It's Time to Finally Admit We're an Empire

[Junkdrawer]

3. Empire by deception....

Genuine Fly-the-flag colonies with Governors and the requisite civil servants are expensive. And, after WWI, when most thinking persons came to understand that empires mean endless wars, they became unpopular in the home countries.

So....

The game became puppet governments, the illusion of independence, and when necessary, destabilization by covert operations with invasions-to-restore-order as a last resort.