American supremacy, and its role in the world as a superpower, has been questioned for as long as... more American supremacy, and its role in the world as a superpower, has been questioned for as long as it has been a reality. At the end of WWI the United States clearly came out on top as a superpower but by the end of WWII, it had a competitor for the top spot in the USSR. This system of bipolarity in the international system has been accredited with the Long Peace since, despite the regional conflicts that took place, the major powers of the time never directly battled each other. Ironically, it was during this time of competition that Americans seem to have been most confident of their powerful place in the world. Yet strangely, once the cold war had ended and the USSR collapsed, Americans began to fear that every nation that was doing well might be surpassing them. With the passing of communist red-baiting, Americans seem to have turned to the economy and education as the defining concept of what makes them powerful, and unfortunately, there have been scares in both of those fields. This being said, I don't believe there will ever be an agreement on whether or not America is in decline or whether it will lose its top spot in the international arena because people do not seem to agree on what it means to be a superpower. Nonetheless, the American question, the possibility of the decline of American hegemony, can be looked at from quite a few different levels in order to understand its position: militarily, economically, ideologically, culturally and educationally. It is within these levels that the rise or fall of US power may be determined, as within them are distinct differences in what people perceive as power. Traditionally, power was vested in military prowess which, more often than not, relies on economic power, but more and more, it is soft power, which uses ideology, culture and education to name a few, that is forging the way. Soft power, a term coined by the foreign policy scholar Joseph Nye, refers to "the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment" (Nye 94). Whether or not America remains the world's foremost superpower today will likely not be known until it is written about in the history books and superpower is defined by those who have come out on top. As it turns out, fear of being toppled is not a new concept for Americans: "In the 1950s we worried that the Soviet Union would overtake us. In the 1980's we worried that Japan would become the number-one economic power" (Zakaria, xi). This fear or awareness, however you may see it, was something being observed by astute politicians and people alike during the Nixon era. Former
American supremacy, and its role in the world as a superpower, has been questioned for as long as... more American supremacy, and its role in the world as a superpower, has been questioned for as long as it has been a reality. At the end of WWI the United States clearly came out on top as a superpower but by the end of WWII, it had a competitor for the top spot in the USSR. This system of bipolarity in the international system has been accredited with the Long Peace since, despite the regional conflicts that took place, the major powers of the time never directly battled each other. Ironically, it was during this time of competition that Americans seem to have been most confident of their powerful place in the world. Yet strangely, once the cold war had ended and the USSR collapsed, Americans began to fear that every nation that was doing well might be surpassing them. With the passing of communist red-baiting, Americans seem to have turned to the economy and education as the defining concept of what makes them powerful, and unfortunately, there have been scares in both of those fields. This being said, I don't believe there will ever be an agreement on whether or not America is in decline or whether it will lose its top spot in the international arena because people do not seem to agree on what it means to be a superpower. Nonetheless, the American question, the possibility of the decline of American hegemony, can be looked at from quite a few different levels in order to understand its position: militarily, economically, ideologically, culturally and educationally. It is within these levels that the rise or fall of US power may be determined, as within them are distinct differences in what people perceive as power. Traditionally, power was vested in military prowess which, more often than not, relies on economic power, but more and more, it is soft power, which uses ideology, culture and education to name a few, that is forging the way. Soft power, a term coined by the foreign policy scholar Joseph Nye, refers to "the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment" (Nye 94). Whether or not America remains the world's foremost superpower today will likely not be known until it is written about in the history books and superpower is defined by those who have come out on top. As it turns out, fear of being toppled is not a new concept for Americans: "In the 1950s we worried that the Soviet Union would overtake us. In the 1980's we worried that Japan would become the number-one economic power" (Zakaria, xi). This fear or awareness, however you may see it, was something being observed by astute politicians and people alike during the Nixon era. Former
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