If you look at the history of the U.S., we were an empire long before we were a nation.

"A soldier: 'I know where heaven is and it's Lithuania ... The women are beautiful, pagan, with a practical view towards sex. Who says communism was bad? You're working three levels of advantages: you're a foreign male, you're a rich, exotic American, and their men are a bunch of drunken, criminal slobs."

Robert D. Kaplan