Superpower Collapse - United States

United States

See also: American Century

Some 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."

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Famous quotes related to united states:

    “An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
    —Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)

    “God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
    —Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)

    “Steal away and stay away.
    Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any.
    Join the United States and join the family
    But not much in between unless a college.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
    —Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)