Expansionism

In expansionism, governments and states expand their territory, power, wealth or influence through economic
growth, soft power, or the military aggression of empire-building and colonialism.

State-collapse anarchy, reunification or pan-nationalism are sometimes used to justify and legitimize
expansionism, but only when the explicit goal is to reconquer territories that have been lost, or to take over
ancestral lands. In contrast with the ideologies of promised lands like Manifest Destiny, which are used to
justify and legitimize expansionism with the perspective that the lands will eventually belong to the invader
anyway, unlike claims of prior ownership.[1]

Contents
Theories of expansionism
Past examples
21st century
China
Israel
The full extent of the Empire by
Iran Alexander the Great as he strove to
Russia conquer the lands of Asia and the
United States Mediterranean.

Ideologies
In popular culture
See also
References
External links

Theories of expansionism
Ibn Khaldun wrote that newly established dynasties, because they have social cohesion or Asabiyyah, are able
to seek 'expansion to the limit'.[2]

Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev theorized that capitalism advances in 50-year expansion/stagnation
cycles, driven by technological innovation. The UK, Germany, the US, Japan and now China have been at the
forefront of successive waves.

Crane Brinton in The Anatomy of Revolution saw the revolution as a driver of expansionism in, for example,
Stalinist Russia, the US and the Napoleonic Empire.

Christopher Booker believes that Wishful thinking can generate a 'dream phase' of expansionism such as in the
European Union, which is short-lived and unreliable.

Past examples
The militarist and nationalistic reign of Czar Nicholas I (1825–1855) led to wars of conquest against Persia
(1826–1828) and Turkey (1828–1829). Various rebel tribes in the Caucasus region were crushed. A Polish
revolt in 1830 was ruthlessly crushed. Russian troops in 1848 crossed into Austria-Hungary to put down the
Hungarian revolt. Russification policies were implemented to weaken minority ethnic groups. Nicholas also
built the Kremlin Palace and a new cathedral in Saint Petersburg. But Pan-slavism ambition led to further war
with Turkey (the Sick man of Europe) in 1853 provoked Britain and France into invading Crimea, and
Nicholas died, supposedly of grief at his defeat.[3]

The German Second Reich (1871–1918) underwent an industrial revolution under Bismarck, who also
reformed and expanded the army. Poles and Catholics were persecuted. Colonies were acquired in Africa and
China. In 1890, Kaiser Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck and resolved to build a world-class Navy, which led to
an arms race with Britain and thence to World War One.[4]

From 1933 the Third Reich under Hitler laid claim to the Rhineland, the Sudetenland, unification (Anschluss)
with Austria in 1938, and the whole of the Czech lands the following year. After war broke out, Hitler and
Stalin divided Poland between Germany and the USSR. In a Drang nach Osten aimed at achieving
Lebensraum for the German people, Germany invaded the USSR in 1941.[5]

Colonialism, a form of expansionism is the policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over
other people or territories, generally with the aim of developing or exploiting them to the benefit of the
colonizing country.[6] The European colonial period was the era from the 15th century to the mid-20th century
when several European powers had established colonies in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Expansionist nationalism is an aggressive and radical form of nationalism that incorporates autonomous,
patriotic sentiments with a belief in expansionism. The term was coined during the late nineteenth century as
European powers indulged in the 'Scramble for Africa' in the name of national glory, but has been most
associated with militarist governments during the 20th century including Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, the
Japanese empire, and the Balkans countries of Albania (Greater Albania), Bulgaria (Greater Bulgaria), Croatia
(Greater Croatia), Hungary (Greater Hungary), Romania (Greater Romania) and Serbia (Greater Serbia).

In American politics after the War of 1812; Manifest Destiny was the ideological movement during America's
expansion West. The movement incorporated expansionist nationalism with Continentalism, with the Mexican
War in 1846-1848 being attributed to it. Despite championing American settlers and traders as the people
whom the Government's military would be aiding, the Bent, St. Vrain and Company stated to be the most
influential Indian Trading company prior to the Mexican War, underwent a decline due to War and traffic from
American settlers by Beyreis. The company also lost Partner Charles Bent on January 19, 1847, to a riot
caused by the Mexican War. The tribes: Cheyennes, Comanches, Kiowas, and Pawnees died from Smallpox
in 1839–1840, measles and whooping cough in 1845, and cholera in 1849 brought by white settlers. The
buffalo herds, sparse grasses, and rare waters were also depleted following the war as increased traffic by
settlers moving to California during the Gold Rush.[7]

21st century

China

The People's Republic of China is accused of expansionism through its operations and claims in the South
China Sea, which are concurrently claimed by Vietnam.[8]

Israel
Israel was established on reacquired lands under a manifest of original ownership on May 14, 1948, following
the end of World War II and the Holocaust. Its government has tried to expand its territory and power through
the annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981.[9][10]

Iran

Iran, the largest Shi'ite state, has extended its influence across the entire middle east, including Iraq, Lebanon,
Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan, arming local militias.[11]

Russia

Russian posturing has become aggressive since 2008, and especially since 2014.[12] The events associated
with Russia are: the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and Russia's occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; the
Russian military intervention in Ukraine, which began in 2014 with the Annexation of Crimea and the War in
Donbass; and the military intervention in Syria.

United States

The territorial evolution of the United States includes westward expansion, growing from the original Thirteen
Colonies on the Atlantic coast to a country spanning the entire width of North America to the Pacific Ocean. It
accomplished this by war and agreements with Britain, American Indian Wars, Native American treaties,
ethnic cleansing, invasion of Spanish Florida, annexation of the breakaway country of Texas, war with and
purchase from Mexico, and purchases from France and Spain. The 1856 Guano Islands Act triggered the
acquisition of several islands, some of which are disputed with other countries. Some were ceded to other
countries, but many remain U.S. territory. The federal government purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. The
overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was accomplished in 1893 with the participation of U.S. citizens and
military forces, allowing the annexation of Hawaii in 1898. The 1898 Spanish–American War and Philippine–
American War resulted in the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands, though
Cuba was granted independence in 1902, and the Philippines in 1946. The United States took control of
American Samoa after the Second Samoan Civil War ended in 1899. The United States Virgin Islands were
purchased from Denmark in 1917, solving economic and security problems created by World War I. Victory
over Japan in World War II resulted U.S. administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Three
Trust jurisdictions became independent countries in 1986 and 1994, each with a Compact of Free Association
with the United States, but the Northern Mariana Islands became a federal territory of the United States.

The United States has made no territorial claims in Antarctica, but reserves the right to do so. It participates in
the Antarctic Treaty and operates research bases on international territory there. The Outer Space Treaty
prohibits claiming territory on other solar system bodies, though the United States sent Apollo astronauts to the
Moon, where they planted U.S. flags.

The United States has been accused of neocolonialism with modern American imperialism taking the form of
military and economic hegemony over the affairs of many countries, advancing American interests without
annexation but with varying levels of coercion. For example, the U.S. forced the opening of Japan in the
1850s. In the late 1800s and much of the 1900s, U.S. corporations exercised outsized influence over several
Central American countries, which became known as banana republics. They were occasionally aided by the
U.S. military, especially during the Banana Wars, from 1898 to 1934. The United States has invaded and
occupied many other countries to advance its economic and security interests, but has eventually returned these
countries to sovereign domestic control. (For a complete list, see Territories of the United States § Former
territories and administered areas.)
The U.S. retains military bases in some of the sovereign countries it once occupied, on a notionally voluntary
basis, including in Germany, Italy, Japan, Greenland, Iceland, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay Naval
Base is retained despite the protests of the Cuban government, and the U.S. also has military bases in various
countries with which it has allied.

By voluntary agreement with the country of Panama, the United States controlled the Panama Canal Zone
from 1903 to 1979. The U.S. constructed the Panama Canal and operated it until 1999, when it was turned
over to Panama. The Corn Islands were leased from Nicaragua from 1914 to 1971.

Ideologies
In the nineteenth century, theories of racial unity such as Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, Pan-Turkism and the
related Turanism, evolved. In each case, the dominant nation (respectively, Prussia, Russia[13] and the
Ottoman Empire, especially under Enver Pasha,) used these theories to legitimise their expansionist policies.

In popular culture
George Orwell's satirical novel Animal Farm is a fictional depiction, based on Stalin's USSR, of a new elite
seizing power, establishing new rules and hierarchies, then expanding economically while compromising their
ideals; while Robert Erskine Childers in The Riddle of the Sands portrayed the threatening nature of the
German Second Reich. Elspeth Huxley's novel Red Strangers shows the effects on local culture of colonial
expansion into sub-Saharan Africa.

See also
American imperialism
Bandwagon effect
British Empire
Expansionist nationalism
Colonialism
Greater Israel
Groupthink
List of irredentist claims or disputes
Manifest Destiny
Mitteleuropa
Enlargement of NATO
Overconfidence effect
Political midlife crisis
Roosevelt Corollary
Yinon Plan

References
1. "Manifest Destiny | History, Examples, & Significance" (https://www.britannica.com/event/Manif
est-Destiny). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
2. The Muqadimmah, 1377, pages 137-256
3. Orlando Figes, Crimea, Penguin, 2011, chapter one
 4. Allan Mallinson, '1914; Fight the Good Fight', Bantam Press, 2013, chapter two
5. Sebastian Haffner, The Meaning of Hitler, Phoenix, 2000, chapters 2,3 and 4
6. Colonialism, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (1989
ed.) p. 291.; Colonialisme, Nouveau Petit Robert de la langue française (1993 ed.), p. 456.
7. Beyreis, David (Summer 2018). "The Chaos of Conquest: The Bents and the Problem of
American Expansion". Kansas History. 41 (2): 72–89 – via History Reference Center.
8. Simon Tisdall, 'Vietnam's fury at China's expansionism can be traced to a troubled history', The
Guardian, 15/5/2004
9. Masalha, Nur (2000). Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: politics of expansion. Sterling, VA:
Pluto Press.
10. https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/golan%20heights%20law.aspx/
11. Arango, Tim (15 July 2017). "Iran Dominates in Iraq After U.S. 'Handed the Country Over' " (http
s://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/world/middleeast/iran-iraq-iranian-power.html). New York
Times. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
12. Walker, Peter (2015-02-20). "Russian expansionism may pose existential threat, says NATO
general" (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/20/russia-existential-threat-british-nato-g
eneral). The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
13. Orlando Figes, Crimea, Penguin, 2011, p.89

External links
"Expansionism / Imperialism" (http://www.projectworldview.org/wvtheme22.htm) from
ProjectWorldview.org

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Expansionism&oldid=984136274"

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