... Jim. There have been at least four instances (three major and one very minor) in our history in which we obtained territory by participating in military action outside our then boundaries.

From 1816-1818, we fought in the First Seminole War against the Seminole Indians, attacked several Spanish posts and executed some British citizens. In 1819, as a result of this war, the Spanish ceded Florida to the United States.

Our largest territorial gains resulting from a foreign war came after the Mexican War (1846-1848). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended that war, gave the US roughly 1/2 of Mexico's then territory. Besides recognizing US title to Texas, Mexico ceded to the US all of what is now California, Arizona and New Mexico. The total land area gained from the Mexican war (if you include Texas) was larger than the Louisiana Purchase.

After the Spanish-American War, by the Treaty of Paris (1898), Spain ceded to the US Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (we also gained a protectorate over Cuba). Guam remains an unincorporated territory of the US. Puerto Rico was a territory until achieving commonwealth status in 1952. Although US military rule of Cuba ended in 1902, we still control the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (which, coincidentally, is where we are now holding suspected Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists). By the way, the US annexed Hawaii (a previously independent country) in 1898 on the pretext that the islands were needed as a Naval base for the war with Spain.

World War II provides the minor example. After the war, the US was given a UN mandate to manage the territories of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, the Ryukyu Islands (including Okinawa) and the Northern Mariana Islands. We gradually relinquished control of these territories, though the Northern Marianas chose to form the "Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands in Political Union with the United States of America".

So, as altruistic as Powell's quote sounded, it is, to a significant degree, historically inaccurate.

----- jim o\-S