of military bases and equipment on that land. (Immerwahr, 2020) This isn't the most obvious use of hard power but after the U.S building bases across its islands, the equipment built in the Philippines was used in wars, which is an example of hard power. Some examples of the U.S trying to use hard power to expand its land are the Mexican-American war and the Spanish-American war. In both these wars, the U.S gained land by using its military and influence across the world. Hard power helps gain short term dominance and lets the United States maintain an assertive and strong empire.

To be sure, the U.S has problems that it has to face in order to maintain its empire, like racial injustice and its insufficient healthcare. Both of these issues result in uproar through the U.S, but the U.S does a good job in ignoring these problems and carrying on with their inactivity. This allows the U.S to maintain their empire without facing any of the issues within it that affect its people. 

After looking at all the ways the United States created and maintains its empire, it is clear that the U.S is a strong and dominant empire.The U.S influence across the world is an effect of its use of hard and soft power in order to gain territory, have economic authority and prominence. The future of the U.S is unknown but our empire may be beginning to fall as the U.S is ignoring its local problems instead of focusing on both international and domestic issues.

Bibliography

Immerwahr, Daniel . 2020. Review of The Lawfare Podcast: Law, Policy and Empire Podcast. The Lawfare Podcast. lawfaremedia.org/article/lawfare-podcast-law-policy-and-empire-daniel-immerwahr.

Ortiz, Paul. 2018. An African American and Latinx History of the United States. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. drive.google.com/file/d/1sWcL4VHrJ9riXbOpbqpK3oi3Nkuua-PU/view

Rapley, John. “America Is an Empire in Decline. That Doesn’t Mean It Has to Fall.” The New York Times, September 4, 2023. nytimes.com/2023/09/04/opinion/america-rome-empire.html

Wagner, Jean-Paul. 2014. Review of The Effectiveness of Soft & Hard Power in Contemporary International Relations, May. docs.google.com/document/d/1EjuWhy1CFU3q5VjaiWs5jekab9XhfFFApRtMcXiBJkU/edit.

“With Wide-Ranging New Sanctions, Treasury Targets Russian Military-Linked Elites and Industrial Base.” 2023. U.S. Department of the Treasury. August 28, 2023. home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1731.