Obama 's Inaugural Address At West Point

In the 21st century, America faces various threats and challenges to its authority as a growing world power. These threats and challenges help define America’s role as a growing world power in the 21st century. As a large nation, America faces a plethora of issues and continues to compete against other world powers. America today is plagued with various economic, social, political, and military problems, with little or no simple or practical solutions available.

At this point in time, the main actors in the international system are nation-states seeking an agenda of their own based on personal gain and national interest. Significantly, the most important actor is the United States, a liberal international economy, appointed its power after the interwar period becoming the dominant economy and in turn attained the position of hegemonic stability in the international system. The reason why the United States is dominating is imbedded in their intrinsic desire to continuously strive for their own national interest both political and economic. Further, there are other nature of actors that are not just nation-states, including non-states or transnational,

How other countries view America’s position in the world varies not only based on America’s actions within the international arena, or foreign policy, but also how Americans view the actions of their leaders and policy makers. For both internal and external views, America’s “standing” revolves around two primary elements – how well the US government does what it says it is going to do and how well it stands up to threats against it. While these are not the only elements considered, America’s credibility and pride are viewed as key to how well it will respond to interactions both within and outside its borders. A country’s world view, or standing, can vary over time and be impacted by a number of things such as where a country is located,

Language plays a crucial role in the development of power. Presidents in the United States use rhetorical devices to emphasize a specific point and to make it clear to the audience. President Thomas Jefferson is a democratic republican and he won the election of 1800; there he presented his inauguration speech, this speech had significance because it was first time in the history when the power shifted from one party to the other. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as an American minister and played an active role in the civil rights movement. To further increase his liability in the civil rights movement, he presented “I have a dream” speech that improved his position in the movement by mentioning equality rights that all men deserve. John F. Kennedy delivered his speech during his inauguration tried to develop relations with Soviet Union and end Cold War. All the speeches delivered by most known personalities used rhetorical devices such as allusion and repetition to make their message memorable in the hearts of the citizens of America.

In the Essential American documents and Speeches, volume one and two, there are many great speeches given by some of America’s greatest people. There are many great speeches, JFK with his “Inaugural Address” and “Cuban Missile Crisis speech”, Benjamin Franklin and his “On the Faults of the Constitution speech”, plus many others. A few of these speeches will be talked about, and the basics of each speech will be covered. Details and important areas will be covered and hopefully most questions will be covered.

America may be a relatively young nation, turning 240 years old this year, but in its short existence, it has had a powerful influence over world affairs, for better or worse. George Washington once said, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” However, since his presidency, the United States’ position in the world has steered from a steely isolationist stance to one open and hungry for involvement in the matters of other countries. America craved land and power to bolster itself and utilized foreign policy to do so, shifting towards an imperialist position. However, this change in foreign policy resulted

Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, born one hundred fifty two years apart, are two of the most significant individuals of their time. Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His father, Tom, worked as a carpenter while his mother, Nancy, stayed home with Abraham and their two other children, Sarah and Thomas. The family later moved to Indiana where the land was fertile and there were people who encouraged the antislavery movement. Lincoln’s father was against slavery and this value would continue with Lincoln throughout his presidency. Before entering into politics, he attempted various career choices in New Salem. One of these actually stuck with him and in 1832, he ran for Illinois Legislature but was defeated. This did not stop him, though, and two years later he ran again. This time he was elected into the Whig party and it acted as the beginning of Lincoln’s political career but it was not until 1860 when he decided to run for presidency. In 1861 he became the sixteenth president of the United States.

Many Americans seem to be anxious about how the world perceives them, and are disturbed by what seems to be its declining image and position in many countries. Some wonder if the end is near for U.S. dominance or influence. The following are some quotations from recently published materials that are worth considering.

The 20th century brought with it a plethora of technological advancements that acted as a catalyst for an important and lasting shift in the United State’s perception of its role in the world. Technological advancement in travel and communication changed the American people’s views of the world, therefore changing the direction of American foreign policy. This shift in foreign policy would eventually lead the United States into the grips of two horrific wars on the European continent. However, these wars would provide the necessary environment for the country to establish itself as the leader of the international system – a title it would desperately need tin order to attempt to create a new, less conflict-ridden global order. Though World

Make America great again! In 2016, the United States had a presidential election. November 8th, 2016 was a very significant day for all Americans. After being president for two terms, Obama was handing over his role as president to either Donald J. Hillary Clinton. Thankfully, Donald John Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

“America was conducting business as usual, but others were joining the game.” (Zakaria, 221). All this time we thought we were on top, we were actually slowly becoming less and less of leader and more a bystander as the rest of the world is slowly rising around us. Zakaria shows in that quote that as America has been continuing business like always, and because of this we have failed to realize our standing with the world around us. In the book The Post-American World, Zakaria shows us the challenges that America faces today. I believe the United States is most affected by our ignorance, competition, and worldly participation.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was the unquestioned hegemon of the western world acting in a unipolar world. However, recently the United States has fallen into a series of deprival causing its reputation to fall as a state. Despite this, under the Bush Doctrine, the United States currently has a preemptive hegemonic imperative policy. Under this policy, the United States takes into account that the world is a perilous environment in need of a leader to guide and to control the various rebel states unipolarly. Under this policy though, the United States acts alone with no assistance from other states or institutions. Global intuitions that would assist under other types of policies are flagrantly disregarded in this policy in spite of its emphasis on the international level. As well as not participating in international institutions, this policy states that the United States should act entirely in its own wisdom. The UN (the United Nations), GATT (General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade), along with other institutions advice is not heeded within this self-made policy. Though the United States currently acknowledges these global organizations, it no longer takes them into account with severity. Instead of acting under the international system, the United States currently acts through its military, and large economy to instill fear within the various actors in the intercontinental system. According to this philosophy the

According to Nye (2004), America has huge resources that can provide soft power specially if considering its economic capacity which contributes to its reputation wealth and attractiveness. Nye (2004) states that America's openness to all races and religious of immigrants, its exports of films and television programmes, its education system, its rule of law among other things have contributed to the rise of the global statue of the United States. However as Nye (2004) argues, despite all the resources it has, America has seen its attractiveness declined in recent years. This is happening because of the political decisions they have made to invade other countries in order to follow their self interest and as a result their foreign policy has

The Next Decade, a novel by George Friedman, talks about the predictions of countries in the upcoming decade and how the United States should react to the various challenges. The novel’s first major claim is that the United States is actually an empire, similar to how Rome and Great Brian were. However, unlike the previous empires, the United States refuses to acknowledge its status as an empire. “What makes the United States an empire is the number of countries it affects, the intensity of the impact, and the number of people in those countries affected.” The implication of this quote is that the US has gotten to be so large, if the US decided to draw out of global affairs, the impact would be detrimental. Instead of escaping its duty to the world, Friedman claims that the United States must acknowledge its status as an empire and function as such in order to maneuver the next decade. This claim is a wise claim made by Friedman, but it his only claim of worth in the novel. In The Next Decade, Friedman fails to make his thesis credible because he doesn’t his sources, provide logical arguments on his predications of the future, or examine alternative possibilities.

The current international system is fragmenting rapidly since the end of the Cold War. A lot of regions in the world are still trying to find the balance of power in the international system, which the U.S. often intervenes to provide its brand of “global leadership”. Some countries like China are emerging as a global power since a few years ago. Subsequently, this will lead to a major threat to the U.S. status as a global major power. The rise of power by China in the international scene signifies the unpredictable nature of the international system. I would argue that the three most critical challenges for the U.S. arising out of this environment are the future world globalization that will cause a conflict between its domestic and foreign policy, the rise of China as a global power, and the ever globalization of terrorism. I believe that the U.S. should be pragmatic in handling its foreign policy and handle each situation independently without a fix doctrine in order to minimize the unintended consequences produced by the globalization of the world.