Imperial expansion is legitimized as defensive and sustained by manufactured fear.

Evidence

The end goal is to win consent for an imperial agenda through a process that orchestrates fear of the enemy within and preempts criticisms of empire-building. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The 1947 National Security Act made security a key element of the postwar order, creating the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency. This new and growing infrastructure of the postwar imperial state was presented not as an expansion of US power and hegemony on the global stage, but rather as a form of defensive security, most evident in the renaming of the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Cold War liberals insisted that the United States was not an empire like other European colonial powers. Instead, drawing on a dominant myth in US politics regarding its place in the world, they argued that it was an exceptional state, a beacon for other nations because of its unique history and foundation. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 732 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The only grandeur of imperialism lies in the nation’s losing battle against it. The tragedy of this half-hearted opposition was not that many national representatives could be bought by the new imperialist businessmen; worse than corruption was the fact that the incorruptible were convinced that imperialism was the only way to conduct world politics. Since maritime stations and access to raw materials were really necessary for all nations, they came to believe that annexation and expansion worked for the salvation of the nation. They were the first to fail to understand the fundamental difference between the old foundation of trade and maritime stations for the sake of trade and the new policy of expansion. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 360 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Renaming the Department of War as Defense reframed imperial expansion as defensive security — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 732; Fear mongering is the key mechanism that sustains vast imperial infrastructure — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 734; 1947 National Security Act rebranded imperial expansion as defensive security (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Fear of an internal enemy is manufactured to secure consent for empire #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491
• Even anti-imperialist parliamentarians were coopted by believing expansion necessary for national survival. #exemplifies (0.85) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 360
• US postwar security state disguised imperial expansion as defensive exceptionalism #exemplifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 732
• Egyptian expansion used civilization-and-trade rhetoric backed by military threat #exemplifies (0.80) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 587
• Gordon’s Sudan expansion style paired threats with a civilizing civilizing and trade rhetoric #exemplifies (0.75) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 587
• The flexible terrorist category is repurposed against domestic movements threatening empire #exemplifies (0.70)