Expansionism

About: Expansionism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 979 publications have been published within this topic receiving 11169 citations.

The Institution of Modern Cryptology in the Netherlands and in the Netherlands East Indies, 1914–1935

Abstract: The need for Communications Intelligence in the Netherlands was first felt by the Dutch military as a consequence of the outbreak of the First World War. The decision to prolong, as in the Netherlands, or establish, as in the case of the East Indies, COMINT facilities belonged to the judicial domain and was primarily related to threats posed by revolutionary movements from within the country. The monitoring of traffic from foreign embassies or consulates happened only when interference from foreign governments was suspected. Japanese expansionism, leading to direct Japanese involvement in the political developments in the East Indies, provided such a case. As a consequence, the fine line between domestic and foreign affairs became thinner still until it entirely vanished during the later part of the 1930s.

The Clark Memorandum Myth

Abstract: For nearly three decades after the turn of the twentieth century, the United States took upon itself the policing of the Caribbean and Central America. Under an expanded interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine known as the Roosevelt Corollary, American policymakers justified numerous military interventions in those small republics until Monroeism became a synonym in Latin America for imperialism and expansionism. By 1930, this policy of attempted hegemony by force was a failure: Public opinion at home and abroad had opposed the “big stick” concept of hemispheric relations almost from the beginning; the interventions seldom achieved their nebulous goals.

Review of The Comanche Empire

Abstract: BOOK REVIEWS The Comanche Empire. By Pekka Hama- lainen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. to thrive in an area being steadily colo- nized by the United States, and how its conflict with Mexico enabled American expansion. By blunting efforts to colonize north of the Rio Grande and leaving these areas depopulated, Comancheria indirectly forced Mexico to let American settlers into them, leading to both Texan independence and the Mexican-American War. The dep- redations inflicted on New Mexico by the Comanches were so thorough that Ameri- can forces faced virtually no resistance in those areas, and were sometimes wel- comed and aided. The Americans were aware of this, offering protection from Co- mancheria that Mexico was unable to pro- vide. Chapter 6 breaks the chronological trend of the book and discusses Comanche soci- ety, how it influenced their foreign policy, and how expansionism altered it from the 18 th to 19 th century. The overall structure and gender roles did not change greatly, but herding operations grew exponentially, as did the number of slaves. Comancheria developed a proto-capitalist economy and a growing wealth gap, but a cultural em- phasis on generosity helped alleviate the negative effects, and a “warrior cult” helped channel male aggression outwards, aiding the empire and society simultane- ously. Chapter 7 details the collapse of this sys- tem, as a drought in the mid-1840's deci- mated the Comanche bison herds, sending their economy into a free-fall. American settlers and soldiers whittled down Co- mancheria, although the Civil War brought a short resurgence of the empire. Chapter 8 is the short, brutal story of Comancheria's final fall after the Civil War, and the Co- manche nation's confinement on an Okla- homa reservation. Hamalainen's book is an enlightening history of a forgotten empire and a neces- sary read for anyone with a sphere of study remotely related to the Southwestern United States, although I feel that Hama- lainen should have used the term South- Central United States for total geographic Pekka Hamalainen's The Comanche Em- pire is a political, economic, and cultural history of the eponymous nation and its ef- fects on the history of the modern South- western United States. Hamalainen is argu- ing for the very idea that a native empire could have had agency and been actors, ra- ther than just victims, in the history of North America. He also uses his analysis to view the history of the Southwest as indi- vidual towns and tribes, rather than borders and nation-states – in short, to view the world as the Comanche empire did to bet- ter understand them. Chapter 1 is the story of the Comanche's rise to power, starting with their arrival in New Mexico from the Great Plains in 1706 as the Numunu. Their background as refu- gees made them exceptionally hardy and adaptable, and by the middle of the century they had turned the northern Mexican fron- tier into fertile raiding and trading grounds. Chapter 2 deals with Spanish colonial policy in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, and how Comancheria took ad- vantage of it. Spain's obsession with the threat of Britain's empire left them open to the Comanche's, who, via a comparatively huge population and a flexible foreign pol- icy, maneuvered themselves into a position capable of resisting expansion by the Spanish. Chapter 3 deals with Spain's response to the power of the Comanches – an alliance, albeit one only possible due to a smallpox epidemic decimating Comancheria and the independence of the United States radi- cally altering the balance of power on the continent. However, Spain treated the Co- manches poorly and failed to aid them, and Comancheria resumed its assault on New Mexico. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Coman- cheria's height in the mid-19 th century: how its focus on hunting, trading, and raid- ing instead of territorial control enabled it

Frontier violence in the nineteenth-century British Empire

Abstract: [Extract] In The Trouble with Empire, Antoinette Burton explores how violence accompanied the imperial project wherever it went. Arising from a perennial struggle between imperial expansionism and counter-resistance, she argues, violence emerged as an inherent feature of Britain’s colonial frontiers. Although it sometimes took the form of large-scale warfare, colonial violence predominantly manifested itself as innumerable, small-scale insurrections that perpetually called forth Britain’s military interventions. The level of repressive violence that was required to shore up Britain’s fragile rule over its extensive territories belied its own understanding of itself as a harbinger of civilisation. Rather than representing a benign civilising force, the British Empire was a ‘great military machine’, as Richard Gott puts it, one that over an extended period pursued the widespread exploitation of peoples, lands and resources. This is not to say that ideas of civilisation exist in a state of inevitable contradiction with violence. As the precedent of the Roman Empire had demonstrated, the violence of colonisation and a belief in its civilising potential had long gone hand in hand, and this was also true of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. Framed by the beginning of the Second British Empire (with American independence in 1783) and the end of the so-called imperial century (with the onset of World War I in 1914), the ‘long’ nineteenth century of the British Empire witnessed a period of unparalleled territorial growth accompanied by various forms of coercion.

Comprendre les enjeux de la rivalite russo-americaine dans le conflit syrien au moyen-orient

Abstract: The Middle East is the epicentre of world geopolitics because it is at the heart of the stakes and the desires of the world's powers. The United States, which has long considered itself the world's policeman, must deal with the unbridled ambitions of the new Russia, determined to catch up in global governance. Since the end of the cold war, this is the first time that these two states have fought on the same political, diplomatic and strategic ground that the Syrian conflict offered. Beyond the lines of friction, Americans and Russians have been forced to cooperate against the dangerous expansionism of the Islamic state under the banner of the fight against terrorism.