<P> Thorton wrote that "(...) imperialism is more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves . Where colonization finds analysts and analogies, imperialism must contend with crusaders for and against ." Political theorist Michael Walzer argues that the term hegemony is better than empire to describe the US's role in the world; political scientist Robert Keohane agrees saying, a "balanced and nuanced analysis is not aided...by the use of the phrase' empire' to describe United States hegemony, since' empire' obscures rather than illuminates the differences in form of rule between the United States and other Great Powers, such as Great Britain in the 19th century or the Soviet Union in the twentieth". </P> <P> Since 2001, Emmanuel Todd assumes that USA cannot hold for long the status of mondial hegemonic power due to limited resources . Instead, the USA is going to become just one of the major regional powers along with European Union, China, Russia, etc . Reviewing Todd's After the Empire, G. John Ikenberry found that it had been written in "a fit of French wishful thinking". The thinking proved to be "wishful" indeed, as the book became a bestseller in France for most of the year 2003 . </P> <P> Other political scientists, such as Daniel Nexon and Thomas Wright, argue that neither term exclusively describes foreign relations of the United States . The U.S. can be, and has been, simultaneously an empire and a hegemonic power . They claim that the general trend in U.S. foreign relations has been away from imperial modes of control . </P> <P> Some critics of imperialism argue that military and cultural imperialism are interdependent . American Edward Said, one of the founders of post-colonial theory, said that, </P>

Why did the united states become involved in both imperial expansion abroad and world war i