Now it seems that there has been a merger of "imperialist" with "fascist" which confuses the word completely.
Franco's Spain had no particular geographic expansionist goals yet is generally considered fascist. The same holds for a number of the Latin American countries often held out as having fascist characteristics.
By this definition, was Italy not fascist until it began its North African misadventures?
Charles seems to reduce fascism as well purely to warfare but that makes fascism over-inclusive a term, since the Roman empire would be a fascist state, British colonialism would be fascist, and so on.
He also wants to claim that a key element of fascism was anti-communism and anti-Sovietism; China of course was guilty of the latter at points in its occasional alliances with the US against the Soviet Union during the last two decades of the Soviet Union and in practice suppresses anyone promoting real Marxism or worker-led communism. But such a limited definition also negates the class analysis Charles also argues for in analyzing fascism-- fascism is defined as a form of monopoly capitalism dominated by the state, a definition that fits the evolving business class in China. With the ruling Communists assuming control of large chunks of capitalist enterprise, where is the difference from classic corporatism that was the hallmark of fascism?
-- Nathan Newman