US Hegemony In World Politics - Political Science-Part A Unit-III
1. When did the US Hegemony begin and why?
A.
US Hegemony began in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The
collapse of the Soviet Union left the world with only a single power,
the United States of America.The US Hegemony was established to show the
overwhelming superiority of its military capabilities that can reach
any point on the planet accurately.
The US Hegemony also emerged
in order to shape the “world economy” because, an open world economy
requires a hegemony or dominant power to support its creation and
existence.
2 What does the term “Hegemony” imply?
A. The word
Hegemony implies the leadership or predominance of one state. The roots
of the world hegemony lie in classical Greece.
3. Examine the process by which US Hegemony got established?
Ans:-
1.The US Hegemony led to the emergence or beginning of the new world
order. The process for the establishment of US hegemony started in
August 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was rapidly occupied and
subsequently annexing it.
2.The United Nations tried it’s all
diplomatic avenues to convince Iraq to quit its aggression but failed.
Henceforth, UN mandated the liberation of Kuwait by force.
3.For the UN,this was a dramatic decision after years of deadlock during the Cold war.
4.The US President George H.W. Bush hailed the emergence of a New World Order.
5.
A Massive coalition force of 660,000 troops from 34 countries fought
against Iraq and defeated it. This war is popularly known as the “First
Gulf War”. However, the UN Operation was called “Operation Desert
Storm.’’ Was overwhelming American.
6.An American general, Norman Schwarzkopf,led the UN coalition & nearly 75% of the Coalition forces were from the US.
First
Gulf war as Computer War- The highly publicized use of so-called “Smart
bombs” by the US Led some observers to call this a “computer war”
First
Gulf War as Video Game War-Widespread TV coverage also made it a “Video
Game War”,with viewers round the world watching the destruction of
Iraqi forces live on TV in the comfort of their living rooms.
4. What are Global Public Goods? Give examples?
Ans:-
1) Goods that can be consumed by people without reducing the amount of
available goods for others are known as the global public goods.
2)
Fresh air, roads, sea lanes of communication (SLOCS) are the examples of
“Global Public Goods”. It is the way towards the sustainable
development.
5. Discuss Briefly the US Policy During Clinton Years?
Ans:-
Despite winning the First Gulf War, George H.W. Bush lost the US
presidential elections of 1992 to William Jefferson (Bill) Clinton of
the Democratic Party. Who had campaigned on domestic rather than foreign
policy issues.
* Bill Clinton won again in 1996 and thus remained
the president of the US for eight years. During the Clinton years, it
often seemed that the US had withdrawn into itsinternal affairs and was
not fully engaged in world politics.
* In foreign policy, the Clinton
government tended to focus on ‘soft issues’ like democracy promotion,
climate change and world trade rather than on the ‘hard politics’ of
military power and security..
Military Actions During Clinton Years
OPERATION INFINITY REACH 1998
•
A significant US military action during the Clinton years was in
response to the bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and
Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.
• These bombing were attributed to Al-Qaeda, a terrorist organisation strongly influenced by extremist Islamist ideas.
•
Within a few days of this bombing, President Clinton ordered Operation
Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile strikes on Al-Qaeda terrorist
targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.
• The US did not bother about
the UN sanction or provisions of international law in this regard. It
was alleged that some of the targets were civilian facilities
unconnected to terrorism.
NATO BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA IN 1999 BY US LED FORCES
• The US on occasion did show its readiness to use military power even during the Clinton years.
•
The most important episode occurred in 1999, in response to Yugoslavian
actions against the predominantly Albanian population in the province
of Kosovo.
• The air forces of the NATO countries, led by the US,
bombarded targets around Yugoslavia for well over two months, forcing
the downfall of the government of Slobodan Milosevic and the stationing
of a NATO force in Kosovo.
6. Write a note on the 9/11 series of attacks on US?
Ans:-
The 9/11 attacks were one of the major human disasters. On 11 September
2001, nineteen hijackers hailing from a number of Arab countries took
control of four American commercial aircraft shortly after takeoff and
flew them into the important buildings in the US.
• Two airlines crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.
•
The third aircraft crashed into the pentagon building in
Arlington,Virginiawhere the US Defense Department is headquartered.
• The fourth aircraft, presumably bound for the capital building of the US Congress came down in a field in Pennsylvania.
The 9/11 attacks killed nearly three thousand people. The shocking part
for the Americans was that they have been compared to the British
burning of Washington DC in 1814 and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941. However in terms of loss of life, 9/11 was the most severe
attack on the US soil since the founding of the country in 1776.
7. What are Global Public Goods? Give examples?
Ans:-
1) Goods that can be consumed by people without reducing the amount of
available goods for others are known as the global public goods.
2)
Fresh air, roads, sea lanes of communication (SLOCS) are the examples of
“Global Public Goods”. It is the way towards the sustainable
development.
8. What was the US response to 9/11?
Ans:- The US
response to 9/11 was swift and ferocious. The then President Bush had a
much harder view of the US interests and of the means of which to
advance them.
• As a part of its Global War on terror, the US
launched Operation Enduring Freedom against all those suspected to be
behind this attack, mainly Al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan.
• The US forces made arrests all over the world,
often without the knowledge of the government of the persons being
arrested, transported these persons across countries and detained them
in secret prisons.
• Some of the prisoners were kept at Guantanamo
Bay, a US naval base in Cuba where prisoners did not enjoy the
protection of International Law.
9. What was “Operation Iraqi Freedom”? List out its outcome?
Ans:-
Operation Iraqi Freedom was the code name given by US when it launched
invasion of Iraq on 19th March, 2003. More than forty countries joined
in the US-led coalition of the willing after the UN refused to give its
Mandate to the Invasion.
Aims and Objectives
• The critical purpose of the invasion was to prevent Iraq from developing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
•
But this was an eyewash, because no evidence of WMD has been unearthed
in Iraq, so it is being speculated all over the world that the invasion
was motivated by other objectives such as, controlling Iraqi oil fields
and installing a regime friendly to the US.
Outcome
The outcome of the Iraqi invasion was very complex and contradictory.
• Although the government of Saddam Hussein fell swiftly, the US has not been able to pacify Iraq.
• A full-fledged insurgency against US occupation was ignited Iraq.
• Iraqi casualties are very much higher than the US. The US has lost over 3,000 military personnel in the war.
• It is conservatively estimated that 50,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the US led invasion.
On
the whole it is now widely recognized that the US invasion of Iraq was,
in some crucial respects both a military and political failure.
10. Discuss US Hegemony as Hard Or Military Power ?
Ans:-The
bedrock of contemporary US power lies in the overwhelming superiority
of its military power American military dominance today is both absolute
and relative.
* In absolute terms, the US today has military
capabilities that can reach any point on the planet accurately, lethally
and in real time.
* But even more awesome than the absolute capabilities of the US is the fact that no other power today can remotely match them.
*
The US today spends more on its next 12 powers combined. Furthermore, a
large chunk of the Pentagon’s budget goes into military research and
development or, in other words, technology.
* Thus, the military
dominance of the US is not just based on higher military spending, but
on a qualitative gap, a technological chasm that no other power can at
present conceivably span.
* The US invasion of Iraq reveals several
American vulnerabilities. The US has not been able to force the Iraqi
people into submitting to the occupation forces of the US-led coalition.
*
Imperial powers through history have used military forces to accomplish
only four tasks: to conquer, deter, punish and police. As the Iraq
invasion shows, the American capacity to conque3r is formidable.
Similarly, the US capability to deter and to punish is self-evident.
Where US military capability has thus far been shown to have serious
weaknesses is in policing an occupied territory.
11. Explain “Hegemony as Structural Power”?
Ans:-
The second notion of hegemony is very different from the first. It
emerges from a particular understanding of the world economy. The basic
idea is that an open world economy requires hegemony or dominant power
to support its creation and existence.
* The hegemony must possess
both ability and the desire to establish certain norms for order and
must sustain the global structure.
* Hegemony in this second sense is
reflected in the role played by the US in providing global public
goods. By public goods we mean those goods that can be consumed by one
person without reducing the amount of the good available for someone
else. Fresh air and roads are examples of public goods. In the context
of the world economy best examples of a global public good are sea-lanes
of communication (SLOCs), the sea routes commonly used by merchant
ships.
* Another example of a global public good is the Internet.
Although it is seen today as making the virtual world of the World Wide
Web possible, we should not forget that the Internet is the direct
outcome of a US military research project that began in 1950.
* The
US is present in all parts of the world, in all sectors of the world
economy and in all areas of technology. The US share of the world
economy remains an enormous 28 per cent.
* The US also accounts for
15 per cent of world trade, if intra-European Union trade is included in
world trade data. There is not a single sector of the world economy in
which an American firm does not feature in the “top three” list.
* A
classic example of the structural power of the US is the academic degree
called the Master’s in Business Administration (MBA). The idea that
business is a profession that depends upon skills that can be taught in a
university is uniquely American. The first business school in the world
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, was established
in 1881. The first MBA courses were initiated around 1900. The first MBA
course outside the US was established only in 1950.
12. “Hegemony as Soft Power implies the capacity to manufacture consent”. Discuss.
Ans:-
The US hegemony is not only purely military or economic in nature of
status but it has its cultural dimension also which specifies the nature
of “Hegemony as soft power.”
• Here, this sense of Hegemony implies class ascendancy in the social, political and particularly ideological spheres.
•
Hegemony arises when the dominant class or country can win the consent
of dominated classes, by persuading the dominated classes to view the
world in a manner favourable to the ascendancy of the dominant class.
•
In the field of world politics, this notion of hegemony suggests that a
dominant power deploys not only military power but also ideological
resources to shape the behavior of competing and lesser powers.
•
Here, consent goes hand with and is often more effective than, coercion.
For example, the predominance of the US in the world today is based not
only on its military power and economic powers but also on its cultural
presence, like most of the dreams of individuals and societies across
the globe, are dreams churned out by practices prevailing in twentieth
century America.Thus, this third sense of hegemony as Soft power is
about the capacity to manufacture consent.
13. Examine India’s relationship with the US during and post Cold war phrase?
Ans:-
1) In post cold war era India and US are sharing very ‘harmonious
relations’- based on mutual cooperation and understanding. During the
cold war years India’s closest friendship was with the Soviet Union. But
after the collapse of the Soviet Union, India suddenly found itself in
an increasingly hostile international environment.
2) During
these years India introduced New Economic Policy to liberalize its
economy and integrate it with the global economy. The liberal economic
policy and India’s impressive economic growth rate in recent years have
made the country an attractive economic partner for a number of
countries including the US.
Technological dimension.
Role of Indo-American Diaspora.
These two factors are so interrelated that it gives the interdependency in Indo-US relations like:
• The US absorbs about 65 per cent of India’s total exports in the software sector.
• On the other side 35 per cent of the technical staff of Boeing is estimated to be of Indian origin.
• More than 300,000 Indians work in Silicon Valley.
• 15 per cent of all high-tech startups are by Indian-Americans.
14. What are the constraints on American hegemony today?
Ans:-
As history reveals every empire declines because of its weakness
inherent in itself, so the biggest constraints to America hegemony lie
within the heart of hegemony itself. Moreover, we can identify “three
constraints on America power”, which were actually not in operation in
the years following 9/11. Recently all these constraints are slowly
beginning to operate.
• Institutional Architecture: The very first
constraint lies in the institutional architecture of the American
state. A system of division of power between the three branches of
government places significant brakes upon the unrestrained and
immoderate exercise of America’s military power by the executive branch.
•
Open nature of American Society possesses constraint:The second
constraint on American hegemony is also domestic in nature and stems
from the open nature of American society. In spite of Mass Media’s
promotion or imposition of a particular perspective on domestic opinion
in the US, there is nevertheless a deep skepticism regarding the purpose
and methods of government in American political culture. And this
factor, in the long run is a huge constraint on US military, action
overseas i.e. towards the “Invasion policy of America”.
• NATO as a
constraint on American hegemony : The most important constraint on
American hegemony is possessed by NATO. It is the only organization in
the international system that could possibly moderate the exercise of
American Hegemony today. Actually the US has an enormous interest in
keeping the alliance of democracies that follow the market economics
alive and therefore it is possible that its allies in the NATO will be
able to moderate the exercise of US hegemony through their liberal
economic policy.
15. How can hegemony be overcome ?
Ans:-
Military Alliances: We must recognize that no single power is anywhere
near balancing the US militarily. Hence military alliances are necessary
to overcome the hegemony however, A military coalition against the US
is even less likely given the differences that exist among big countries
like China, India, and Russia that have the potential to challenge US
hegemony
* Bandwagon Strategy: It is strategically more prudent to take advantage of the opportunities that hegemony creates.
*
For instance, raising economic rates requires increased trade,
technology transfers, and investment, which are best acquired by working
with rather than against the hegemony.
* Thus, it is suggested that
instead of engaging in activities opposed to the hegemonic power, it may
be advisable to extract benefits by operating within the hegemonic
system. This is called ‘bandwagon’ strategy.
Hide strategy: This implies staying as far removed from the dominant power as possible.
•
There are many examples of this behavior. China, Russia, the European
Union-all of them, in different ways, are seeking to stay below the
radar, as it were, and not overly and unduly antagonize the US.
• However, this would not seem to be viable for the big, second-rank powers for very long.
•
While it may be an attractive, viable policy for small states, it is
hard to imagine mega-states like china, India, and Russia or huge
agglomerations such as the EU being able to hide for any substantial
length of time.
Post Graduate Teacher (Political Science)
H.N.Seminary Model HS School, Bagribari, Dhubri,Assam
Email : brahmaratan@gmail.com
Mobile : 7020477396
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