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conflicts between united states and china
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Thomas Wright’s “The Fall of the Unipolar Concert” describes the decline of U.S. global power to other states like Russia and China. It claims that these countries have been initiating revisionist and power balancing measures that threaten U.S. global hegemony. Russia brings back a light red scare by annexing Crimea to stop the expansion of the European Union and NATO, building up its military capabilities, and executing special military operations (Wright, 8). China has strengthen its claims on the South China Sea through aggressive marine operations which have created tensions with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and the United States. China has station and intimidated the surrounding countries where they claim as their economic exclusion zones while blocking the U.S.’s freedom to navigate the waters. According to Wright, this decline in the unipolar concert “marks the return of geopolitical competition and presents a significant challenge for U.S. strategy” (Wright, 8). Many believe that these country were not too concerned with global power until it saw the U.S. weak …show more content…
The U.S. and Russia have cold war history and ideology still strong among their constituents. The Cold War was also never really over, hence why assuming geopolitics were no longer relevant was a mistake on behalf of Fukuyama’s The End of History. The history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union are described through international proxy wars heavily relying on strategic locations, geopolitics is imbedded in their relationship. They both are always competing for spheres of influence, now not only in regards to Crimea in Ukraine, but also in Syria. Russia will not forget the financial build up of Western states after WW II, the integration of Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic Republics into NATO (Mead, 2), and the containment policy of states around the world that lead to the dissembling of the Soviet
The political ideologies of the USA and of the Soviet Union were of profound significance in the development of the Cold War. Problems between the two power nations arose when America refused to accept the Soviet Union in the international community. The relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union was filled with mutual distrust and hostility. Many historians believe the cold war was “inevitable” between a democratic, capitalist nation and a communist Union. Winston Churchill called the cold war “The balance of terror” (1). Cold war anxieties began to build up with America and the Soviet Union advancing in the arms race for world dominance and supremacy. America feared the spread of Communism
From the time of the Spanish American war until the beginning of the Cold War the United States went from relative isolation to increased global involvement because of 1 utopian thinking, 2 business expansion, and 3 changes in foreign policy. The consequences on American society of that greater involvement were 4 America’s development into an “international police power”.
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.
Falk, Richard A. The Declining World Order: America's Imperial Geopolitics. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
...h development of Russia, and the West’s involvement in that task. Russia must feel as though it is being treated as if it is a major player on the world scale, which it is. If it feels that it is being regarded lightly, it will shut itself off from the rest of the world and positive change will not occur. This means that using Russia to augment the United States’ security needs at no benefit to Russia needs to end. The West must recognize the differences in Russia and work around those differences in order to find a system that works for them. A realist approach is clearly not the answer as it only fuels negativity, and does nothing to encourage Russia to fix their internal problems which are hindering the country. If the West can engage productively with Russia, an era of cooperation will ensue which will be essential in solving the globes security problems.
In his book Resurgence of the West, Rosecrance claims that after centuries of success, the United States is facing an economic and political decline due to the rise of China. He suggests that the United States can fix this problem by one of two ways. The first is isolationism, but that means the United States will have to completely remove itself from international affairs. On the other hand, Rosecrance proposes that the United States form an economic coalition with Europe, to stand up against rising China and ‘non-western’ countries. Eventually, both regions will witness an economic prosperity through this merger. As a result, this will prompt China and other ‘non-western’ nations to join this alliance.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union signified an end to Russia’s control over its Middle Eastern Empire. Many of its states seceded and founded new nations and Russia lost significant power over the region. The new Russian Federation, in an effort to reestablish Soviet supremacy, has launched a neo-imperialistic campaign to once again have political, economic and security control over the area today known as the Caucasus. Principally, Russia wants to have political control over the area consisting of the lands of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia and Chechnya as well as the Caspian Sea. Furthermore, it is an objective to reap profit from this resource-rich area to stabilize Russia’s economy. Additionally, Russia wants to ensure the security of its power in the Middle East. In order to achieve these motives the Russian Government has used various strategies involving political legerdemain, economic exaction and military operations.
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 the article, “The New Cold War is Already More Dangerous Than Was Its Predecessor,” Cohen explains how, in our current day and age, that a new cold war is brewing it and it is already more deadly than its predecessor. In my opinion, I agree with Cohen, about the new Cold War , because of the tensions building between communist and noncommunist ideologies. In recent years, the article explains that “Russia is “isolated” in world affairs.”
It is undeniable that the USA has the greatest military power in the world. Mann (2004) demonstrates it persuasively: ’Its military budget for 2003 was 40 percent of the world’s total military spending, exceeding the spending of the next 24 states combined.’ Furthermore, Zakaria (2008) compares the USA and China: ’China has about 20 nuclear missiles that can reach the United States. We have 830 missiles, most with multiple warheads, that can reach China.’ These figures tell their own convincing story. Even during the Cold War the USA had such a superior military strenght that it did not take any other state (including USSR) as a serious security risk. (Cox 2001) After the Soviet Union collapsed it has even less powerful and threatning enemies, especially when its military budget is expanding while the military budgets of the most states are declining. (Mann 2004) However, the material preponderance of the USA’s military power does not make it an empire. For it to be an empire, it would have to be able to use its military pow...
Lafeber, W. (2002), America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2000. 9th edn. New-York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
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.
In the readings for this week, which were chapters 2 and 3 of the Hook and Spanier book American Foreign Policy Since World War II, the central theme was America’s ideas and behaviors during the very beginnings of the cold war. The chapters started off with the victory of World War II and the state the world was in. It was plain to see that while America came out actually better than it was before the war both economically and politically, all the other countries took some sort of damage due to the war. These gaps in power and stability soon caused Russia to act in it’s own self-interest. Since even before the war Russia had been an area of change and battles. Due to this, Russia was threatened by capitalism and the western world, what it
A country’s struggle to power is much like that of two rivalling siblings. They are locked in a constant competition as they attempt to one-up the other. Countries do the same as they race against each other to produce better exports, and to attract more money into their economy. They are constantly vying against each other for the center of attention so that they are the main focal point of the international world. This competition continues until one finally relents, or blatantly falls, and allows the other to shine; much like how China is slowly managing to overtake the U.S. in terms of international influence. The success of one individual cannot remain forever, and eventually they will begin to fall. This is the current situation where the U.S. and China stand today as China is beginning to overtake the U.S. in terms of economic capability. With a superior economy, it is possible for China to overcome the challenges it faces as it moves into position as the next world power. Though, just like the pair of siblings, despite China’s recent successes, the other won’t disappear completely. The U.S. will not disappear into the background and allow China to take complete control as hegemon, or world power, and establish something akin to a uni-mulipolar system. A system where there is one main power and many already established rising powers. This uni-multipolar system allows for other countries to continuously compete for the position at the top.