I think it is very premature to speak about the end of the era of America’s supremacy in the world. Here is a list and analysis of reasons why I am convinced that the story goes exactly this way.
Speaking about supremacy, even in the broadest definitions, without laying them down to specific examples we have to take into consideration all aspects of power, i.e. economic, political, military etcetera. Speaking about America, let’s analyze its economy first.
According to numerous reputable ratings issued every year America is the first economy in the world, competed by China and leaving every other quite far behind (Gross Domestic Product, 2014). Now, economics is the basis of any supremacy. If a state wants to be militarily robust and strong it has to have money not only to buy machinery and equipment but to be able also to produce all of that on its own. If a state wants to boost its production and to be competitive in the markets it has to have a good starting position, which is impossible to happen in the circumstances of a weak economy. If a state wants to disseminate ideology – and disseminating the idea of democracy which the United States does can be considered, I think, an ideology to this end – it has to have enough resources to do that. Therefore, here we are – being the mightiest player in economic sense, the Unites States has the best position among all other states to elaborate on any venture or any policy it strives to implement.
Let’s proceed with military aspects. America’s nuclear potential is far bigger than any other in the world, leaving Russia and China far behind (Kile and Schell). Also, America is the leading country of the biggest military and political block in the world – NATO – whereas potential competitors of the USA for the title of the most military potent country in the world do not lead such mighty alliances (though are sometimes members of some, suffice it to mention Russia’s participation in CSTO or of both China and Russia in the Chinese Organization of Cooperation). Also, no other country in the world has such a great and branched system of military bases scattered all around the world. The United States is in possession of more than 700 military objects around the world. It has nuclear carrying missiles positioned in several NATO countries, including Great Britain and Germany, it has the anti-missile defense shields in Eastern-European countries, including Poland and Czech Republic. In the Pacific region it has its own bases in Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Guam and several other places. Africa is subject to the AFRICOM, a separate unit that is responsible for the military presence of the United States in the African continents (Dufour). Even as we see the potential decline of participation of the United States in some conflicts or talks over some matters, this infrastructure will still represent the United States’ interests all over the world. In this sense, one cannot speak about the decline of the America’s supremacy. Depending on the political climate in the country America’s involvement in world affairs may fluctuate but its potential and possibilities are unequivocal and unrivaled.
The next argument is that The United States is currently the only world actor that is so deeply involved in literally every major world development. Talks on Syria and the Middle East issue as well as Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, leading the struggle against ISIS. In this sense, in the potentially new Cold War between the West and the East these are namely Russia and the United States that are the most likely to be major centers of power. This means that these two already leave everybody behind in their supremacy. Now, comparing their potential according to the abovementioned economic and military criteria, it becomes obvious that the United States is the one.
It must be noted that very much in the matter of whether the United States is going to stay the mightiest actor in the world politics depends on the forthcoming presidential elections in the United States. The problem is that current Republicans and Democrats leaders (including obviously such public figures as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders as well as the current “lame duck” President Barack Obama) have different vision of how the foreign policy of the United States should be implemented. The primary divergence between the approaches of the two parties consists in this: Democrats led by Barack Obama think that America should incrementally withdraw from the areas of protracted conflicts that were started with participation of the United States (if not by the United States). These include Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, even facing the threat of the Islamic State, Barack Obama does not hurry up to put boots on the ground, both to confront ISIS and to fight against Bashar al-Assad as well as to back up the moderate opposition (Pavgi). The current President argues that restricting the limit of involvement in these conflicts would help concentrate more on domestic policy which needs attention really badly. But many critics claim that withdrawing from the mentioned conflicts will mean the actual runaway of the United States from responsibility and result in the serious decline of America’s influence in world politics.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have a more or less similar view of the potential American foreign policy, which falls in line with the party’s policy to that end completely. At the same time, let’s pay attention to what the leader of the republican chase, Donald Trump says. According to his concept of “making America great again” the United States should not only keep their involvement in major world political issues – including primarily certain conflicts, like Syria, Iraq and Ukraine – but also add up to its military and economic potential by becoming a more strict, more pragmatic and more cynical actor in international relations (Whitehill).
Obvious enough is that in the context of the topic of this essay the scenario propounded by the current President Barack Obama is worse. But is it so bad as to speak about the decline of the United States in the world politics? I think no, and here is why.
It may seem to us that the United States is weaker in the international arena than it used to be half a century or even several decades ago. However, we have to take into account changes that the world has undergone since, and how the system of international relations changed.
After the end of the Second World War a new international order emerged that consisted in the competition – to put it mildly – between the two centers of power, the United States and the West being on the one side and the USSR together with Warsaw Pact countries on the other. The Cold War followed the October crisis of 1962, the arms race continued all the way up to the mid-80s, with the Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative being its peak. However, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the bipolar system of international relations collapsed. The Cold War era ended up with the victory of the United States. Scientists in the field of international relations have had several points of views of what kind of an international system followed – either a multi-polar or a no-polar system. Bu the main point is that there was no more rival for the United States in the international arena that would be equal with the latter in its potential. With the USSR disappeared the might of the United States became unrivaled. Therefore, what some people might think it the decline of the United States primacy in the world is really just a display of discreetness and trying to save potential and resources – why spend more than the international environment requires? And I would not tell lies if I say that nothing in the post-bipolar era heated up the international environment as much as the arms race and nuclear threats had previously done.
Finally, let’s look at such clue. There was a clear moment in the US history when its fate turned very drastically the other way round. This moment happened precisely on 7th December 1941. Of course I am speaking about the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. Prior to that date the United States adhered to the concept of isolationism. According to the Monroe doctrine the United States aimed at controlling only the Western Hemisphere and did not intend to interfere with the European politics in any way. The concept was long followed by numerous American administrations. In the post-World War I era there was an attempt to abandon the concept with the help of America’s participation in the post-war settlement in the world. However, the “Fourteen points” of Woodrow Wilson though accepted as a basis for the Treaty of Versailles were disregarded by the Congress of the United States which led ot America’s being finally kicked off from the involvement in the world affairs.
Everything changed again after 1941. After the United States became involved in the warfare in the course of the World War II it never left the world arena anymore. From the very beginning of this involvement the United States was the successful creditor of many European states that defined for a very long time the monetary relations in the world. By the way, even the fact that dollar is the most important currency in the world still these days is another clue that America’s supremacy is not just participating in politics and is not likely to come to an end any time soon. After the World War II the United States led the anti-communist bloc which in the post-bipolar era transformed into the democracy-disseminating concept, already mentioned above.
Therefore, as we can see, the concept of supremacy may contain far more twists than we are used to. Judging from it, there are no less subterranean than obvious indicators pointing out to the potential of a given country. All of that being said, I reaffirm my statement that having analyzed American potential I have come to the conclusion that America will still have the same share of supremacy in the world and is not likely to lose it any time soon.
Bibliography
Shannon, Kile and Schell, Phillip. “Nuclear Forces.” SIPRI, last modified 2015.
“Gross Domestic Product, 2014,” World Bank, last modified 29 Sep. 2015.
Dufour, Jules. “The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases,” Global Research. 20 Sep. 2015.
Whitehill, Brandon George. “A Quick Guide to the foreign Policy Views of the Democratic Presidential Candidates.” Foreign Policy research Institute. August 2015.
Whitehill, Brandon George. “A Quick Guide to the foreign Policy Views of the Republican Presidential Candidates.” Foreign Policy research Institute. July 2015.
Pavgi, Kedar. “Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy.” Foreign Policy. 17 Nov. 2011.
“The End of America’s Isolationism.” Encyclopedia of the New American Nation. 24 Oct 2015.
Mearsheimer, John. “America Unhinged.” The National Interest. Number 129: January-February 2014.
“U.S. Participation in the Great War (World War I).” Library of Congress.
Compagno, S. “America’s Military Contribution to Victory in the Great War.” WorldWar1.com.
