[Alberta's Child]

We don't openly govern these countries the way a traditional empire would have done it in the past, but make no mistake about it -- we do occupy them.

The U.S. military currently has a presence in more than 80 countries around the globe. There isn't another empire in the history of the world that can lay claim to that kind of armed presence.

[ClearCase_guy]

We don't openly govern these countries the way a traditional empire would have done it in the past, but make no mistake about it -- we do occupy them.

That's just silly.

We do not "occupy" Germany in any sense.
We do not "occupy" Japan in any sense.

Hey, I hear the US National Guard is in Nebraska -- it's occupied territory! Are they under Martial law??

One of my issues is that we spend a lot of money on forward deployment of US military assets -- and we get nothing for it. BECAUSE WE'RE NOT AN EMPIRE.