America's New Role: Bully

Up until now, America had played a familiar role: Con-artist. They were able to sway nations to agree to various things that clearly had American interests. Of course, no one realized it at the time, but reflecting on the past one can clearly see that America was always looking out for "numero uno." At least America had good intentions along with their advancement in the world. The League of Nations would have been beautiful for all, especially America. This was a nice concept, for it saw America has the unifying bond between all countries. Then came the Cold War. The end of this war signaled the shift from this role to the next. America had superior military ability, which was made evident with their success against the Soviet Union. This paved the way for America to carry out their plan of "world domination"-by this I mean they wanted all countries to follow their ideals of freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Andrew Bacevich brilliantly phrases it,"In the century just begun, any nation refusing to adhere to that model-embodied by the United States-was doomed to fail." Of course, "warrior president" George W. Bush found it America's job to assure the world that others were carrying out this mission-the mission to model themselves after the US. Robert Kagan made a very interesting remark, "America did not change on September 11. It only became more itself." This is true. This did not bring the US to cry for peace in the streets, but rather it brought the US to send soldiers in various over-seas places to fight we're not sure who and we're not sure for what. America is now a police force. They patrol the oceans with a navy far greater-in size, stature, etc-than the Royal Navy. Our military grows by the year. With so many problems within our own country, how can America possibly afford to do this? I understand the importance of a standing army, but already being such a great power, why can't America scale down? Not even scale down, just remain at the position they are in now. We do not have to be a defensive military or an offensive one. We can have a balanced medium. Over 100 countries occupy American military forces. This is an absurd number. If the military can scale down and America can resist the temptation to dominate the globe, our domestic relationships will improve-by that I mean citizen relationships with the president, the government, and even other citizens.