美国如何屈服于保护其公民海外投资的压力而成为帝国主义大国
在整个二十世纪，美国政府自愿部署硬实力和软实力，以保护美国在全球的投资。美国为什么要在海外捍卫公民的财产权？帝国陷阱着眼于现代美国如何开始参与帝国事务，美国外交政策如何变得越来越依赖于私人金融利益的影响，以及战后政府如何最终将美国从经济干预主义中解救出来，尽管政府有继续下去的意愿和权力。
诺埃尔·莫雷尔（Noel Maurer）考察了美国投资者最初影响其政府的方式，即为保护中美洲和加勒比地区的投资进行斡旋。成本很小——至少在一开始是如此——但随着每一步的逐步推进，美国的政策越来越与他们支持的目标纠缠在一起，使得脱离接触变得更加困难。莫雷尔讨论了在整个20世纪70年代，美国不仅未能抵御保护美国投资的压力，而且在没有美国积极参与的情况下，也未能成功地改变其他国家的内部机构，以确保产权安全。外国没收了美国的投资，但在几乎所有情况下，美国政府采用经济制裁或秘密行动获得了市场价值或更多的补偿——尽管战略风险不断增加。专注于国际仲裁的机构的出现，最终给了行政部门一个不采取行动的可信政治借口。莫雷尔警告说，这些机构目前正面临压力，崩溃可能会再次打开帝国陷阱。
通过精明及时的分析，这本书考虑了美国对外干预的模式以及美国作为帝国主义大国不断变化的角色。
The Empire Trap: The Rise and Fall of U.S. Intervention to Protect American Property Overseas, 1893-2013
How the United States became an imperial power by bowing to pressure to defend its citizens’ overseas investments
Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. government willingly deployed power, hard and soft, to protect American investments all around the globe. Why did the United States get into the business of defending its citizens’ property rights abroad? The Empire Trap looks at how modern U.S. involvement in the empire business began, how American foreign policy became increasingly tied to the sway of private financial interests, and how postwar administrations finally extricated the United States from economic interventionism, even though the government had the will and power to continue.
Noel Maurer examines the ways that American investors initially influenced their government to intercede to protect investments in locations such as Central America and the Caribbean. Costs were small―at least at the outset―but with each incremental step, American policy became increasingly entangled with the goals of those they were backing, making disengagement more difficult. Maurer discusses how, all the way through the 1970s, the United States not only failed to resist pressure to defend American investments, but also remained unsuccessful at altering internal institutions of other countries in order to make property rights secure in the absence of active American involvement. Foreign nations expropriated American investments, but in almost every case the U.S. government’s employment of economic sanctions or covert action obtained market value or more in compensation―despite the growing strategic risks. The advent of institutions focusing on international arbitration finally gave the executive branch a credible political excuse not to act. Maurer cautions that these institutions are now under strain and that a collapse might open the empire trap once more.
With shrewd and timely analysis, this book considers American patterns of foreign intervention and the nation’s changing role as an imperial power.
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