New American Expansionism - Manifest Destiny 2.0 ?

With each passing day, it is becoming increasingly clear that the rules-based liberal world order is in its terminal stage. All foundations of this cherished order – respect for territorial integrity, sovereign independence, conflict resolution through UN-stipulated mechanisms, non-protectionist trade policies, democratic ideals, human rights, avoidance of using war as an instrument of foreign policy and adherence to international law – are being dismantled rapidly. Worse still, the very state that spent trillions of dollars on strengthening a rules-based world order is itself destroying it. US President Donald Trump, who rode on a populist wave to enter the White House for the second time, is now determined to remove whatever is left of the post-World War order. From expansionist ambitions in South America and the Arctic region to providing legitimacy to Israel's cruelty in the Middle East, he is driving the world towards an era reminiscent of pre-World War I. However, Trump is not the first US president who uses brazen force to protect perceived US interests; all administrations have attempted to maintain America's exclusive sphere of influence in the Americas and Western Hemisphere. Therefore, it would be wise to look at history briefly before we discuss Trump's expansionist ambitions.

Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine have been the two policy pillars in US foreign policy for ages. These two elements have always convinced the US administrations to acquire new territories and maintain a hegemonic status in the Western Hemisphere. Particularly, the idea of Manifest Destiny, coined by John L. O'Sullivan in 1845, attempted to project that it was the right of the US to overspread and possess the whole American continent for the development of liberty and federated self-government.

Even before the mainstreaming of this concept, the US government engaged in ceaseless wanderlust to accommodate the rising population. For instance, Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase (1803); the War of 1812, whose one underlying objective was to capture Spanish Florida along with the motivation to annex Canada; and the annexation of Florida (1818) that led to US claims over the Northwest Pacific, as Spain renounced Oregon Country, are some examples which clearly show that expansionism has always been part of the American experience. The most notorious and completely unjustifiable expansion happened when President James K. Polk declared war on Mexico in 1846 over a border dispute, which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Under the treaty, Mexico was forced to cede its 1,360,000 km² area to the USA, which today makes the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. This forcible annexation is still the cause of irritation between Washington and New Mexico. Though expansionist ambitions hit a roadblock due to sectional divide within the USA over the question of slavery, the concept of Manifest Destiny resurrected after the American Civil War, causing intense exploration of foreign territories under the Mahanian Doctrine that urged the US to seek control of the international war in the 1890s. Consequently, the Spanish-US War (1898) ended with the US acquiring the Spanish territories such as Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Similarly, the USA also annexed Hawaii, providing the US Navy a desirable port facility at Pearl Harbour and effectively converting the USA into an imperialistic and global power.