ABSTRACT
The main political peculiarity of US imperialism was the fact that it had, thanks to a number of special conditions, the possibility of wearing the mask of pacifism and of presenting itself as a democratic and even anti-colonialist force. The United States had no need for a big army and militarism to repeal foreign invasions because of its geographical isolation and its huge size. Besides, the United States began its imperialist career at a time when the entire globe was already divided up between the old imperialist powers. That is why the imperialist struggle of the American bourgeoisie for the redistribution of economic and political spheres of influence could begin under apparently emancipatory slogans, such as “freedom of the seas,” “open doors,” “equal rights,” etc. The American bourgeoisie was even able to present its imperialist wars as battles against imperialist oppression: it used the independence wars that broke up in Cuba in 1895 and in the Philippines in 1896 to disguise its campaign of plunder as a struggle for the freedom of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from the Spanish yoke.250
