An Overview of the History of American Imperialism and the American Security State

Abstract

This chapter describes how imperialism has been commensurate with America’s perceived special sense of purpose in the world since this country’s inception. The chapter then moves on to describe how this sense of purpose eventually leads to a non-colonialist type of neo-imperialism that informs the rise of the U.S. security state after World War II, as America takes the place of the British Empire as a global leader. This brief history is necessary for characterizing the evolution of the neo-imperialist American state after World War II in order to illustrate in later chapters how invasion narratives in science fiction films also evolve as they either implicitly support or criticize the American security state’s expansionist tendencies. Thus, this chapter also outlines the history of how America not only invested in imperialist modes of proceeding that led to its hegemonic tendencies in American society and overseas, but also how America itself became aware of those tendencies and became critical of its oppressive potential at home and abroad, or fostered reactions against that criticism. The negative critiques of the state’s oppressive tendencies typically focus on how the expansionist state, while initially devised to ensure unity and economic stability, as well as national security and national identity, at least seemed instead to help foster regimes where paranoia, divisiveness, and fear of technologies exerting control over the citizenry dominate the cultural discourse, as these concerns were fueled by implicit millennial mythologies shaping the American nationalist state from its inception. Reactions to those critiques emphasize the necessity of establishing hierarchies at home and abroad to maintain order and security in the nation state.