Us – The Superpower Essay, Research Paper

THE SUPERPOWER

The US is surely the most powerful country in terms of military. It is called the superpower of the world nowadays. US can start wars or end them within a day with its highly technologically equipped military forces. This may be helpful to dissuade hostile thoughts but more often this force is used in active war around the world.

US is a member of UN and seems willing to participate in UN forces to keep peace or calm down certain conflicts. However besides being a member of UN, the US continues acting in a wider range than the rest of the UN members.

Such strength of US have led it to interpret the term superpower as their right to interfere with weaker states’ domestic affairs. The most recent event we could observe about this issue was the attack of the US to Iraq on Ramadan -the religiously important month of Muslims. The reason and aim of the bombing were explained by the US Foreign Affairs Minister, Ms. Albright, exactly as “We -as the US- will do what is needed for Iraqi people to get what they deserve as better life standards.” This statement could be interpreted in two different ways that are very far away in meaning from each other. It could either be viewed optimistically as US really cares about the future of Iraqi people and want to do something good for them. Or a pessimistic approach could be such that: US sees itself as the judge of the world and decide what is good or bad for everyone. The second approach is not the majority believes its right but this is still a failure of interpretation of superpower, travelling overseas to bomb.

Another conflict in this issue is if US is so willing to save lives, why did’t use its forces fully as did in Gulf War, Vietnam etc. in the Serbia vs Bosnia war. This leads us to think that US uses its forces only if it gains a profit at the end. In Gulf war it was the oil reserves in Kuwait. In Vietnam -slightly beyond economics- it was to keep alive a capitalist regime in southeast Asia where most strict communist regimes were practiced nearby in USSR and in China. This attitude of US creates an image of inconsistancy and mistrust but cannot be blamed for its attitude since it is putting its own army and soliders and even citizens at risk.

Many US citizens reject, each time the US attemps to join a war or plans an attack to another country. They believe sending soliders and military forces overseas – to countries which has no obvious relationship with the US – is not right and even ridiculous. They reject to risk solider’s lives for such a country they merely know. As well their economy is affected also.

Sending troops to overseas may not always result as winning. In Vietnam, for example, US lost despite the factors that its army was very well organized and used more developed technological weapons than the guerillas. The US army lost because they didn’t know the guerilla fight and they lacked determination. Fighting not for their own land but for others’ have led soliders lack determination to win. Therefore the US citizens are right when they oppose such attacks.

Finally US is accepted as the superpower of the world today. Unification of Europe or developing technology in the East are still way behind the US. In fact a superpower must be consistant or it may collapse more easily or caught up by the other competitors. Therefore I believe, the US needs to keep its troops in its own territory unless threatened or called by UN for action where other members are equally cooporated.