by Enrique Costas
The Spanish Empire was born with the marriage of the Queen of Castille (Isabel) and the King of Aragon (Fernando, "The Prince" of Machiavello)in 1492 and the conquest of the remaining Muslim Kingdom in Spain (Granada). The 700 years Reconquest was really a continuous expansion of the small Castillian County founded 1,100 years ago in the South of the Basque Country and using a new language (Spanish) that was a corrupt form of Latin with Basque spelling and words.
But the territorial and ethnic (after the expulsion and assimilation of Muslims and Jews) "unification" of the Country didnīt mean the end of territorial expansion: the Reconquest continued with the Conquest of America (From the South of British Columbia to Patagonia), the Philippines (named after Philip II, grand-son of the Catholic Kings, Isabel and Fernando) and parts of Africa (Oran in Algeria, Western Sahara, Northern Morocco etc). So there is a long term inertia in the expansion from the tiny Castilian County in Northern Spain to the 15 million square mile Spanish Empire (after unification with Portugal). The same thing and at the same time happened with Russia and, a few years later, with England. The difference is that Castile and England had their base in another continent. This expansionist "inertia" changed soon after the colonization of California (end of the XVIII Century)
The unification of America with Anglo Canada would mean that the country is still growing. If that doesnīt happen and America starts losing its weight in Europe it will mean that the downward period has began. It is obvious that today we are not talking about an expansion based upon War but about a pacific expansion (a Merger not and Acquisition) based in common interests. That is what we are trying to do in the European Union. At a slow pace the European protectorate of America is becomming an Independent Nation. Even if the British have lost their honour and now have a slave mentality (We just have to read The Times or The Economist) Europeans want to keep their country in the History Books.
