The United States since the end of World War Two (WWII) has been in a position to maintain its leadership throughout its allies. The leadership, as well as the homogeny of U.S is based on the mutual consent by its allies who include Western Europe, Germany, and Japan. The American homogeny has greatly brought about peace and harmony among the global community. Despite America having overwhelming power abilities in every spectrum of military, and economy it does not act unilaterally (Aguilar, 2018). A close survey of the United States indicates that multilateralism has been and will always be the primary facet of this foreign policy. The period that was examined was between George Walker Bush second term and the World War Two.
The derived legitimacy from United States hegemony has enabled the nation to remain a super power in what it could be a multipolar world. The regime in which America assisted establishes towards the end of WWII is what secures and ensures its primacy. The institutions such as United Nations and World Bank are the regimes that are favorable for the allies to relinquish harmful competition and ensure peace and harmony. America has build institutions that give its allies security, and this acts as the basis for ensuring peace and harmony among the global communities.
After World War Two, America empowered the moderate and democratic military within Japan and Germany as well as their democratic institutions. To make sure that these forces endured and both the nations did not go back to the communism, and dictatorship U.S aid was spent to rebuild their economies, financial regimes were developed to reduce the impacts of the free trade and the conflict resulting from zero-sum economic competition. From the end of World War Two Germany and Japan have been steadfast allies that support United States hegemonic stability and they have never challenged it (Brilmayer, 2010).
The enlargement of NATO is a representation of bringing nations into longest military alliance historically. NATO is attributed to bringing the western parts of Europe into the most peaceful region in the world. The aim is that the nations will give up the need to go to war with each other if they are NATO members, and solve the conflict through peaceful negotiation. NATO has enhanced peace and harmony among the nations who are its members. Unilateralism inversion of Ethiopia to Somalia failed. The main impact is Ethiopia seeking IGAD, Africa Union (AU), and UN facilitation in resolving the situation in Somalia. The United States hegemony and its persistence rely on complex interdependence and liberal institutionalism. As the U.S declines economically, Germany and Japan will take on more active part in perpetuating and reinforcing American hegemony (liberal intuitionalism and complex interdependence). By examining their current foreign policy behavior and their past, it is clear that Japan and Germany will be more interested in ensuring U.S. hegemony continuance. The balance of threat indicates that nations need to act to minimize the threats to other states. U.S hegemony will reduce but if the country reassures states of its caring aim that will reduce the process considerably. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S security policy has confirmed, although not entirely, to the prediction of the balance-of-threat theory.
The United States officials have sought to preserve a dominant position of America through efforts to convince the status quo of both Germany and Japan to remain in power partially and to integrate the undecided nations of China and Russia into the United States centered international order. It has been emphasized by the U.S official’s decision making and multilateral coalition processes, specifically in cases of military intervention. It is via multilateralism that America is in a position to exert its domination position more convincingly on the world. The post-Cold War United States behavior has been very consistent with forecasting of the balance-threat theory. However, in the economic strategy American strategy has been more consistent with predicting of the balance of power theory. The United States and its allies during the Cold War were economic nationalists. After the cold war, the United States with the hegemony states has enabled an open market economy policy for all the nations. This has ensured achievement of the peace and harmony in the global community. Although the world is tired of the American hegemony, it receives a lot of benefits from it among they peace and unity among the nations worldwide (Calleo, 2002). The commingled belief of reliance on and bitterness towards the international dominance of America currently is neither new nor strange. The power resentments, even when it is in the hand of individual’s friends, as usual, certainly, human-emotion that is timeless-no less so than the power arrogance. With their short memory perhaps Americans could believe that the instant dislike is an exclusive product of American supremacy expansion in the post-Cold War U.S regime.
During the conflict with the Soviet Union which is presently recalled in America as the period of harmony among the western associates, not only British but also French leaders chafed under the rule of from time to time overbearing the United States. The plans of the European unity fostered by Jean Monnet the French economic planner and French overseas minister Robert Schuman during 1950targeted not only to empower Western Europe as a result of the Russian threat but also, although this was less considered, to empower it in comparison with vital but overwhelming American alley.
The world with the absence of American hegemony will be less peaceful, less democratic, and less prosperous. This is proven via the contrast of post-war Soviet sphere of impact with that of Atlantic alliance particularly rule of law, democracy, and rights being protected constitutionally. There was the persistence of uniqueness. The hegemony style of America was a reflection of its democratic form of governance just like Soviet hegemony indicated the Stalin's technique to governance during the Cold War (Nuechterlein, 2007). The democratic habits resulted in compromise and mutual accommodation of norms in the United States. This technique of the global affairs was not an instance of selfless behavior. The Americans had an had an inborn sense which is based on their own experience of developing in an exclusively open system of free capitalism, which their authority and influence would be boosted by allowing a subordinate partners an extensive measure of outside as well as internal freedom of maneuver. Americans frequently differed to the wishes of the partners throughout the early Cold War that some history experts have seen Europe. Specifically the British have managed them.
Due to a particular liberal social system developed by American hegemony domestically, the world came to realize after World War Two that America was quite benign and generous. Even after the end of the Cold War a large part of the American spending I to protect NATO as well as other allies such as Kuwait. More than ninety percent which aided in liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation was the military from America. The United States has emerged as a significant power ever since, and the recognition of interest of the rest of the nations with its own has been the most outstanding feature of American defense and foreign rule (Oatley, 2015). Americans appear to have internalized and made subsequent nature a certainty held only from World War Two. These include the fact that American success cannot happen in the absence of the global prosperity and also that their well-being is based fundamentally on the well-being of the other nations. Furthermore, Americans believe that their national security is not possible without a large measure of the global security and the violence anywhere threatens the danger of hostility anywhere (Tozzo, 2018).
Despite the fact that there are a lot of worries about American hegemony, but the fact is that there is no replacement for it. Going back to a polar international system will most probably be more chaotic and less stable, that is pre World War Two, that’s the reason with all gripping concerning American hegemony being domineering deep down the world opts for the stable form of leadership threat has been provided by America after the end of WWII. In the unipolar illusion, the United States will try to keep hegemony by not allowing any global or regional problems. What is more crucial is for Germany and Japan to remain to be subordinate allies and not to try to challenge the status quo. This approach is not openly aggressive since the use of the defensive techniques to suppress the development of fresh, great powers is not complemented. In other words, it is not a technique of heavy-handed American supremacy. Instead, the strategy of predominance tries to keep unipolarity through the persuasion of Germany and Japan. This is because the two nations are better off remaining in the security led by America and its economic system they would be if they turn to great powers (Podliska, 2010). The predominance strategy assumes that instead of balancing against America, the other nations will bandwagon with it. Significant benefits are believed to flow from the continuation of unipolarity. It is argued that in the unipolar system America could avoid unforeseen geopolitical impacts that would result from the emergence of the new powers. Unipoloarty would reduce the dangers of both instability and strategic uncertainty. In effect, the strategy of predominance targets at the preservation of the Cold War status quo despite the fact that the war is over.
Therefore the existence, as well as the maintenance of the free-trade era in the middle of the 19th century and the 20th century mid, can be directly linked to the leadership and the burden-bearing offered by the dominant members, that is, the United States and Britain. This argument about the good public provision by the hegemonic actor is crucial to the hegemonic stability theory. The presence of a dominant actor will result in the provision of the international trade that is stable (more widely, hegemony gives leadership to an occurrence of the international regime in different issue-areas). Although dominant leader gains from this scenario (that is, it turns a net profit from giving goods), the smaller nations benefits even more. They share fully in the benefits, yet they bear none of the cost of provision and thus fostering the unity and harmony among all the nations that are involved (Schake, 2017).
As a result of the differential growth rates, the nations that are losing their power have to content with the nations or states that obtain power. This will eliminate the conflict between the nation's concern and in the process peace, and harmony is fostered globally. There is usually possible great power emerging there and attempting to limit the growth may not be possible. The primary significance of differential power growth among nations is that it alters the price of changing the international system and thus the initiative of varying the international systems. Rising power also results in increasing aspiration (Scott-Smith, 2002). The rising powers try to boost their security by rising their control and abilities over their surrounding environment. It also leads to increased global commitments and interests. In most cases for the great powers, military as well as the geopolitical capabilities are the results of the process that starts with the economic expansion (Spiro, 2009). Development in the economy results in the new overseas obligations (access to raw materials, markets, bases, and alliances) which must then be defined. Competition leads to a tendency towards sameness of those who are competing. This is towards imitating the successful characteristics of their rivals. Such features include not only in military weaponry, tactics, technology, and strategies but also organizational and administrative techniques. If other countries excel coming up with instruments of competition, a nation needs to emulate or experience the consequence of remaining behind.
References
Aguilar, F. V. (2018). Clash of spirits: The history of power and sugar planter hegemony on a Visayan island. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Brilmayer, L. (2010). American hegemony: A political morality in a one-superpower world. Yale University Press.
Calleo, D. P. (2002). Beyond american hegemony: The future of the western alliance. Place of publication not identified: Perseus Books.
Nuechterlein, D. E. (2007). Defiant superpower: The new American hegemony. Washington, DC: Potomac Books.
Oatley, T. H. (2015). A political economy of American hegemony: Buildups, booms, and busts. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Podliska, B. F. (2010). Acting alone: A scientific study of American hegemony and unilateral use-of-force decision making. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Schake, K. N. (2017). Safe passage: The transition from British to American hegemony.
Scott-Smith, G. (2002). The politics of apolitical culture: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA and post-war American hegemony. London: Routledge.
Spiro, D. E. (2009). The hidden hand of American hegemony: Petrodollar recycling and international markets. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Tozzo, B. (2018). American Hegemony after the Great Recession. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-57539-5
