The United States of America has been a prime world-leading country since 1945, and the US has maintained its privileged position through military capability, political leadership, and economic influence. It has then established itself as a global primacy. The U. S. primacy brought crucial benefits, which other nation states are unlikely to attack or threaten the U. S. and American interests directly. In addition, the primacy has significantly contributed to a peaceful international environment.
It gave the U. S. the ability to cooperate with other states in order to promote human rights and slow the spread of weapons worldwide (Mingst and Arreguin-Toft, 2011). During the Cold War, there were two superpowers –the United States and the Soviet Union–, which formed a bipolar world order, even though the U. S. was only a military and economic superpower since then. At the end of the Cold War, the United States has concreted its status and the world has become a US unipolar order (Best et al, 2008).
Although the emergence of the new great powers like China and the changes in the international fields are significant, the world order is not going to be changed and the U. S. keeps the world order as a US global unipolarity (Layne et al, 2012). Therefore, this essay will demonstrate how the United States of America maintains its primacy, despite the fact that there are several concerning factors, in terms of external and domestic, and finally I draw a personal conclusion to provide a judgement. First, the emergence of new great powers like China has less effect on the collapse of unipolarity of the United States.
The U. S. has maintained its power and influenced in the world for a long history, and it established the fact that the U. S. is the most effective and powerful country in the world in every field of the international affairs such as politics, economy, and military. Its military expenditure is far greater than that of other states and is approximately 50% of the world military expenditure, even though the new emerging great powers like China try to achieve the U. S. military capability and have been investing their military (Lieber, 2011).
Moreover, one of the rising powers, China, has drastically grown its economy and has expanded its production nationwide. Its products are, for example, available in any parts of the world, and people can buy them so easily. As a result, China acts as a leader of the Third World, insofar as other new great powers such as BRICs countries have been also developing gradually (Best et al, 2008). However, some international relations analysts argue that the emergence of the new great powers is not so fast enough to overcome the US primacy and cannot achieve the U. S. economically at this stage.
The fact that China has been developing its economy so fast is not because China has gained a power to defeat the US economy, but because China has a huge population. Because of the huge population in China, its economy gets bigger. Furthermore, China is not ready yet to defeat the US technological and military capacity (Layne et al, 2012). According to the famous economists such as Eichengreen, Park, and Shin (2011), a country’s rapid economic growth does not last forever, and it gradually slows down.
This applies to the situation of China that while China is trying to spread its influence in economy, China might not be able to move further as it has now an aging population. It has a large dependency on old age, and thus it is difficult to maintain their rapid growth in economy. Therefore, the U. S. maintains its primacy while other nation states are developing economically. Second, even though the international institutions has been evolved in the sphere of the world politics, the United States still has power to influence other states and maintains its primacy.
One of the international relations theories, realism, has argued that a key actor in the international politics is the state. A country is a sovereign state, and no authority can intervene the sovereignty of a country. Sovereign states pursue their own interests and the leaders of the states believe that states exist in an anarchic system, defined by the absence of overarching authority, for example, a world government (Mingst and Arreguin-Toft, 2011). However, the evolution of the international organisations has changed the concept of the non-interference of the sovereign states.
The international systems and institutions, such as the International Court, the United Nations (UN), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), can intervene the sovereign states as these institutions stand over the well-defined territory of the sovereign states (Best et al, 2008). For instance, though International institutions have a higher authority over the states, the U. S. has paid and run the NATO and has its seat in the UN Security Council.
It thus has an ability to persuade or influence other nations as a global primacy (Layne et al, 2012). The U. S. has power to affect the rest of the world through international organisations. Even if the U. S. is not involved in any of the international organisations, the other states might seek advice from the U. S. because of the great reputation, which the U. S. has built up through a long history. Hence, the U. S. preserves its primacy even at the time of the evolution of the international systems.
Third, globalisation has an impact upon the US unipolarity but the United States is still a global primacy. Since globalisation has occurred, interdependence and interconnectedness of the nation states has drastically increased. Foreign armies, its products, foreign influence over international laws, and other factors could threaten a nation’s security easily (Nye Jr, 2011). The United States is required to cooperate with other states in order to create a peaceful international environment, although the U. S. has power possibly to give an order to the world as a global military hegemon.
In addition, since the world is now more globalised, the United States is willing to cooperate with other states in order to build up a nice and tight relation with them. When the alliance country needs some help, the U. S. is able to help other countries through military and humanitarian intervention (Nye, 2011). For example, there are US military bases in the world and one of them is in Japan. As it has the US military base, Japan is less likely to be attacked by its neighbouring countries such as China and Korea.
Even if Japan is in danger of being threatened by them, the U. S. could help Japan not being suffered from the attack, and it could use its force to fight against the countries. Some Japanese scholars are, however, against having the US base in Japan because US armed forces cause several problems such as theft, although having US military base increases Japan’s national security and other states refrain from threatening Japan. Besides, the U. S. is the most dominant country in every field of international politics, and it supports to integrate and cooperate with other countries (Best et al, 2008).
Moreover, the globalised world has been getting much smaller due to the development of technology and communication tools (Layne et al, 2012). The leaders of countries can discuss issues between them through communication tools such as telephone, without actually meeting each other. People of a country can also influence other countries through social networking system and magazines (Best et al, 2008). For instance, American news such as CNN and ABC has a huge impact on the global scale and which makes the U. S. easier influence the world.
Therefore, the U. S. eeps its primacy even in the globalised world. However, some theorists argue that the US is not primacy but in decline because the unipolarity of the United States is overestimated in the multipolar world order. China has been developing its economy and its impact is huge as China is considered as a leader of the Third World (Edelman, 2010). Other BRICs countries and non-state actors have also threatened the US primacy in terms of economy, attack, and invasion. Nonetheless, the U. S. primacy is stable and no other nation states can overcome this situation.
It is because the U. S. has a great history as a world-leading country, and developed its connection with other nations. Unlike China, the U. S. has a lot of supporters and followers and thus it can enjoy its management function on a global scale (Mingst and Arruguin-Toft, 2011). The United States has concreted its leading role in the world through its history and it is considerably impossible that the U. S. could be replaced by any other countries. Although there is no possibility to measure the certain future world order, the U. S. ould have kept its predominance in the world for many decades in the future because of the reasons stated above (Layne et al, 2012).
If the U. S. would be in decline and the rising new great powers would gain more power, they cannot lead the world because there are other powerful nation states such as the United Kingdom, France, and so on. Therefore, world order remains as a U. S. primacy and will keep this situation for decades. In conclusion, the United States maintains its primacy today. The U. S. has been leading other states since 1945 as a unipolar of the world.
Some might argue that China is now getting the role of the U. S. and leads the other nation states as its economic development has put a huge impact on the global scale. Nevertheless, no other nation states can overthrow the world reputation of the U. S. because the U. S. is playing a role of leading others now and future. Even though China has rapidly grown in terms of its economy, it is not a reason that the U. S. would be in decline. If other nation states lose the U. S. as a leader, the world might collapse and cannot fix it easily.