The United States an Empire in the Making or Father Figure to the World?

The United States of America is often accused of being an empire. As one searches through history, they may find particular instances where it appears as if the U.S. is an empire. Some date this notion of U.S. empire back to our colonial ancestors and the slave trade where the U.S. forced Africans to leave their homes and work on plantations, without wage, for centuries. Others will argue that the United States has been acting as an empire since we fought the Spanish-American war in the late 19^th century. It was a war that would essentially free the people of the Philippines and Cuba from the hands of Spanish colonialism, but only to "re-colonize" the countries by enforcing our economic policies and implementing our own form of government. Others believe that the idea of empire is a rather new one and has begun with the war in Iraq. These are just some of the ideas for what is known as of military empire. They do not include other forms of empire such as economic empire or globalization. For example, some argue that the U.S. acted as an empire when it created a World Bank after World War II and nations hurting because of the war such as England, France, and Italy had to invest in the U.S. in order to rebuild their economies and infrastructure, essentially creating a monopoly that would benefit U.S. interests. Regardless of personal opinion, I believe that everyone can agree the U.S. is acting as an empire in one way or another, whether it be militarily of economically. But in order to understand how the U.S. is actually acting as an empire and what empire means, we have to examine definitions, history, military policies, economics and of the course how these things have been incorporated in the past, present and future.