| Summary: | The article provides information on the attempts of politicians and policymakers to draw on historical analogies to frame and explain policy choices, in connection with the nation that the U.S. is an empire that can and should be compared with imperial powers of the past. An empire is a multinational control of other polities. The heterogeneity and the domination are of the very essence of imperial relations. An empire is hierarchical. Most people throughout the history have lived under imperial rule. Most empires, however, have had only regional scope and limited ambitions. The first lesson of imperial history is that the absence of rivals does not diminish the challenges for statesmen. One major problem results from the sheer scope of imperial politics. The universal enmity that hegemonic power breeds presents another challenge to imperial statesmen. Empires have no peers and precious few friends. indeed, to the imperial mind, friendship means a relationship in which clients render services and patrons provide protection. The empire's claims to act for the good on the international system will always be dismissed as the more exercise of self-interest.
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