Hoppe: Imperialism

With the end of World War II, essentially all of--by now democratic--Western Europe (and democratic Japan and South Korea in the Pacific region) has become part of the US Empire, as indicated by the presence of US troops in practically all of these countries. What the post World War II period of peace then "proves" is not that democracies do not go to war against each other but that a hegemonic, imperialist power such as the United States did not let its various colonial parts go to war against each other.

--Hans-Hermann Hoppe. The Paradox of Imperialism