Is the United States a declining economic and military power, or is it strengthening its global position in the 21st century? Are there other countries that might challenge it in the near future?

Running Head : DECLINING ECONOMIC AND MILITARY POWER

United States : Declining Economic and Military Power

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United States : A Declining Economic and Military Power

As the United States prepared to enter the twenty-first century , it could reflect upon the fact that the twentieth century was truly the American century , even with its declining economic hegemony and resulting lose of military hegemony . The U .S . entry into World War I tilted the balance against the triple alliance . It was the U .S . forces

that played the major part in the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II . It was the U .S . men and material that contained Soviet Communist expansion until it self-destructed . Even though its military power was unrivaled , the United States had to confront the re-emergence of traditional isolationism at home , the creation of shifting coalitions around the world , and most importantly , its declining economic power in the world

In the 1940s and the 1950s , the United States was extraordinarily competitive in the world market . Virtually anything it produced , it could sell . Although partly the aftermath of World War II , which had destroyed most of America 's industrial competitors , this situation also reflected an American monopoly in high-technology industries and American productivity in lower-technology ones . The United States had a handsome surplus in its international balance of trade , and this surplus could in turn finance large-scale expenditures on U .S . military forces to be deployed overseas in the territories of America 's allies including West Germany , Britain , Italy and Japan . A productive and competitive economy with high employment also provided a healthy base for federal taxation and spending . In such a happy condition , the United States could maintain a vast system of military alliances and spend 10 percent of its GNP on defense . In the slogan of the Eisenhower administration , the former was underwritten by the latter

Then all this started to change with seeming suddenness . Japan appeared to surge forward at incredible speed . Through the 1970s it 's rising indices of industrial production seemed to propel it above the industrial levels of the United Kingdom , the European Community , the Untied States

As the Soviet Union faltered and then collapsed , Japan and subsequently also West Germany increasingly became the symbols of so-called young economies , in which organized capitalism ' could achieve miracles which old capitalism could no longer deliver . The inventory of China and Japan 's successes was stressed frequently . Its rapid pace of economic growth , its systematic allocation of vast resources to gross fixed capital formation , its obvious progress in high-tech consumer-oriented production , and its impressive penetration of the global markets all received their due

In contrast , the United States was increasingly depicted as an aging stumbling giant , losing its preeminence and its leading abilities . From the mid 1970s on , a vast literature asserted with much conviction that the United States was deindustrializing ' losing the battle of high tech and unduly shifting its labor force toward services while complacently accommodating itself...