this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Explain Like I'm Five

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Explain like I am a moron. If the US is such apparently a badass super power it has never tried to take over another country to expand its influence and status? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by Don_Dickle@lemmy.world to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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[โ€“] TheOneCurly@lemm.ee 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Manifest Destiny is pretty much that. The US fought Mexico, Spain, and British Canada, exploited the political situation in Europe to buy a huge chunk of land from France, and displaced or killed hundreds of thousands of native people. The US is the 4th largest country by area. Having that much contiguous land is insanely valuable and powerful. By the time the US would have even had to think about colonizing like the Europeans it was going out of style.

[โ€“] Maggoty@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

And we tried to recolonize parts of Central and South America anyways. Didn't work out though, for obvious reasons.