Tom Youngman

American Expansionism: A Critical Barrier to Sustainability

In the 1920s - at the height of some of the fastest years of industrial expansion the United States has ever seen - the USA’s agricultural economy was suffering. Although there were many factors to this, the degradation of land (creating the infamous ‘Dust Bowl’) was certainly one of the most serious. For generations American farmers had been able to slowly move westwards, exhausting countless hectares beyond repair, simply able to roll the Western frontier onwards.

In the 1930s, this frontier reached the Western deserts - the West Coast already spoken for. The American agricultural economy was obliterated, left only accessible to a few large-scale operators. The industrialisation that then allowed the region to continue was fuelled by war.

After the second world war, America’s focus changed. An economic empire was built (expanding on that which existed in central America in the early 20th century) cementing its position as a global superpower. Exploiting its own natural resources to the full, the USA looked abroad for profit-making. 

This economic empire has been supported by the US Government, as would be expected. In more recent years this has gone to greater extremes, with oil opportunities almost certainly playing a part in the Iraq war’s initiation.

This week saw Wikileaks reveal the fatal next stage of this expansionism. Global speculation about natural resources to be revealed by melting arctic ice is high, and the cables from diplomats at the Arctic Council reveal America’s ambition in the area. America’s claim to the arctic relies on Alaska, to which its claim is tenuous, not being contiguous with the rest of the nation and itself only colonised for its gold reserves. Even if it is considered 100% America’s right to govern Alaska, it is undeniable that America’s claim to the arctic is much weaker than that of Norway, Sweden, Russia and Canada, for example.

As well as securing rights to the Arctic themselves, the USA is pushing its corporate style of expansion in the region. Capitalising on Greenland’s push for independence from Denmark, America’s ambassador to Denmark stated in one of the leaked cables: “To help the Greenlanders secure the investments needed for such exploitation, I recently introduced Home Rule Premier Enoksen and Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Aleqa Hammond to some of our top U.S. financial institutions in New York”.

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity at the present time, a fact increasingly recognised by new parties, including American military generals. To exploit Arctic oil reserves, revealed due to climate change and certain to further climate change, is to enter a vicious cycle on short-sighted logic. America has demonstrated in the past its ability to exploit resources without regard to their continued use, or the wellbeing of the planet as a whole, and I do not doubt this could happen again.

American Expansionism may have taken human beings to the moon, but without regard for sustainability of resources, it may be responsible for taking human beings from the earth as well.