My brain has a very strong memory. It's one of the things I pride myself on, being very useful during both exams and conversations. I am able to regurgitate information fairly well on exams with only some basic study, if that, and even apply my understanding fairly well with some prep. I can also talk your ear off if you let me, telling stories and thoughts. It's also been a source of tremendous anxiety as my brain replays slightly painful memory after slightly painful memory.
One particular memory that's recurred for four full years has been my APUSH exam. I took APUSH right at the start of lockdowns, and I remember the March week where my attendance had shown up as a Z on Thursday and Friday. This was the week that our school officially went under lockdown and I finally had to learn what zoom was. The AP exams that year were jank, asking only one or two very simple questions based on topics covered in earlier sections of the course. AP Physics 1 lost it's electrostatics and circuits, instead asking only a single short answer question where two pucks were pushed up a ramp and allowed to fly. APUSH, in a similar vein, did only a single essay question, with five documents and a simple question about the causes and effects of Manifest Destiny.
I still have my original essay I wrote for that exam, and I'm still mostly happy with what I wrote for it. But in APUSH, one idea that my teacher hammered throughout the year was the idea of synthesis. Synthesis is an oft misunderstood topic in AP classes, and not without reason: synthesis is a very difficult skill to teach, especially to a student who doesn't want to learn. In the context of the AP history classes, synthesis is the concept of noticing patterns in history. Synthesis is noticing where history rhymes or repeats. One example of synthesis is comparing the colonization of Africa with the colonization of the Americas, where both were cases of Europeans wanting to exert their influence and increase their own wealth for the benefit of their own countries back home. Additionally, European colonists looking for a better life settled first the Americas and later Africa during their respective colonization waves.
I originally simply tried to do synthesis simply for the points: according to the point scale my APUSH teacher used, the highest grade I could get would be a 90% without synthesis. For a 100%, I would need to do either a synthesis or some kind of counterargument, and he recommended trying for both. But as I kept trying to do synthesis on every single essay I turned in for his class, I started to realize the importance of synthesis. The way I see it, synthesis is the "science" of history, if such a concept exists. It's one thing to know a bunch of historical facts and stories, and those facts and stories are indeed interesting. It's another thing to be able to apply that history. In essence, synthesis is the closest thing I get to using history in my day-to-day life.
Returning to the Scramble for Africa. European leaders took out a map knowing exactly what they were about to do, and they synthesized their soon-to-be circumstances with their past experiences in the Americas. They looked at what Spain and Portugal were able to do in South America and what had happened in the North and Carribean and came to one conclusion. In order to claim the largest shares of the African pie as soon as possible, they needed to be fighting Africans, and only Africans. So it was decided: during the scramble for Africa, the colonizers agreed not to fight each other. And they were largely successful, in contrast to their colonies in America. Depending on how you draw the lines, the Americas were colonized over the course of four centuries. Africa was colonized in less than one.
But the thought that's kicked around in my head ever since that exam has been all the synthesis that I didn't write for that exam. In that exam, I wrote about the Spanish encomienda system and compared it with the land grants and ox plot races. I also wrote about the Spanish mission system and compared it to the Dawes Plan and the Indian boarding schools. In hindsight, I think I could've done better. So I will.
One of the biggest examples of Manifest Destiny rhetoric, including in name, was the Japanese colonization of the Far East and Pacific during and after World War I. Imperial Japan colonized territory in Korea, Manchuria, China, Taiwan, and clusters of islands in the Pacific. According to Wikipedia, the height of the empire including puppet states reached deep into Russia, west hugging the Mongolian border, south down to Indonesia and New Guinea, and even including Myanmar and Vietnam. In rhetoric back on the home archipelago, this was sometimes portrayed as Manifest Destiny, and on the surface it was indeed similar. But there were some notable differences between American Manifest Destiny and Imperial Japan. The biggest difference was largely in the displacement of peoples, or lackthereof. American Indian wars and treaties encroached on Indian lands, yes, but the Whites who settled those lands had no interest in the Indians on those lands, and would prefer the redskin savages off of their property. The Japanese, on the other hand, did kill and rape hundreds of thousands or millions of Chinese and Koreans, but they didn't displace millions of peoples out of eastern China or Korea. This is why China, Korea, and Taiwan are cultural and political hotspots, while the Cherokee... just kinda exist, at least on the wider cultural scale.
Of course, the other major Big Bad of World War II, Germany, had a very similar story. Leibenshraum, "living space", was the concept that the Germans needed to expand outward to provide space for its people, and propelled Hitler's expansionist goals. The Nazis took over territory and expanded ethnic Germans into it, booting out Czechs, Poles, and French from their homes, sending the peoples to camps, and asserting themselves in their place. Compared to the Japanese, this expansion was much closer to Manifest Destiny, in that the Germans were explicitly doing it with intention to push out natives and settle colonizers. The Japanese largely settled land for resources, harvesting oil and rubber from their Indonesian and Pacific colonies. This idea was borrowed from Chinese expansion under the various dynasties: Chinese emperors really didn't care about what colonized peoples did so long as they paid their tributes.
Looking into other empires throughout history, I notice that reasons for colonization tend to fall into two main camps. These are best exemplified by American colonization before 1890 and after 1890. Manifest Destiny was largely used as a political talking point in the early-to-mid 1800s, but reasons for expansion were fairly similar until the US ran out of land to settle. But after 1890, after the frontier was declared closed, reasons for settlement began to shift. This was when America started expanding into the Pacific and Atlantic, fighting the Spanish American war over very loose pretenses and conquering territory west to the Phillippines and east to Puerto Rico. Ever since, America has gotten itself involved in dozens of wars in South America, East Asia, and the Middle East, over dozens of reasons and pretenses. But there's one critical difference between America before 1890 and after 1890: people didn't move. Manifest Destiny was a genocide of peoples, yes, but it was a homesteading project first. Americans saw the open land and claimed it as theirs. Ordinary white men and women got on wagons and claimed plots or Indian homes for themselves, and the government accepted these claims. But no one ever moved to Puerto Rico or Hawaii without a boat load of money. People moved, sure, but they bought entire islands or sugar plantations or summer homes the size of 5 star hotels. Ordinary people never really moved to these places and set up homes, and this one of several reasons why Hawaii has a stronger and more resilient culture than almost any other tribe in the lower 48. Speaking of Alaska, Alaska too was settled by oil and mining companies and scientists, not families trying to build a new life.
The difference between these kinds of colonization seems to be who's really behind the colonizing. The difference between the people who settled Ohio and the people who settled Hawaii was money and affluence. The difference between the people who wanted to settle Ohio and the people who wanted to settle Hawaii was also money and affluence. Manifest Destiny was largely a force pushed by middle and lower class white people who wanted to expand into "unused" territory, where New Manifest Destiny was mostly what big business wanted. And the consequences of said expansion were largely carried out by those same groups: the frontier was largely settled by lower and upper class white people expanding into open plots, where most overseas colonies were bought up by businesses looking to turn a profit. To put it simply, Ohio was settled by Whites. Hawaii was settled by James Dole.
To help me describe the distinction, I wanna add some new words. Most historians would probably call these something like "settlementation" and "imperialism" respectively, but this is my blog and my years old shower thoughts, so I'm making up some new words. I'll call pre-1890 American colonization an example of push colonization, and I'll call post-1890 American colonization an example of pull colonization. (I definitely could've done better but I've been thinking of better names for the past 20 minutes)
Push colonization means literally pushing into a territory and pushing away the people on said territory. Pushing into territory tends to be somewhat indiscriminate, with a country merely expanding outward for the sake of it. Push colonization tends to be propelled by the people themselves: sometimes it's fear of barbarians at the border, sometimes it's desire for untamed land, sometimes it's running away from another colonial power. Push colonization is something that people do, and governments follow. Essentially, this is how you start every game of Civ. Historical examples include Manifest Destiny, Germany in World War II, Mayan expansion, and Roman colonization of Italy.
Pull colonization means being pulled into a territory by larger historical forces. Most often this is economic or political forces, such as a need for resources or a desire for profit, or a desire to gain or stay in power. Pull colonization tends to be propelled by those in charge, with the people themselves having only indirect say, if any at all. Pull colonization is something that governments do, and people follow. Essentially, this is you after you unlock Uranium in Civ. Historical examples include New Manifest Destiny, Germany in World War I, Aztec conquest, many of China's various dynasties, and Phoenician colonization of the Mediteranean.
The line between push and pull colonization is of course blurry, and the two often go hand in hand. Roman colonization in Italy, by the Roman Republic, was partly pushed by a fear of barbarians at the border, but their ultimate goal was safety, not so much control. Roman colonization beyond the Alps, by the Roman Empire, largely shifted towards pull colonization, as economic and political elites focused on subjugating populations for dignitas and didn't care about assimilating its people into its government structure except as slaves. But colonization will typically involve both, and to the people defending, it all looks the same anyway: there are soldiers at the door demanding that you leave or be speared to death. Or give up your daughter or son or house or land or grain or money or whatever.
The Macedonian and Mongol Empires were largely pulled by their leaders. Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan inspired their men to conquer huge swaths of the ancient and medieval world for the sake of it, pillaging and razing cities because they dared disrespect their new overlords. Both of these empires were ultimately these two men, and when they died, their empires fell apart. The Mongol Empire was divied up among Genghis' children, but the Macedonian Empire split right back into the people groups who used to live there. This is a political pull colonization, where single great leaders lead their people into conquering great territories for the sake of ego.
After the fall of the Mongol Empire, the scraps had their own problems to deal with. Yuan Dynasty China under Kublai Khan largely existed as a puppet state until it rose up and drove out Kublai after not even a century. The Ming Dynasty that followed then push colonized the rest of Inner China, bringing cities back under another dynasty of Han people. Up north, the Russians had been beat back to Muscovy by the Mongol Horde, and decided they needed to expand east as far as they could until they reached a natural border. This Russian Empire continued to expand easterly and easterly, absorbing people groups along the way. The eastern Russian provinces today are unlike the western provinces, with eastern and central Russia being deeply influenced by the steppe cultures of the Kazakhs and Mongols. Even their governments are largely left independent from Moscow except with regards to foreign policy.
Finally coming back to America, the US has fought various wars in various parts of the world throughout history, creating puppet governments and nations in East Asia, South America, and the Middle East. Hawaii was colonized by James Dole in the 1890s. Honduras was colonized by United Fruit in the 1950s. Arabia was colonized by Aramco in the 1980s. These pull colonies were founded by and for American business interests with the average American having no direct say, opinion, or even viewpoint. White people themselves saw the untamed land that Indians roamed and saw potential for a home for their families. United Fruit saw the banana in Honduras and saw potential for profit.
There is a point to my crazed yapping. To kick us back into 2024, push and pull colonization mirror the approach that Israel is taking in Gaza and the approach Russia is taking in Ukraine. Putin and Netanyahu both have goals to push out and settle territory, and to the people of Ukraine or Gaza, the bombing raids certainly don't look any different. There was even a tweet at the outset of the Russian invasion that claimed to be a video taken in Ukraine but was actually filmed in Palestine in 2018, according to the community note. And the people of Ukraine and Gaza certainly don't take any solace in the difference. But there is a difference worth discussing, one that can help spell an end to both conflicts. At the outbreak of invasion of Ukraine, the Russian people, particularly those in the eastern provinces, despised the war that had drafted their teenagers into fighting for Putin's ego against a Ukraine that never provoked the war. The Israeli people today largely support going into Rafah and finally destroying a terrorist government which slaughtered their innocent Jewish brethren. As months dragged on, the Russian people did largely learn to ignore the war, but the Israelis live in driving distance of Gaza. Pressure has mounted from Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, feeding an Israeli nationalist movement in favor of reunification at any cost. To put it simply, Gaza is being colonized by Israelis. The Donbas is being colonized by Putin.
While I don't claim to know the solution to these conflicts, I can see from history that after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has largely left the Baltic States and Finland alone. Kazakhstan and the other former Soviet nations in Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea have had significant internal problems to contend with, but never an invasion from the north. Putin is most interested in exerting influence over Ukraine, with some other interests in the Caucasus. Israel, ever since the British Mandate, has been a ruthlessly destructive and expansionist neighbor. Israel has signed peace treaties and broken them, agreeing to borders and continuing to establish settlers wherever it feels like. Part of the reason for this is because Israel is a push colonization effort, where Russia is a pull colonization effort. Putin has to pull the country into Ukraine, where Netanyahu can stoke the existing nationalist movement into action.
This changes how a solution must play out. Sanctions against Russia have hampered Russia's advance, but they haven't done much to change the war overall. Sanctions largely hurt the people of a nation, and they certainly have hurt Russia, but Russia is a massive country rich with natural resources, so they only have so much trouble producing what their population needs. A better solution might be a straight peace agreement between two governments, with the two governments haggling and agreeing to end the conflict. Sanctions against Israel, on the other hand, could help punish the population, but a real solution might be a propaganda war and an assurance of peace. And while the US can and must stop sending weapons to Israel, that doesn't mean the war stops. A straight peace agreement with a hostage negotiation might lessen the fighting, but Palestinians and Gazans alike had been kicked out of their homes by Israeli squatters for decades before October 7th. There's no reason the Israeli settlers would stop at a peace treaty. A true solution might be to focus on the Israeli people themselves with propaganda, assured peace, and jail time for settlers, and violent settlers being charged with assault or murder as appropriate. If you want to stop a genocide, you need to first understand the genocide.
Of course, I'm also now realizing that I may be wrong about any of all of this. I'm very certain about some things, but most of this I just picked up from YouTube videos, so there's no guarantee any of it is "right". But that's ok because this isn't a classroom, you can disagree with me if you want but hey :DDDD