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American Empire: Cold War

The United States of America have come through various stages of transformation ranging

from the colony of British Empire to the federal constitutional republic it is nowadays. However,

there are some features which indicate that the USA cannot be exclusively characterized as

democratic state – to some extent it can be described as empire.

Firstly, any empire follows expansion policy either by economic or military methods.

During the Cold War America put economic sanctions on countries which did not support its

political course and refused to collaborate. On 19 October 1960, the USA started the embargo

against Cuba when the latter nationalized US-owned oil refineries on Cuban soil and without

compensation. (Land, 2018). As a result, the economy of Cuba was severely affected, the economic

expansion began and continued 2015.

An empire holds a powerful army and spends a significant part of budget on weapon and

military. The race of arms during the Cold War demonstrated the interest of the US in overcoming

other countries in the matter of military might, which led to American armed forces being the most

powerful in the world.

Any empire has its own ideology to which all the citizens are subject. At the times of Cold

War such ideology for all Americans was McCarthyism. “McCarthyism was a symptom of a

massive and widespread anticommunist hysteria that engulfed Cold War America” (Locke and

Wright 2: 269-270). Anticommunist ideology was valued more than faith in capitalism, patriotism

and religious conviction and united the nation against the growing communist bloc.
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Each empire strives to follow its own interests in the conduct of its foreign policy without

consulting other parties involved. It acts so because it is an important and influential actor on the

international arena with powerful military and political might, so a lot of effort need to be put to

counter the actions of the empire in controversial issues. One of the brightest examples which

demonstrated the imperial behavior of the United States was the Demise of Bretton Woods in 1971.

The dominant currency at that time was US dollar and it was backed by gold. This ensured the

prominence of the United States of America in the developing crisis. The French president Charles

de Gaulle urged the US to exchange France’s dollar reserves for gold. “By 1966, gold accounted for

more than 70 percent of French international holdings” (Graetz and Briffault, “A "Barbarous Relic:

The French, Gold, and the Demise of Bretton Woods”). Many countries followed the example of

France and started to amass gold leaving America without financial backing. The crisis was

developing, USA could not maintain dollar’s convertibility into gold and was gradually losing the

leading positions in the global financial system. The US president Richard Nixon announced the

independence of dollar from gold and this way put an end to Bretton Wood financial system. After

that the system of floating rates was introduced. Such actions deteriorated the major economies and

caused the dissatisfaction of the countries of the world.

All things considered, America has some distinctive features which can be described as

imperial. Although the official political organization of the USA is constitutional republic today,

there was a period of Cold War when the country took action corresponding to the empire state,

which played to its strengths and helped to develop the economy and political image of America.
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Works Cited

Land, Graham. “The US Embargo Against Cuba: A Cold War Relic?”. Historyhit. 23 Jul 2018.

https://www.historyhit.com/the-us-embargo-against-cuba/ Accessed 20 May 2020.

Locke, L.Joseph & Wright, Ben. “The American Yawp”. Stanford, California, Stanford University

Press, 2019. Vol.2.

Michael J. Graetz & Olivia Briffault. “A "Barbarous Relic": The French, Gold, and the Demise of

Bretton Woods”. Yale University Press, 2019;

https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=3545&context=faculty_scholarship. Accessed 20 May 2020.