USA - Broken Criminal Justice System. Democratic Decline. The End of the American Era. THE UNITED States has been the dominant world power since 1945, and U.S. leaders have long sought to preserve that privileged position.
They understood, as did most Americans, that primacy brought important benefits. It made other states less likely to threaten America or its vital interests directly. By dampening great-power competition and giving Washington the capacity to shape regional balances of power, primacy contributed to a more tranquil international environment. That tranquility fostered global prosperity; investors and traders operate with greater confidence when there is less danger of war. After America - by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Not so long ago, a high-ranking Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America's decline and China's rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candor to a senior U.S. official: "But, please, let America not decline too quickly.
" Although the inevitability of the Chinese leader's expectation is still far from certain, he was right to be cautious when looking forward to America's demise. For if America falters, the world is unlikely to be dominated by a single preeminent successor -- not even China. International uncertainty, increased tension among global competitors, and even outright chaos would be far more likely outcomes. The leaders of the world's second-rank powers, among them India, Japan, Russia, and some European countries, are already assessing the potential impact of U.S. decline on their respective national interests.
Redefining American Power. Between You and Me Considering the some trillion dollars per year spent on defense related activities, an overhaul of the budget is long overdue.
Yet, before voicing support for Obama’s proposed military strategy, it is imperative that American politicians engage the public in a serious discussion on America’s increasing reliance on extra-judicial killings and drone attacks. President Obama is seeking to reshape America's defense policy US President, Barack Obama, unveiled last week the US Department of Defense’s January 2012 defense strategy, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. The Rise or Fall of the American Empire - By Robert Kagan, Gideon Rachman, and Daniel W. Drezner. Dan Drezner: Dear Bob and Gideon, It's an honor to be moderating this discussion between the two of you.
You have both managed to author interesting and cogently argued books that are nevertheless at odds with each other on the future of world order. Gideon, you are of the belief that the Age of Anxiety is upon us, due in no small part to the waning of American power and the Western model of political economy more generally. Bob, you rebut arguments about American decline by pointing out the ways in which current commentators have wildly exaggerated American power in the past and the ways in which current U.S. power resources are still quite robust. Welcome to the New World Disorder - By Ian Bremmer. As leaders of the G-8 industrialized countries gather at Camp David later this week, there will be much talk of global leadership -- and of its importance for our crisis-prone world.
In a world where so many challenges transcend borders -- threats to the stability of the global economy, climate change, cyberconflict, terrorism, and risks to reliable supplies of food and water, to name just a few -- the need for international cooperation has never been greater. Yet, cooperation depends on leadership. Only global leaders have the leverage to coordinate multinational responses to transnational problems, as well as the wealth and power to persuade other governments to take actions they would not otherwise take. They provide services no one else will pay for and resources that others cannot afford. On issue after issue, leaders set the agenda. "America’s G-Zero Moment" by Ian Bremmer. Exit from comment view mode.
Click to hide this space NEW YORK – The 2008 financial crisis marked the end of the global order as we knew it. Noam Chomsky: America's Decline Is Real. February 14, 2012 | Like this article?
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Join our email list: Robert Kagan: Against The Myth Of American Decline. The myth of American decline.
Before 2013 begins, catch up on the best of 2012. From now until the New Year, we will be re-posting some of The New Republic’s most thought-provoking pieces of the year. Enjoy. Note: At the State of the Union on January 26, President Barack Obama argued, "Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about. " Glory days: A pundit's rosy view of the Pax Americana—By Andrew J. Bacevich. We’re So Exceptional by Michael Ignatieff. All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals by David Scheffer Princeton University Press, 533 pp., $35.00 Affirming belief that America is an exceptional nation has become a test of patriotism in American politics.
Standing up for America’s right to make its own rules and live its own unique destiny has become an obligatory part of campaign rhetoric at a time when China is on the rise and the American economy is struggling back to its feet. Barack Obama learned this to his cost in 2009. Exceptionalist rhetoric is more than a language game for politicians trying to win support from an anxious electorate traversing the dark wood of possible imperial decline.
Sorry, Mitt: It Won't Be an American Century - By Charles Kupchan. "This century must be an American century," Mitt Romney insisted in a recent speech on foreign policy.
"In an American century," the former Massachusetts governor continued, "America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world. " Adhering to his party's traditional playbook, the likely Republican nominee went on to reaffirm that the United States is "an exceptional country with a unique destiny. " In an election season, such talk rolls easily off the tongue. American Funk - Ian Buruma. Exit from comment view mode.
Click to hide this space NEW YORK – The eccentric Bengali intellectual Nirad C. Chaudhuri once explained the end of the British Raj in India as a case of “funk,” or loss of nerve. The British had stopped believing in their own empire. Rotting From the Inside Out - By Michael A. Cohen. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney don't generally agree on much. But these days they appear to have one area of surprising consensus -- they both believe that stories of American decline are greatly exaggerated. According to Foreign Policy's own Josh Rogin, Obama has been praising Robert Kagan's recent article in the New Republic on the myth of American decline -- a perhaps not unsurprising position to take for a candidate regularly accused of being insufficiently exceptionalist. Why the American Empire Was Destined to Collapse. Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com March 7, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Several years after the Wall Street-ignited crisis began, the nation’s top bank CEOs (who far out-accumulated their European and other international counterparts) continue to hobnob with the president at campaign dinners where each plate costs more than one out of four US households make in a year.
This is not the American Dream that says if you work hard you can be more comfortable than your parents; but rather, if you connive well, game the rules, and rule the game, your take from others is unlimited. In Why America Failed, noted historian and cultural critic Morris Berman’s brilliant, raw and unflinchingly accurate postmortem of America, he concludes that this hustling model, literally woven into the American DNA, doomed the country from the start, and led us inevitably to this dysfunctional point. So where does that leave us as a country? Why America Keeps Getting More Conservative - Politics. Even with the president’s approval rating showing signs of life and the Republicans busily bashing themselves over the head — “one is a practicing polygamist and he’s not even the Mormon,” retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently quipped about her party’s two frontrunners — America continues to track right, according to polling data released by the Gallup Organization last week.
Americans at this political moment are significantly more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal: conservatives outnumber liberals by nearly two to one. Forty percent identify as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, and 21 percent liberal. The map above charts the ideological divide across America’s states. There are four states where conservatives make up more than half the population: Mississippi, Utah, Wyoming, and Alabama. Conservatives make up more than 40 percent in 20 more states. As before, conservative states are considerably more religious than liberal-leaning states. The Romney Doctrine? Ibn Dawood Romney’s “American Century” is quite implausible upon closer examination, but the Republican candidate appears to not take it that seriously either. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is struggling to present a coherent foreign policy Few presidential candidates in recent American politics have articulated as few of words on foreign policy as the current Republican nominee-in-waiting, Mitt Romney.
Decline Watch: Is the U.S. Constitution going out of style? On Monday, we disussed Ruth Bader Ginsburg's now-controversial interview with an Egyptian television station in which she suggested that the U.S. 5 Brave Religious Leaders Who Fought Christian Theocracy in America. February 13, 2012 | How Santorum misunderstands Kennedy’s speech on religious freedom. God and Caesar in America. 5 Supreme Court Decisions Pandering to Christianity. April 23, 2012 | Is America on the Verge of Theocracy? 4 Fundamentalist Ideologies Threatening U.S. Liberty. March 7, 2012 | The Truth About America's Religious Heritage. Where are the normal Christians?
Andrew Sullivan: Christianity in Crisis. Council for Secular Humanism. Is Our Republic Lost? The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Rise of China. Balancing the East, Upgrading the West. The Second Gilded Age: Has America Become an Oligarchy? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. The Dark Money Shakedown. Not so super PACs. The Big-Lie Coup d'Etat) Citizens United: Justice David Souter’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s momentous campaign finance case.
How John Roberts Orchestrated Citizens United. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has led to an explosion of campaign spending. AmericanPoverty.org. America: The Best Country in the World at Being Last. America’s pill-popping capital. 5 Things That Put America to Shame. Disgusting: 7 Million Kids and Mothers Suffer Extreme Poverty in the Richest Country in the World. Finding community in America's Appalachian region. How Joseph Stalin Invented 'American Exceptionalism' - Terrence McCoy - Politics. A Better Internationalism. The Enemy Within - By David Rothkopf. The Great American Novel. America's Spy State: How the Telecoms Sell Out Your Privacy. 'Ameritopia': How Dumb Can Political Philosophy Get? - The Chronicle Review. Morals: Our great moral decline. Civil Society Reconsidered. The Difference Between Private and Public Morality)
America’s bankrupt morality. Strip-Search Case Reflects Death of American Privacy. The Potential Killers All Around Us. Hi-Ho! The US is a Police State. A Nation of Spies and Snitches - By J.M. Berger. 150 Miles of Hell Reports Reveal Two New Scandals in the Pepper-Spraying at UC Davis - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics. How Obama Became a Civil Libertarian's Nightmare. No Taxes, No Travel: Why the IRS Wants the Right to Seize Your Passport - Jacoba Urist - Business. Will a Militarized Police Force Facing Occupy Wall Street Lead to Another Kent State Massacre? Police Handcuff Ga. Kindergartner For Tantrum. Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports. TSA Agents Conduct ‘Full Monty’ Pat-Down On Henry Kissinger. 'Losing' the world: American decline in perspective.
The imperial way: US decline in perspective. America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part I. $200 Oil and the Moscow-Beijing Alliance - Interview by Benjamin Pauker. How our election cycle screws up our foreign policy. "Foreign Policy Forgotten" by Christopher R Hill. By Madeleine Albright and William Cohen. The Nerve of 'Do as We Say, Not as We Do' Foreign Policy - Wendy Kaminer - Politics.