United States
See also: American CenturySome political scientists believe that when one superpower collapses, another must take its place so as to maintain a balance of power. During the Cold War, the U.S. fought many proxy wars against USSR-supported communist regimes, but after the Soviet collapse found itself as the world's sole superpower, even sometimes termed hyperpower. Members of the American right, such as some neoconservatives self-styled as the Blue Team, increasingly viewed the People's Republic of China as a military threat, despite strong economic ties. Blue Team members favor containment and confrontation with the PRC, and strong US support of Taiwan. While in the past international power might have been achieved through military might, it has increasingly shifted to relations through trade. The Chinese Government views the United States as "a superpower in decline."
Read more about this topic: Superpower Collapse
Famous quotes related to united states:
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the larger view the major forces of the depression now lie outside of the United States, and our recuperation has been retarded by the unwarranted degree of fear and apprehension created by these outside forces.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“The rising power of the United States in world affairs ... requires, not a more compliant press, but a relentless barrage of facts and criticism.... Our job in this age, as I see it, is not to serve as cheerleaders for our side in the present world struggle but to help the largest possible number of people to see the realities of the changing and convulsive world in which American policy must operate.”
—James Reston (b. 1909)
“I do not know that the United States can save civilization but at least by our example we can make people think and give them the opportunity of saving themselves. The trouble is that the people of Germany, Italy and Japan are not given the privilege of thinking.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.... The United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)