One of the most vigorous debates focuses on the current status of the United States hegemony and whether or not it is in decline. This begs the question, if the United States is indeed declining in status, will it still be an influential player or not? I argue that the United States is losing its prominent position as the hegemonic leader of the world, but will still remain an influential player in global politics in the following decades to come. Its decline is an imminent result of their domestic issues, the violation of international laws and economic deficit, which have posed a grave and serious challenge for the United States. On the other hand, I propose that the United States will remain a dominant force due to its innovation, cultural influences around the world, and military prowess. In their articles, “How Americans Can Survive the rise of the Rest”, by Fareed Zakaria and “America and Europe in the Asian Century”, by Kishore Mahbubani, provides two distinctive and thought provoking arguments from a declinist perspective. However, both articles are susceptible to criticism and will be further examined in order to understand the United States prominent role. Mahbubani argues that global dominance is moving to the east primarily due to the United States incompetence (weakness) and growing capability of Asian nations. He furthers this notion by strongly indicating that the West is inhibiting Asian progress. Mahbubani further indicates that the west has lost its legitimacy due to violating international protocol. Mahbabani recommends a return to domestic good governance and specifies that some Asian countries are now ready to join the west in becoming “responsible custodian” (pp. 4) of the global order. Similar to my... ... middle of paper ... ...wed for it to write the rules of the game, create well established institutions that are respected by the majority worldwide, and have inspired other countries to follow in its footsteps in search of their own version of the “American Dream”. However, the decisions that generated that American prosperity were based on the notion that concessions, accountability and investment towards the future were crucial for its later success. As seen in hindsight, somewhere throughout history, this message became heavily influence by personal gains and short term gratification. If the United States wants continue as a key player, it will need to solve its domestic qualms with in turn have and continue to affect the international community. Military dominance, cultural influence and innovation cannot sustain itself in an environment that lacks stability and long term planning.
As the United States developed into a world economic power, it also became a military and political power. Certain things led Americans to become more involved in world affairs, such as territorial growth. There were also consequences to the nation’s new role, like conflict between citizens and people of power. United States government and leaders had to learn the “hard way”, the challenges and negativity that they would face, such as loss of money and lack of control between certain nations, and the positive effects such as expansion of territory and alliances.
The book A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy, by Joyce Kaufman, and the essay, American Foreign Policy Legacy by Walter Mead both acknowledge the history, and the importance of American foreign policy. The two argue that American foreign policy has always been an essential aspect of the prosperity and health of the United States. After reading these writings myself, I can agree that American foreign policy in the U.S. has always been detrimental to the success of this nation. Throughout history most Americans have had very little interest in foreign affairs, nor understood the importance. This essay will address the importance of foreign policy, why Americans have little interest in foreign affairs, and what the repercussions
For the past century, the United States has been regarded as the greatest hegemonic power in the world. The U.S. played the most important role in the advancement of mankind from social, political, scientific, military, and economic standpoint. Unfortunately, today this is no longer true. Since the 1980’s the U.S. has been on a gradual decline. The introduction and implementation of trickle down economics, otherwise known as “Reaganomics,” has contributed greatly to the systemic dismantling of the socioeconomic structure that made America great.
It is the belief that America expresses its cultural superiority through its wealth and dominance, and its superiority is measured in military strength. Using the appeal of logos, he states, “to the idea that its power is a sign of God 's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations— to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image” (Fulbright 1). This belief that “the United States has a divinely ordained role to play in the sacred drama of the world history” (Lears 33) is one that Fulbright argues must not succeed. According to “The Arrogance of Power Revisited” by Jackson Lears, Fulbright was concerned that “America was losing its perspective on what was within its capacity to control and what was beyond it”
The United States of America has never been content with stagnation. The landmass of the Thirteen Colonies was enough to rival that of the Mother country from which they separated. The forefathers believed that it was the manifest destiny of this nation to eventually claim the expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. By 1890, nearly a hundred years following the original claim of Manifest Destiny, the land that was once open, was now under American control. But no sooner was the Great American Frontier closed, than was the door to East Asian expansion opened with the great gold key of American diplomacy. In a world where imperialism was contagious, and cartographers had to work around the clock to keep up with an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, the United States seized the opportunity to establish herself as a significant world power. With great expansionist minds at her helm, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft the United States began to grow beyond her border to claim stake in this wide-open world. This new expansionism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a different institution than its early to mid nineteenth century counterpart. Still, the drive to exercise the sovereignty of the United State and to propel itself over the world’s stage was the same then as it was in the time of Thomas Jefferson. In order to understand this assertion, attention must be given to three levels of analysis. First, the similarities that exist between the drive and purpose of old and new expansion must be taken into account. Second, the differences in the global political scene must be considered. Finally, there exits differences in the means by which expansion occurred.
AUTHOR: Oswald Spengler, (1880-1936), was a German philosopher who acquired his conservative views from his father, a postal official in Germany. Spengler attended the Universities of Munich, Berlin and Halle in Germany, where he studied natural science and mathematics. In 1903, he wrote his dissertation on a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus, though he failed due to a lack of references. Spengler resubmitted his revised thesis in 1904, earning him his doctorate degree. Shortly after earning his degree, Spengler suffered a mental break down, secluding himself from the world. In 1906, he recovered and began working as a teacher in secondary schools until he received some money from his mother. In 1911, Spengler gathered his inheritance and moved to Munich as a private scholar.
The largest group in America is facing extinction. We are talking of course about the American middle class. In 1971 the American middle class population was 36% higher than the population of the lower class. However, today the middle class population is now only 22% higher than the lower class (McDill). This is only a 14% drop spread over 44 years. The major issue here is that while the middle class shrinks, the upper and lower classes are growing. Financial experts believe that soon the middle class will become nonexistent and America will be divided into two extremes, poverty and wealth. This issue has become so severe that the United States government has stepped in and created a “middle class task force” passed as part of the government “stimulus package” of 2009. However most experts including Kent McDill of the millionaires’ corner, Doyle McManus of the LA Times, Erik Kain of Forbes magazine believe that the government’s program is putting a knife in the middle class. They believe this because the government is taxing businesses until they are forced to leave America and go overseas. This, along with the rise of mechanical workers and ignorance of the issues facing the middle class led to the decreasing job market. Jobs in America will soon be split into either very high paying upper class jobs or very low paying jobs. This makes the job market a hit or miss in America. It is predicted that America will soon be either very rich or very poor with no middle ground.
“The truth is, that, once in every half-century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors” (Hawthorne 155) explains Holgrave about the aristocratic roots of the Pyncheon family in The House of the Seven Gables. In this novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne creates a story that effectively describes the clash between the decaying aristocracy and the emerging laboring class in the nineteenth-century in America through its characters. This “gothic romance” tells the story of an aristocratic Pyncheon family that once was wealthy, but now encounters itself with poverty and scarcity to the point that the old maid, Hepzibah Pyncheon, must open up a cent-shop in the house in order to survive. Through out the novel, Hawthorne uses Hepzibah to show the reader the inevitable process of transformation from the high aristocracy to the lower middle class that every aristocrat had to go trough in those times.
"Shots fired! Shots fired!" is what was heard through the Philadelphia police scanners on the morning of February 11, 2004. Many officers raced to the scene of T.M. Pierce Elementary in North Philadelphia. It was too late, one dead and another wounded. Yes, ten year old Faheem Thomas-Childs dead and the crossing guard wounded in the arm. It was 7:30 am when gunfire exploded through the school yard as parents/guardians took their children to school on what was supposed to be another beautiful school day. This scene and others like it are becoming more often in the US. What do many people see when they look at American society? Does it look satisfying? Or does seeing violence and other dehumanizing acts question what type of society we live in? Violence in mainstream media is the cause of many violent acts and crimes across the Untied States. Ten-year-old Faheem Thomas-Childs wasn't murdered by a gun, but by someone who used a gun as the instrument for his criminal act. This little boy was not only killed by a teenager who was trying to attack another teenager but also by the media whose main goal is to use the Second Amendment to the best of their ability.
...mpire. It is true that the USA has exceptionally strong military resourses, especially when it comes to fire-power. However, it is able to invade countries, but it is unable to control or stabilize them. It also has world-leading economy, but the rest of the world is rising fast and the USA is losing its momentum. It also doesn’t have effective ways to control the world through its economic power. When it comes to ideological power, it is once again true that most American values are attractive to the majority of the world. However, it is contestable whether they are purely American values. Furthermore, even culturally Americanized people feel strong national pride and even hatred towards the USA. Therefore the USA is unable to make use of its ideological and cultural powers. All in all, the USA is a true superpower, in most cases even a hegemon, but not an empire.
The United States was only a country for about 15 years before the basic way of life for people in the country changed drastically. We developed politically and economically, expanded westward and divided along sectional borders. However, these are not the only characteristics that define this time. 1790-1860 was a period of rapid industrialization, market revolution and changing social order. This was largely due to advanced methods of transportation, mechanization and the changes in women’s roles.
It is somehow strange for today’s reader to find out that the situation with America’s foreign affairs hasn’t changed much. As some clever people have said, “The History book on the shelf is always repeating itself.” Even after nineteen years, Americans think of themselves as citizens of the strongest nation in the world. Even after the September the 11th. Even after Iraq. And Afghanistan.
Before World War II, it became very clear that the US would play a new, and important leading role in the world. Henry Luce, author of The American Century, wrote about the new roles he anticipated the US to have. His essay calls the US to action in leading the rest of the world in our ways. About a year later on May 8th, 1942, Vice President Henry Wallace proposed similar ideas in a speech. He and Luce both saw the US as leading powers but disagreed on how the leading should be done. Wallace portrays the US in a friendlier manner. He calls the upcoming era the century of the common man while Luce calls it the American century. This topic is relevant today. How much involvement should leading countries have in developing ones and how should
The author’s reasons for this are that the United States is the most powerful nation economically and technologically, in addition to having the most powerful army. This makes it difficult for one to argue with the unipolarity of the U.S. I believe that unipolarity exists, but I disagree with the suggestion that it is stable, as the stability of a system largely depends on the leadership, and within a unipolar system leadership will be all the more integral to the existence of the system. This is especially in a country such as the United States, as the leadership changes every four to eight years and the tactics used to deal with hegemony will change with those leaders, thus creating an unstable
In this paper, I will argue that the current system is hegemonial. My explanation to hegemony will then be centered on the sources of the United States as a hegemonial power. Furthermore, I will state the different primary implications associated with the rise of China and what the Roman Empire offers for understanding the United Sta...