The Spy Museum showed me that spy gadgets and tactics are not just for movies. It must be such an exhilarating feeling to infiltrate a place and sneak back with valuable intelligence. It was amusing to read a post saying that the stories of truly good spies cannot be described here because they were too sneaky to be caught holding information. The most memorable exhibit was the modern cyber spying. I did not know that hacking into the U.S. grid system and taking away electricity from the country was such a legitimate threat. It was scary to read theories on what could happen if the power went out for a vast region of the U.S. for a long time. Instead of taking shelter from bombings or being sent off to war, you could come in conflict with your next door neighbor because he stands between you and the food you need to survive.
I think realism is a pretty grim but accurate way of looking at the world. The “real” part of realism is true in the sense that human beings are naturally selfish. This translates to a global scale in that leaders push for legislation and treaties that favors their own countries. Selfishness is deemed by society to be a bad quality. However, realism forgets about human empathy. When a disaster strikes, many countries pour aid into the victim state, even though the well-being of that state does not immediately help out the donors.
I believe that the U.S. is a benevolent hegemon compared to previous empires. We do not necessarily have better morals, but through globalization it makes little sense to invade another country. If the U.S. wants to simply take over another state to acquire its resources, the world would likely stand up to the U.S. in the form of economic sanctions as punishment. I do not think U.S. hegemony will last very long. The world looks to be headed toward a multi-polar hegemony. China’s strong economic growth even in the face of a world in recession shows that it has the soft power it needs to eventually exert dominance similar to the U.S. As third-world countries continue to industrialize and gain power, the balance of power should shift more evenly among states.
"I believe that the U.S. is a benevolent hegemon compared to previous empires. We do not necessarily have better morals, but through globalization it makes little sense to invade another country." This is an interesting point. It grants that US power is somehow different from the power of previous hegemons but attributes that to a different global context rather than something intrinsic to how the US exercises its power. If it's true that globalization and economic interdependence serve as a check on contemporary potentially expansionist powers, do you think it's possible that the stability of a multipolar system could come about not from the decline of the US but from the rise of other states, empowered by the tides of globalization? That is, is US power an absolute phenomenon or does it only make sense to talk about it in relation to other states?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the US has put itself into a tight spot in terms of re-affirming its power in an increasingly globalized world. It's hard for the US to show that it is not a declining nation, since economic interdependence has risen rapidly since the 1970s, when the US is cited to begin declining. Because of this, the US has been weary, both from reluctance at home to potential economic problems abroad, to engage itself in any dominance-exerting exercises (the two wars abroad obviously being exceptions). I don't think, however, that the world would be so quick to impose economic sanctions on the US in the event of a clear display of merely showing force for the purpose of showing force, so long as the US is the world's biggest consumer. Economic interdependence works both ways. It's not viable for countries to bar trade with the US for their own financial reasons. I also echo Erin's questions (I think?). If the US is a different hegemon than previous empires, then why, in an age of globalization and the reasons I laid out above, would the US be seriously (and I mean like neck-and-neck) challenged any time soon?
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