In 1991, as the Balkan wars began, Jacques Poos, the president of the Council of the European Union, declared, "This is the hour of Europe." He explained: "If one problem can be solved by Europeans, it is the Yugoslav problem. This is a European country, and it is not up to the Americans." But it turned out that only the United States had the combined power and influence to intervene effectively and tackle the crisis.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Just as American hegemony grew in the early 1990s while no one was noticing, so in the late 1990s did the forces that would undermine it, even as people had begun to speak of the United States as "The indispensable nation" and "The world's sole superpower." First and foremost, there was the rise of China.
China's rise persisted, and the country became the new great power on the block, one with the might and the ambition to match the United States.
Today, the United States is still the most powerful country on the planet, but it exists in a world of global and regional powers that can-and frequently do-push back.
In 2001, the United States, still larger economically than the next five countries put together, chose to ramp up its annual defense spending by an amount-almost $50 billion-that was larger than the United Kingdom's entire yearly defense budget.
In its first two years, the George W. Bush administration walked away from more international agreements than any previous administration had. American behavior abroad during the Bush administration shattered the moral and political authority of the United States, as long-standing allies such as Canada and France found themselves at odds with it on the substance, morality, and style of its foreign policy.
Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform the world.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-06-11/self-destruction-american-power
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Just as American hegemony grew in the early 1990s while no one was noticing, so in the late 1990s did the forces that would undermine it, even as people had begun to speak of the United States as "The indispensable nation" and "The world's sole superpower." First and foremost, there was the rise of China.
China's rise persisted, and the country became the new great power on the block, one with the might and the ambition to match the United States.
Today, the United States is still the most powerful country on the planet, but it exists in a world of global and regional powers that can-and frequently do-push back.
In 2001, the United States, still larger economically than the next five countries put together, chose to ramp up its annual defense spending by an amount-almost $50 billion-that was larger than the United Kingdom's entire yearly defense budget.
In its first two years, the George W. Bush administration walked away from more international agreements than any previous administration had. American behavior abroad during the Bush administration shattered the moral and political authority of the United States, as long-standing allies such as Canada and France found themselves at odds with it on the substance, morality, and style of its foreign policy.
Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform the world.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-06-11/self-destruction-american-power
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