The current overwhelming dominance of the unprecedented modern American empire in the realm of world politics generally agreed upon by experts and scholars around the world. There is little to refute the argument that there is any state that comes close to the strength of the Americans in a vast number of areas, most notably economically and militarily. Present debate among experts in the field of international relations revolves around whether the Americans can maintain their primacy for upcoming generations. Robert Dujarric and William Odom, both experienced and respected scholars of international relations, declare in their 2004 work, “America’s Inadvertent Empire,” that America is in a solid position to keep a tight hold on its place at the top. Vividly explaining America’s path to dominance while emphasizing the current state of domination, the authors effectively present the abilities of the empire while also illustrating the potential threats that could bring it down.
No one was stopping the force of America’s dominance that has characterized global affairs since America’s entrance into the world stage of great powers following its victories in the Spanish-American war of 1898 (Farrenkopf). Their incidental rise, partly due to country’s many natural advantages at its disposal, including large population and landmass, oceanic protection from Europe and East Asia, natural resources and favorable climate, is largely credited by the authors to its liberal institutions,
After the civil war, United States took a turn that led them to solidify as the world power. From the late 1800s, as the US began to collect power through Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippines, debate arose among historians about American imperialism and its behavior. Historians such as William A. Williams, Arthur Schlesinger, and Stephen Kinzer provides their own vision and how America ought to be through ideas centered around economics, power, and racial superiority.
Throughout american history, examples of the United States’ domination of the political, economic, and social aspects of other countries can be seen. This domination, also known as imperialism, was primarily caused by a growing sense of nationalism, the influence of supply and demand, and a desire to maintain global military power. Imperialism is categorized into three different groups: colony, protectorate, sphere of influence. TRANSITION SENTENCE
Examining through American Empire by Joshua B Freeman, it evident that American has indeed integrated into an empire. In the writing, Freeman advocates that the tenure of World War I created one of the most profound legacies across the world. The legacy resulted in the collapse of countries such German, Russia, Ottoman Empire, and Austro-Hungarian. On the other hand, the author defines that existence of World War II came in with much influence to the Americans. The events within the World War II integrated America from being a collection of states to a formidable American empire. Compared to its presence after World War I, Freeman notes to the readers that at the time it was a reluctant empire with that faced extreme restraint in various
The term “American exceptionalism” has been used to refer to a variety of characteristics that distinguishes America from any other country when it first formed, including lack of economic suffrage, political plights or even social conflicts. (Huntington, AFP) This ideology has always propelled America to maintain the ideology that they are the chosen ones to lead this world towards their way, one of Liberal values and one that values democracy. Throughout its course in history, America has acted innumerable times on its Liberal values. Whether these pursuits were successful or not is a whole other question, but it still stands that Liberalism has shaped U.S. Foreign Policy by a large extent.
What is American Imperialism? It is the influences that the United States makes on other countries. Some of the influences are economics, military, and culture. Expansionism is conquering those countries and taking over the land. Without imperialism and expansionism, our county would not be as big and productive as it is in today 's society.
One of the major realist dimensions for the Western political order is American hegemony. With the end of the Cold War, American hegemony appeared to be the supreme power of the world (Deudney and Ikenberry, 1999). It can be seen, American economic power revealed in international financial institutions such as IMF, WB and WTO. As a dominant member in WTO, the United States Forced the weaker states to accept the organization’s rules on international trade, otherwise, they will lose if they choose not to follow the rules (Hawthorn, 1999). In addition, Deudney and Ikenberry (1999) state that liberals see transnational relations as the establishment of alternative system that will
There are winners and losers after every war, and the former rules the latter. The winners get a position of ruler and write history. There are a lot of nations in the world, but it is a ruler, or hegemony, to regulate what the world is. There is no doubt that the United States is the current hegemony nation. However, a position of hegemony does not last for good. As world history tells us, some nation wages war and challenges the hegemony, and then new hegemony is born. So, can America keep its hegemony position? It looks like its decline has already started, but it might regain power and be great again, as Donald Trump says. If the US loses its power, the modern world that is formed mainly by the US should change a lot. In this essay, I would
Blowback (The Costs and Consequences of American Empire) was written by American author Chalmers Johnson. It was first published during 2000 and was later published during 2004 by Holt Paperbacks. Between 1967 and 1973, Johnson was a consultant for the CIA, which gave him a lot of insight into how the U.S. government intrudes on the affairs of other nations. He witnessed displeasing matters tied to the government's regimes, which inspired the development of Blowback. The term "blowback" was established by the CIA and is defined as unexpected or undesirable outcomes of American activity in other nations. With this book, Johnson was aiming to expose the negative consequences of America's government working to dominant other regions, while giving
In truth, its history dates back as far as the sixteenth century, following the first great expansion of European capitalism, which resulted in slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism (Ezema, 2009). Throughout history, world powers have continually sought to perpetuate their way of life: from the philosophy and mythology of the Greeks, the political ideologies and linguistics of the Romans, and the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance (Daghrir, 2013). Thus, it comes as no surprise that the aftermath of the post-war era, which saw the collapse of Soviet communism and the emergence of the United States as the sole hegemon, saw the aggressive spread of American ideals, values, and beliefs. Indeed, just as American goods flooded world markets in the post-World War II era; American culture now penetrates every continent through the aggressive development of mass communications, trade expansion and information technology.
Many strategies have been devised by empires over centuries, these strategies and decisions have helped shape the world as it is in its present state. The author explains how strategic decisions made in the past were the wrong decisions in his opinion, as John Perkins had seen first hand the devastation that could be caused by the American government in its pursuit for a “global empire”.
Hegemony is one of few different logics pertaining to American foreign policy. It is defined as “preponderant influence or authority, especially of one nation over another” (Callahan, 2004, p. 12). In other words, the United States can be seen as the dominate nation over all other nations. This concept was first mentioned in Notes on the Southern Question (1926) by Antonio Gramsci and was defined as “a system of class alliance in which a ‘hegemonic class’ exercised political leadership over ‘subaltern classes’ by ‘winning them over’” (Ramos Jr., 1982). The logic of hegemony, as it relates to American foreign policy, is based on the idea that the United States would use its influence over other countries in order to provide leadership. Through
“The one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48). “It is now a cliché that America is the world’s only superpower…[n]ever before, however, has America been so alone at the pinnacle of global leadership.” It is this belief, that the U.S. has assumed the role of “global leadership, which caused American foreign policy to shift from being more isolationistic in the mid 20th Century to becoming infamously characterized by imperialism.
The story of Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), the United States, and Saudi Arabia is a tale that has been told countless times throughout the history of mankind. ARAMCO is another chapter in the endless saga of empire and global capitalism that has spread around the world with the aid of multinational corporations over a period of several centuries. Many of the techniques used in Saudi Arabia beginning in the 1930s were similar to practices used throughout history as empires expanded and a global economy was formed. Aside from the adoption of several “exceptional” policies in their relationship with Saudi Arabia, ARAMCO continued trends of capitalism established long before the movements towards empire and national economy
For a good amount of history, the United States has established itself as a great power time and time again. First through a balance of power, then after the Cold War the US was the only great power standing creating a unipolar system. However the hegemon is starting to lose control and stability as states like China, attempt to compete with the US, and other states, in the Middle East, Russia, and Europe, continue to go down the road of instability.
The Next Decade, a novel by George Friedman, talks about the predictions of countries in the upcoming decade and how the United States should react to the various challenges. The novel’s first major claim is that the United States is actually an empire, similar to how Rome and Great Brian were. However, unlike the previous empires, the United States refuses to acknowledge its status as an empire. “What makes the United States an empire is the number of countries it affects, the intensity of the impact, and the number of people in those countries affected.” The implication of this quote is that the US has gotten to be so large, if the US decided to draw out of global affairs, the impact would be detrimental. Instead of escaping its duty to the world, Friedman claims that the United States must acknowledge its status as an empire and function as such in order to maneuver the next decade. This claim is a wise claim made by Friedman, but it his only claim of worth in the novel. In The Next Decade, Friedman fails to make his thesis credible because he doesn’t his sources, provide logical arguments on his predications of the future, or examine alternative possibilities.