Afghanistan is THE apt example. Many empires have been broken trying to conquer Afghanistan. The Persians, the Greeks, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets and now the Americans.
Yeah that sometimes happens when empires fall. The Russian Empire was replaced by the Soviet Union, The Roman Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire the eastern part of which, in turn, became the Byzantine Empire when the Roman Empire finally fell.
It may well happen to America but it hasn't happened yet. While America of today might be markedly different from the America of 1776, it's still the same empire.
Glubb goes into this. The United States expanding westward and conquering barbarian Native American tribes, that is their Age of Pioneers, that is them becoming an empire. What you're thinking, about the post-war period when they became world police, that's not pioneering in the traditional sense. Plus, like I said before, they're not particularly successful world police. Stalemate in Korea, lost in Vietnam, lost in Iraq, lost in Afghanistan and they've managed to piss off almost every country they tried to regime change, with Cuba, South America, Iran and now Ukraine being some of the biggest examples.Poonoo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:31 pmthe real debate is did they become an empire post WW2 with the CIA creating puppet states? Because other than Manifest Destiny the USA didn't meddle too much in other countries affairs and was very isolationist compared to today. Or is that merely there Caesar moment where it is technically a democracy but acts like an empirical dictatorship?