Ok I’ll explain like you’re five. You’re wrong. It has lots of times. There are things you don’t know until you read more about them

You mean other than from the Native Americans?

Manifest Destiny is pretty much that. The US fought Mexico, Spain, and British Canada, exploited the political situation in Europe to buy a huge chunk of land from France, and displaced or killed hundreds of thousands of native people. The US is the 4th largest country by area. Having that much contiguous land is insanely valuable and powerful. By the time the US would have even had to think about colonizing like the Europeans it was going out of style.

Countries used to think that invading others and getting more land and more people to rule over would make them more powerful. Some still think so.
But modern countries increase their influence through trade and their economy.

European countries used to control huge parts of Africa, and all it did was cost them money. Also, generally, people don’t like being ruled by a foreign power. For a dictatorship that’s OK. But for a democracy, having lots of people in your country that don’t want to be governed by you is a big problem.

You’re describing the Spanish-American War, when the US seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain.

Do military bases count?

The US owns a bunch of Caribbean “territories” that they still won’t make into US states. Their citizens are US citizens, but can’t vote.

EDIT: The current US itself was carved out of territories owned by Mexico, France, and England (which took them from Native American tribes). Back in the day, we conquered and stole a bunch of land, both from natives and from other invading countries.

But we’ve been more interested in foreign politics since WWII and less about expanding our own land. Besides, why own a bunch of foreign soil when we can just set up outposts around the globe and have a military frontline anywhere? I served in the US military and we have so many bases scattered around every region of the globe. We can literally involve ourselves in any global conflict we want to within a day or two. Meanwhile, our actual homeland is isolated on the other side of the planet, where it’s difficult for foreign invaders to touch us.

If we tried to take over say Canada and Mexico for instance, being the easiest targets, the rest of the world will rise up against us.

Sure, we have a huge military and a lot of nukes, but they have nukes also and a hell of a lot more money and manpower.

The only way we can win would be to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the eastern side of the planet and assuming that we don’t get nuked back to the Stone age in return immediately launch a strike against Canada and Mexico while the rest of the world is cleaning up after the shit we started.

9 times out of 10, almost everyone in America dies, and the rest get to spend 150 years paying back for the damages.

1 time out of 10, we become king shit of a hell hole of our own creation.

Always have been, always are. They’ve just realized there will be less noise if you don’t plant too many flags or draw new maps when you invade.

The government using brute force to influence other regions isn’t popular in democracies. There were huge protests over the Vietnam war and currently lots of protests over Isreal-Palestine, a conflict that the US is only somewhat involved in. Political parties have nothing to gain if they’re voted out of office a few years after launching an expansionist war.

Badasses don’t invade their neighbors.

The Us has military control of Australia

The good guys don’t do that. They project power and protect others. The US tries to be the good guys nowadays. It doesn’t always work. They have a lot of citizens with different opinions and ethics, but they are heading in the right direction.