America - Expanding Territorially

We have 800 military bases abroad. We expanded through alliances. I don't think we can expand territorially anymore: no other country is doing that really.

[quote]Ahem...

Can't we give Texas back to Mexico and Florida back to Span?

Yeah, Putin acquired Crimea. Maybe a second Trump term, particularly dictatorial, could acquire ... I'm not sure what. Cuba ... ? I can't imagine what someone like him would want, given we can't remove the people who are already there should we annex it (because of modern racial sensibilities and justice).

Cuba was the last territory would could have held onto long-term (cf. the Philippines).

Yes, because colonialism is SO popular these days.

Oh, hi Teddy Roosevelt at OP!

Cuba libre, and all that!

Well, OP, if the second American Civil War happens soon, your boredom will be gone, as one assumes our borders will change when the country breaks apart.

Trump had his chance in the first half of his first term (I don't think there'll be a second, but I'm just being very specific). The House and Senate were there under his party to approve an acquisition. The problem is the millions of people any new territory would probably contain: what are you going to do with them?

Greenland!

Doesn't he want to unload the unprofitable Puerto Rico?

A President Tom Cotton might return to the idea of buying Greenland.

I hate maps that exclude Alaska and Hawaii. One of my pet peeves.

We don't want those shit hole countries to be part of the US.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley proposed acquiring something. Real estate and extraction potential, some kind of weird evangelical interest.

I doubt Denmark or the people of Greenland want to sell it. Are we going to invade?

We're available!

The answer, OP, is that since 1945, international law has operated according to the principle of self-determination, rather than territorial right through conquest or purchase.

There are strict rules on what a country is allowed to do when occupying another: the United States could not simply have annexed Iraq after 2003 for example.

This does not necessarily preclude another country or territory voting to join the United States, in principle, but probably only somewhere like Puerto Rico is likely to do so (ie to become a full state).,

Putin's justification, for Crimea, is that the Russian-speaking people there never agreed to be given to the Ukraine after the breakup of the USSR. He's not absolutely wrong there as it happens.

R17 except if done gradually, like the UN/EU plan to invade Europe through “refugee resettlement.”

The EU plan to invade Europe, do they?

Thanks for the warning. You sound like you have your finger on the pulse.

Civilized countries don't do that anymore.

But then of course, there's Israel.

It’s not done anymore, but things can change. No end of history anymore.