The USA and the world, now and tomorrow...

To watch the TED talk by Ian Bremmer "How the US should use its superpower status...", click HERE!

Ian Bremmer, global research professor at New York University, teaches classes in the field of political risk. "G-Zero" (i.e. no G20 or G7) is a term used by Bremmer, and widely accepted by policymakers, for a global power vacuum in which no country is willing and able to set the international agenda...

Summary of the TED talk by Ian Bremmer:

Is the USA, “large and in charge”, still in fact the world’s “n°1”? We are increasingly in a “driverless world” (i.e. the USA no longer “drives” the world). Americanization and globalization were, up to now, the same thing (WTO, IMF, World Bank, Bretton Woods Accord, etc., were “American” institutions).

US view: President Obama (USA) in charge of the world. The reality: US now has little impact on G20; Putin, Xi Jinping, Angela Merkel, etc. are now “calling the shots”. The problem is it's a G-Zero world that we now live in, i.e. a world order where there is no single country or alliance that can meet the challenges of global leadership.

Globalization is continuing. Goods and services and people and capital are moving across borders faster and faster than ever before, but Americanisation is not.

What are the implications of the end of Americanisation for the whole world, and what do we think about it in the United States?

Why are we in this situation? It’s because:

> the USA spent two trillion dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that failed and we don't want to get involved in (expensive) wars anymore;

> large numbers of middle and working class Americans feel they've not benefited from globalization, so they are rejecting it;

> we don't need OPEC or the Middle East because we now produce most of our oil in the United States.

Americans don't want to be the global sheriff for security or the architect of global trade any more. They don't even want to be the cheerleader of global values.

Europe:  transatlantic relationship is now weaker than it has ever been (crises: Brexit, French vs Russians, Germans vs Turks, Brits vs Chinese, etc.).

China: wants leadership only in economic sphere, hence competition with US.

Russia: wants more leadership (cf. Ukraine, Baltic States, Middle East), hence competition with USA.

Middle East: now very unstable because US and allies no longer provide military security, oil revenue has gone down, and populations are rebelling against corrupt despots (hence failed states, terrorism, refugees, etc.). Will entire Middle East fall apart? No, Kurds, Iraq, Israel, Iran will do well.

Russia: antagonized by US and Europe expanding NATO right up to its borders; also threat from China which is going to dominate (economically) every country around Russia.

Asia: political stability in most important economies (Modi in India, Abe in Japan, Xi Jinping in China). Problems: South China Sea, Kim Jong Un. But most leaders want to avoid xenophobia and escalation of geopolitical and cross-border tensions because they want long-term economic stability and growth.

Europe: suffering from refugee crisis (> Brexit, populism across all of European states). In G-Zero world, Europe will get smaller (because Eastern Europe and Turkey are too different from “core Europe” and NATO will be weaker without US dominance). Germany and France and others will still function, but peripheral countries (Greece, Turkey, others) will not.

Latin America: populism and opposition to USA > economic downturn. Hope for Argentina, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil? Not for Mexico (cf. Trump)…

Africa: in G-Zero world  > extreme segregation between winners and losers across Africa: the few countries that are well-governed, urbanized, with entrepreneurship and women in workforce vs other countries (with extreme climate, radicalism, poor governance, border wars, forced migration, etc.).

United States: elections have highlighted loathing of Washington (the “establishment”), the media and globalization. Americans now have to compete with the rest of the world (it can easily). Protectionism and isolationism are not good options. NAFTA is a good thing for USA. Terrorism and refugees are not as big a problem for USA as for Europe or Middle East.

USA no longer wants to be global cop, architect of global trade, cheerleader of global values. But, in G-Zero world, USA should lead by example. Clinton wants to go back to the '90s (i.e. US dominating the world), Trump back to the '30s (i.e. US rejecting the world). But, in G-Zero world, though the US will not be in economic decline, America will no longer be able or willing to control the world.

Are we prepared to be a model country, one which the world will emulate? We need to change first! Another crisis (global financial crisis or economic depression or terrorist attack) could force us to change... We, individually, need to force our leaders to deal with the inequality in our country; this is urgent.

(Click HERE to watch a September 2018 interview of Prof. Bremmer!)

Obama explains his foreign policy...

Click HERE!

November 9th, 1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall

Building the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" in August 1961

On the 9th of November 1989, the Berlin Wall, that terrible symbol of the Cold War, finally fell after having divided the city for 28 years. Family members and friends who hadn’t seen each other in decades were finally reunited.

It was a momentous and joyous event, marking the beginning of the end of a divided Germany and of a divided Europe. The Soviet Union collapsed two years later...

After Germany’s unconditional surrender at the end of the Second World War, control of the country was divided between the Allies: Britain, America and France took over the west of Germany and the Soviet Union controlled the east of Germany. By 1949 Germany had become two separate countries. 

Berlin was also divided between the former Allies (into four Sectors, cf. the map below) and it quickly became the focal point of the Cold War.

Hostilities between the ideologically-opposed superpowers, the USA and the USSR, grew.

Map of 1961 showing the wall around West Berlin

Life in the Soviet-controlled East was bleak. Many became disillusioned with communism and the increasingly oppressive social and economic conditions. Large numbers of people began defecting to the West.

The Berlin "Wall of shame", 1960s

In 1961, the East German authorities erected the Wall ("die Mauer") around West Berlin, soon fortified with huge slabs of concrete and 300 control points, mostly to prevent the young, well-educated citizens of East Germany from fleeing to the “Free world” (via West Berlin’s airport).

By the end of the 1980s, demands for freedom were growing across the ‘Eastern Bloc’. There was a series of largely peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe. Within months of the Wall’s checkpoints being opened, German reunification was complete.

The end of Communism in Europe cannot of course be explained by or reduced to just one event; the fall of the Wall remains however very important in many people’s lives because it symbolised the liberation of millions and an end to the constant threat of world-wide nuclear war.

The fall of the Wall showed too that change can happen quickly and involve the people directly (i.e. through "people power"); it has inspired people across the world, like the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong recently.

It is important, however, to keep the significance of that event in perspective... China and Russia, among other countries, still run authoritarian regimes, so to think that more freedom and more democracy can be won through a peaceful and joyous resolution like in Berlin 25 years ago seems somewhat naïve…

"Die Mauer", November 1989

Question: 

The fall of the Berlin Wall is often seen as proof of the "power of the powerless" (i.e. of the people) to bring about important social and political change... Do you think it is up to the people themselves to determine what is best for them (think of the separatist mouvements in Scotland, Catalonia, or Ukraine, and the pro-democracy mouvement in Hong-Kong)?

Self-determination for Ukraine... What is the USA's position?

Click HERE to watch Obama 20 March 2014 announcement!

Who is afraid of Russia?

US relations with France

BBC report: click HERE!

US foreign policy in 2014...

Click HERE to watch President Obama give his 2014 State of the Union address (extract)
US Iran diplomacy

The USA and the world from 2009 to 2016. A more multipolar world?

President Barak Obama (2009-2017)

During the two-term presidency of Barak Obama (January 2009 to January 2017), US hegemony continued to be challenged by Islamist terrorist groups, especially Islamic State.

The dominant position in the world of the USA was also undermined by:

• the economic downturn following the financial crisis of 2008 (the “Great Recession”);
• the trade deficit (the USA imported more than it exported);
• the high public debt and private debt levels;
• rising inequality in the USA;
• the economic might of transnational corporations (taking power away from the Federal Government);
• anti-globalization NGOs and mouvements (for example the Occupy Wall Street protests);
• the rise of the BRICS countries, on an economic level (within the WTO too) and, increasingly, at a geopolitical level;
• the cost of financing the “military-industrial complex”;
• the proliferation of nuclear weapons;
• the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons (that are cheap and readily available to terrorist groups and to states like Syria);
• the situation in North Korea and the Middle East;
• deteriorating relations with Russia (especially after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its attacks on Ukraine and its support of the Hassad regime in Syria);
• organized crime (and the drug trade).

The world became increasingly multipolar, the USA having/wanting to share decision-making more with other centres of power: the Russian Federation, China, and, to a lesser extent, Europe. The bipolar world of the Cold War period (and the clearly unipolar world during the Clinton-Bush Jr. years) appeared to some less unstable than the more multipolar world under Obama.

Barak Obama, elected in November 2008, became the 44th President of the USA on 20 January 2009. His message, at the height of the financial crisis, was one of boosting national confidence: “Yes we can!” was his electoral slogan. For many, the American Dream had become a nightmare: increased poverty, social unrest and violence (lack of gun control), ever greater disparities between the wealthy and the poor, worsening health (and difficulties in implementing a workable national healthcare system), etc.

Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State (head of the Department of State) during Obama’s first term (2009-13). She made efficient use of “smart power”, a pragmatic mix of diplomatic, legal, military, economic and “cultural” means to implement the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. Obama’s foreign policy can be described as multilateral, realist and (very) cautious. Consensus was sought with foreign partners; conflict had to be avoided.

The war in Afghanistan (launched by Bush Jr. in 2001) drew to a close at the end of 2014. The war in Iraq (started by Bush Jr. in 2003) was ended in 2011. In his 2009 Cairo speech, Obama said that the war in Afghanistan was necessary in the fight against terrorism. He also said that he disapproved of the war in Iraq (though he did not regret the elimination of Saddam Hussein).

The Situation Room (May 1st 2011)

Though the Guantanamo base was not (as promised by Obama) closed, the use of torture there was stopped. Al-Qaeda was undermined by the assassination of its leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011 by US Navy SEALs.

How effective is US foreign policy on Syria? 

After his re-election in 2012, Obama’s foreign policy impressed perhaps less than during his first term in office; Obama was accused of being overly cautious (mostly by the Right). He had serious problems with knowing how to cope with Islamic State terrorist groups. In a speech in December 2016 at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, Obama all but conceded that he was unable to get America out of the foreign wars, large and small, that grew out of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Obama said: “We know that in some form this violent extremism will be with us for years to come. (…) In too many parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, there has been a breakdown of order that's been building for decades, and it’s unleashed forces that are going to take a generation to resolve.”

John Kerry was Secretary of State from February 2013 to January 2017. There were positive foreign policy achievements: in 2015, he supported the Paris Agreement on global climate change, brokered the nuclear deal with Iran, and restored diplomatic relations with Cuba. Also, under Obama, the USA decided to meddle less in Latin America. "The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past," stated Obama in 2015 during a visit to Panama.

Regarding the GWOT (launched by Bush after 9/11), Obama stated in 2013 that: "We must define our effort not as a boundless 'Global War on Terror,' but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America." Nevertheless, U.S. military forces were at war for all eight years of Obama’s tenure: he launched airstrikes or military raids in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

Accusations from the political Right included being ineffectual in the Syrian civil war (cf. the cartoon), and too conciliatory with Iran over its nuclear arms capacity. Many liberals, however, saw no real difference with the foreign policy of previous Administrations: the intensive use of drones and extensive NSA surveillance were, for them, proof of the usual imperialist stance of the USA…

The USA and the world from 2001-2009; the hyperpower contested.

The unipolar world of the 90s (i.e. with the USA as unique superpower, as sole center of power) continued into the years 2000. However, the US’s hegemonic position, in which the USA tried to impose a “new world order”, became more and more contested...

US “Stars and Stripes” flag being burned

by (radical?) Muslims (Bangladesh, 2001?)

The demonstrators shown in the photo above are expressing their loathing of what they see as American imperialism. Islamists (supporters of Islamic fundamentalism) see the USA as decadent; they strongly reject US military and economic intervention in the Middle East and also hate the USA because it is an ally of Israel.

President George W. Bush (2001-2009)

In 2001, George W. Bush, the son of George Bush (the 41st President), became the 43rd President of the USA (he served until 2009).

9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers, NYC

The vulnerability of the USA to terrorist attacks was spectacularly demonstrated on the the 11th September 2001 when al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, symbol of America's economic domination, and attacked the Pentagon in Washington D.C., symbol of its military might. The terrorists succeeded in creating a climate of insecurity and the US's supremacy in the world was shaken; this violent anti-Americanism challenged America's sense of "manifest destiny" (i.e. that the US has to lead the world and promote its values abroad). The Bush Administration reacted aggressively to this attack on mainland America (it wanted revenge?); the US foreign policy became unilateralist and Bush launched his strongly interventionist War on Terror against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and the "rogue countries" suspected of supporting terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security was set up in 2011 to coordinate anti-terrorist actions.

The US's unilateralist stance meant that it also refused to take part in multilateral negotiations on urgent world problems such as climate change.

In 2001, the USA led a coalition, under UN mandate, to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan (the last US soldiers left at the end of 2014). This was approved by the UN Security Council and widely supported as a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks (the Taliban were supporters of Bin Laden). 4,804 Coalition soldiers (including 2,165 US soldiers) were killed. The civilian victims in the 2007 to 2012 period numbered over 16,000 (most killed by the Taliban, according to the UN).

Bush reasserted his anti-terrorist stance at his State of the Union Address in January 2002. He listed the “axis of evil” countries that posed a threat to the USA and the world, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. He praised those countries that were assisting the USA in its fight, including Pakistan.

Saddam Hussein (2006)

In 2003, the Bush Administration launched the Iraq War on the suspicion that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction (no evidence of this was found) and that Saddam Hussein supported al-Qaeda (there was nothing to support this claim). The invasion was not approved by the UN and lead to many anti-war and anti-Bush protests throughout the world. The UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, supported Bush's attack on Iraq. Saddam Hussein was captured and executed in 2006. The last US soldiers were pulled out in 2011 (by Barack Obama). The number of deaths is estimated at about half a million (including nearly 4,475 US service members). There were incidents of torture on the part of US soldiers, notably at Abu Ghraib prison. Further controversy was the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Editorial cartoon condemning the Iraq War

(WMD means "weapon of mass destruction")

The total cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been estimated at between four and six trillion dollars.

Cartoon by Peter Nicholson

The above political cartoon was published in the Australian Times in October 2002; it is a humorous take on the increasing dangers to world stability. The list of places the son or daughter is warned to keep away from include bars (crowds, associated with possible terrorist attacks), Westerners and Easterners (i.e. everybody), planes (a reference to the Lockerbie plane crash in 1988 caused by terrorists, and to 9/11), the Middle East (a reference to all the problems in that part of the world), Bali (terrorist attack in 2002), and Indonesia (politically unstable).

Editorial cartoon by Adam Zyglis

criticizing the Patriot Act (2006)

The Bush Administration passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2006; this anti-terrorism legislation has been very controversial because considered by many to be a means for the government to intrude on the privacy of ordinary citizens. This law to "deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes..." gives the US Federal government the right to arrest and hold indefinitely any person suspected of terrorist activity. It could be argued that the terrorists "won" because, after 9/11, there were greater restrictions on individual freedom, there was less trust of the authorities, and there was increased victimization of ordinary (mostly Muslim) citizens...

President George W. Bush, after having had very high approval ratings after 9/11, steadily lost popularity because of the war in Iraq (from 2003), the mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina disaster (2005), the abuses of the Patriot Act (from 2006), and the economic downturn (from 2007).

Cartoon critical of  President Bush (2008)

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers, an American bank, was the first of several financial institutions to go bust. It was an inevitable step in a financial crisis that had started at the end of 2007 and that was due mostly to short-term profit-seeking by banks. Many US families had borrowed money from banks to purchase a house (they took out mortgages), but they could not afford to pay the money back (the interest rates were too high). More than two million people lost their homes (this is known as the subprimes scandal). The financial crisis became economic and social and has spread world-wide (cf. the Eurozone crisis).

The American economic model is based on growth; this growth necessitates massive borrowing which, when the economy is healthy, is not a problem (in 1945, the debt was massive, but the economy healthy). Since Reagan (1980), public debt (made up mostly of what the US has borrowed from foreign lenders) has much increased (as has private debt, i.e. the money citizens have borrowed from banks). The US government spends more than it gets in taxes. In 1982, public debt (also know as government debt) stood at $1000 billion (one trillion dollars) due to increased military spending and tax cuts. In 1992, it stood at $3,500 billion (Bush Senior spent money on the Gulf War). In 1996, under Clinton, it was at $5,000 billion. By 2008, that had doubled (Bush Junior tax cuts and cost of wars). By 2011, the debt stood at $15,000 billion. Today it is about $17,000 billion ($17 trillion); the USA owes Japan and China over one trillion dollars each. Private debt in the USA is about $40,000 billion. This dependence on foreign loans could undermine the US's economic dominance. Economic mismanagement of the world's (still) biggest economy has had repercussions on the world's economy...

The USA and the world: 1991-2001, the hyperpower

The USA, post-Cold War, has been described as the hyperpower (i.e. the only superpower, since the USSR no longer exists). Dominating economically and militarily the world, it acts (with or without UN consent) whenever and wherever it feels its interests are threatened; this was true especially in the years 2000 under George W. Bush.

The hyperpower status of the USA means it leads in all domains:

• resources (the country has huge reserves of land, natural resources and energy);
• economic (most of the world's top 100 TNCs are based in the USA);
• finance (the dollar remains the principal currency in world trade);
• military (the US spends a third of the world's military budget and makes use of sophisticated arms);
• high-technology (the USA pioneered information technology which it integrated first in industry, services, finance);
• research (60% of Nobel Prize winners are from the USA and there are half a million foreign students in the USA);
• ideology (the free market and democracy);
• culture (US culture has a strong influence throughout the world).

The US hegemony has not created a more stable world however; the world has become divided between those that more or less accept American domination and those that reject it. The Muslim world, for one, has largely rejected it, which explains the rise in terrorist attacks on the US and in countries seen as allies of the USA.

President George Bush (1989-93)

The 1991 Gulf War, led by George Bush Senior, was a success for the US-led coalition; Operation Desert Storm was seen as legitimate, approved by the UN and supported by most people, to free Kuwait from the Iraqi aggressor. However, Saddam Hussein continued as dictator of Iraq for the next twelve years… The Bush Administration was interventionist, as the Gulf War illustrates. The invasion of Panama in 1989 is another example.

President Bill Clinton (1993-2001)

In 1993, Bill Clinton, Democrat, became the 42nd President of the USA (up to 2001). The Clinton Administration spent less on foreign policy and defence (the USA was no longer faced with a rival country and was able to concentrate on domestic economic prosperity). Its foreign policy was essentially conciliatory, but this does not mean its power went uncontested; in 1992, al-Qaeda carried out the first of several terrorist attacks on US property and personnel (for example the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in NYC). Islamists (Islamic fundamentalists) saw the Gulf War and Clinton’s subsequent aggressive policy towards Iraq as unacceptable.

Rabin, Clinton, Arafat at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony (1993)

The USA acted as peacemaker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (1993 Oslo Accords), which did not however prevent the second Intifada (2000-2005).

The USA contributed to resolving the conflicts in former Yugoslavia as part of NATO: in 1994 against the Bosnian Serbs (this led to the Dayton Peace Accords brokered by the USA in 1995) and in the Kosovo War in 1999 against Serbian and Montenegrin forces (the NATO intervention had not been approved by the UN).

An overview of the USA's relations with the world since 1918...

Since 1918, the USA has been a major player in international relations. It has exercised its influence in the world on all levels: military and economic (coercive or “hard power”) as well as diplomatic and cultural (persuasive or “soft power”).

The USA’s foreign policy in the 20th century can be described as both pragmatic (defending its own interests) and idealistic (the USA has always justified its interventions abroad in the name of democracy, peace, and the defence of fundamental human rights).

1918 to 1945: the rise of the most powerful nation

Poster encouraging citizens to buy war savings stamps (1917)

In April 1917, the USA declared war on Germany. This went against its traditional isolationism. On the 8th January 1918, Woodrow Wilson, the President of the USA, gave a speech to Congress in which he justified his country’s involvement in the First World War: the Fourteen Points. In it, Wilson outlined his vision for a post-war world that would avoid another terrible conflict. He wanted reduction in arms, the self-determination of nations, and to create an association of nations to prevent future wars, i.e. a League of Nations to ensure international relations were based not on force but on understanding between nations. His ideas faced opposition at home and abroad, and the Treaty of Versailles was in fact never ratified by the United States Congress. His idealism was undermined by the spirit of revenge of the Versailles Treaty against the Central Powers. The League of Nations was set up, but the USA did not become a member. After the war, the USA went back to its isolationism (up to 1941), its influence in the world being essentially economic (at the time, the USA owned a third of the world’s gold reserve and had 19% of the world’s GDP).

US Army recruitment poster (1940)

It is essentially because of the bombing by the Japanese of Pearl Harbor (7th December 1941) that the USA decided to get militarily involved in the Second World War (it became interventionist). Up to then, it had hesitated, especially because of the influence of the Americans of German origin. It had not however been neutral since it was supplying arms and material to the Allied nations via the Lend-Lease program (initiated in March 1941), which was already a step away from its non-interventionist/isolationist policy of the inter-war years. The course of the war was changed because the US joined the Allies and because of its capacity to produce massive amounts of arms (it was the “great arsenal of democracy”).

Yalta Conference (02/1945): Churchill, FDR, Stalin

By 1945, the US had become a superpower, having led the war effort against the Axis powers, becoming rich thanks to the war (two-thirds of the world’s gold reserve was by then American, and it owned 50% of the world’s GDP), and it had the A-bomb. At the Yalta Conference (February 1945) and the Potsdam Conference (July 1945), the USA, along with the UK and the USSR, determined what the post-war world would be like.

1945 to 1991: one of two superpowers during the Cold War

Anti-communist American comic book cover (1960)

After WW2, the USA’s enemy was the other superpower: the USSR. The world became bipolar, i.e. split in two: the Western Bloc (or Capitalist Bloc) i.e. the USA and its allies, against the Eastern Bloc (or Soviet/Communist Bloc) i.e. the USSR and its allies.

In the Western Bloc, the USA was the leader and economic and cultural model for its allies. It had the most powerful economy (and controlled the industrialized countries’ monetary system since the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, the dollar being the only currency convertible into gold).

The US set up military bases and fleets everywhere in the world and it signed many military pacts including NATO (1949), ANZUS (1951), and SEATO (1954). The USA and its allies dominated the UN Security Council. Its strategy was one of containment, i.e. of stopping the spread of communism.

Direct military confrontation between the USSR and the USA was impossible because of the nuclear capabilities of both, though there were numerous crises (1948 Berlin Airlift, 1961 Berlin Wall, 1962 Cuban Missile crisis) and proxy wars (1950-53 Korean War, 1963-73 active US participation in Vietnam War). Based on deterrence theory, the superpowers entered a nuclear arms race; the USA “won” this race since the Soviet Union was, by the 1980s, no longer able to upkeep its nuclear weapons arsenal. The “balance of terror” of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War was the price the USA was willing to pay to defend the “Free World” against the spread of what it saw as the totalitarian communist system of the Soviet Union.

Protest in the US against the Vietnam War (circa 1969)

In the 1970s, the US’s self-confidence was undermined by the economic crisis and the opposition among Americans and people in the world against the Vietnam War.

1989: the Berlin wall is pulled down

President Ronald Reagan declared in 1980 that “America is back!” and gave the US renewed confidence in its capacity to promote what it saw as universal values (freedom, democracy) against the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union. His aggressive rollback strategy paid off and the Soviet Bloc, economically defunct, collapsed in 1989 (the USSR being dissolved in 1991).

1991 to today: from being the hyperpower to being part of a multipolar world

Editorial cartoon condemning the agressive militarism of the USA

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the USA was the only superpower left, in effect a hyper-power, dominating the world at all levels. The world was no longer bipolar (with two opposing centres of power) but became unipolar. This status ended in 2001 with the Al-Quaeda terrorist attacks on mainland America. During those ten years, the USA defended, as usual, both its national interests and universal values, acting either under UN Mandate (Gulf War liberation of Kuwait from Iraq in 1991, and the Afghanistan War against the Taliban started in 2001) or without a UN mandate (i.e. by adopting a unilateralist stance, such as during the 2003 invasion of Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein).

Illustration in Mad magazine (2006)

President George W. Bush (2001-2009), wanted, post-9/11, to fight the “Axis of evil”, the rogue states that he thought sheltered or sponsored terrorists (Iraq, Afghanistan) or that were opposed to the USA (Iran, North Korea). The US’s image abroad, notably in the Middle East, was not positive throughout this period. The US government has also been challenged at home because of the perceived abuses by the government of the Patriot Act (enacted in 2001).

Editorial cartoon commenting US-Russian discussions over Syria (2013)

Since the start of the economic crisis in 2008 and the rise of other economic powers (notably China), the USA’s economic domination is being challenged (though it still has 23% of the world’s GDP) and with it its hegemonic position on the world. President Barack Obama, elected in 2009, has ended the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, got rid of Al-Qaeda leaders, and appears more open to multilateral solutions to world problems. Is the USA moving to the status of a nation among other nations in a multipolar world (one with several centres of power)? The intensive use of military drones and the NSA scandal (widespread spying by the USA including on leaders of friendly countries) has however tarnished this Administration’s good image…