Michael Mandelbaum Quotes

Whereas the British were generally quite open about the fact that they were running an empire, few Americans politicians today would use the “e” word as anything other than a term of abuse.

The United States although a superpower was never an empire..

While envisaging the destruction of imperialism, it is necessary to identify its head, which is no other than the United States of America.

All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

America has never been an empire. … We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused.

It’s not a dictatorship in the United States. But it is dictatorial to the rest of the world. Who’s going to say no?

Americans are not intrinsically imperial, but we ended up dominant by default: Europe disappeared after the Second World War, the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so here we are.

You know, the Brits had a way of - running an empire. And I don't think America is comfortable with an empire.

Scholars and historians have dubbed the last 100 years the American Century, and I think there can be little doubt that the Council on Foreign Relations helped to make it so.

America might be a dying empire, but it's not going to die in our lifetime - and it doesn't have to die at all.

In the past when a country became as powerful as the United States, other countries would band together to clip its wings. But that isn't happening now and I don't think it's not going to happen, because other countries are not threatened by us, and they secretly appreciate the services that we provide, even if they don't usually say so.

This will be the century of America.

Americans tend to see U.S. primacy as beneficial to both their country and the rest of the world.

The best American internationalists reject the idea that their nation holds a global copyright that gives it a mandate to churn out replicas dotting the world.

We live in the age of the American empire.

Americans do not recognize the effect of American power in the world. … People all over the world ask, “Why can’t Americans see how American power affects us?”

What the city [Constantinople] contains is its own; beyond the walls it has no dominion—owns nothing. If I want to build a castle at the Sacred Mouth, it can’t forbid me. Tell your emperor this: The sultan who now rules is not like his predecessors. What they couldn’t achieve, he can do easily and at once. The things they did not wish to do, he certainly does. The next man who comes here on a mission like this will be flayed alive.

From the very beginning, Americans have exhibited a taste for expansion, an appetite for empire. One of the fundamental reasons for this is very clear. Like every other western empire that has ever existed, Americans may claim to have inherited the mantle of ancient Rome.

That's the problem with the United States. It believes it can control everybody's behavior.

Indeed, China may never acquire the geo-political influence and reach that Great Britain enjoyed in the 19th century and the United States of America did in the 20th, even though it may have already surpassed the geo-economic clout the two major powers enjoyed in the heyday of their empires.

The U.S. is ruled by private interest groups and by the neoconservative ideology that history has chosen the U.S. as the 'exceptional and indispensable' country with the right and responsibility to impose its will on the world.

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and dropping too many bombs on too many people.

The American empire should be destroyed.

For any imperial policy to work effectively...it needs moral and intellectual guidance...It is much to be doubted that the United States can continue to play an imperial role without the endorsement of its intellectual class...

Let it be known that war with a colony is war with England.