Does America Need a Foreign Policy?

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AMERICA AT THE APEX: EMPIRE OR LEADER?
"At the dawn of the new millennium, the United States is enjoying a preeminence unrivaled by even the greatest empires of the past. From weaponry to entrepreneurship, from science to technology, from higher education to popular culture, America exercises an unparalleled ascendancy around the globe. During the last decade of the twentieth century, America's preponderant position rendered it the indispensable component of international stability. It mediated disputes in key trouble spots to the point that, in the Middle East, it had become an integrál part of the peace process. So committed was the United States to this role that it almost ritually put itself forward as mediator, occasionally even when it was not invited by all the parties involved—as in the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan in July 1999. The United States considered itself both the source and the guarantor of demo-cratic institutions around the globe, increasingly... Tovább

Fülszöveg

AMERICA AT THE APEX: EMPIRE OR LEADER?
"At the dawn of the new millennium, the United States is enjoying a preeminence unrivaled by even the greatest empires of the past. From weaponry to entrepreneurship, from science to technology, from higher education to popular culture, America exercises an unparalleled ascendancy around the globe. During the last decade of the twentieth century, America's preponderant position rendered it the indispensable component of international stability. It mediated disputes in key trouble spots to the point that, in the Middle East, it had become an integrál part of the peace process. So committed was the United States to this role that it almost ritually put itself forward as mediator, occasionally even when it was not invited by all the parties involved—as in the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan in July 1999. The United States considered itself both the source and the guarantor of demo-cratic institutions around the globe, increasingly setting itself up as the judge of the fairness of foreign elections and applying economic sanctions or other pressures if its criteria were not met.
" In the Balkans, the United States is performing essentially the same functions as did the Austrian and Ottoman empires at the turn of the last century, of keeping the peace by establishing protectorates interposed between warring ethnic groups. It dominates the international financial system by providing the single largest pool of investment capital, the most attractive haven for investors, and the largest markét for foreign exports. American popular culture sets standards of taste around the world even as it provides the occasional flash point for national resentments. .
"Ironically, America's preeminence is often treated with indifference by its own people." —from Henry Kissinger's Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Vissza