Dylan Peacock
Cumberland, R.I. (PN)

America's Short-lived Time As Superpower Seems to be Coming to an End...

America for the last several decades has been the worlds only "superpower." The short period of America being the worlds only great power seems to be coming to a end. With China and East Asian countries getting many American jobs through outsourcing, it seems that our country keeps getting weaker and weaker. Under the current President our country has greatly fallen. Our borders are still extremely porous, our nation went from the richest we have ever been to the most in debt we have ever been. Doesn't it seem strange that the world's greatest power is also the greatest debtor? This proved fatal for all other countries that triumphed in becoming the greatest power on the face of the planet.

Some narrow-minded people believe the debt of a country is meaningless, because, in their opinions, it can just be dissolved. When asked why we haven't dissolved our debt, most site the negative repercussions to the world economy; so in fact the debt that these right-wing socialists believe is dissolvable, is truly not. We would never dissolve it because all our trading partners would be hurt, in effect hurting us.

Anyway, our country is just not what it used to be. As places like China build up momentum, it will become harder and harder to escape this predicament. Some people have already lost hope in recovering America, preventing China from gaining too much momentum and keeping America the top power for at least a century more.

Comparing:

America's "golden age" has been rather short when compared to that some other countries. For instance, Great Britain had two golden ages, during the Elizabethan and Victorian ages. During her first golden age they became the most powerful country, were the richest, and had the most powerful army and navy.

During the second golden age they ruled over more than a quarter of the world and its peoples. This was the biggest and greatest empire the world had ever seen. Their policies made the British Empire last from the seventeen hundreds well into the twentieth century. As in Egypt, they wouldn't just go into a place and take it over like we did in Iraq, they went into Egypt and built up power until they finally took it over. After World War II when America took over as international caretaker, we did not continue with some of the policies that worked so well for the British for all those centuries. And now after these few decades we find ourselves at risk of losing our position as the world's only superpower to threats such as China.

What Should We Do?

Some people have already lost faith in being able to stop China from becoming the world superpower. These people believe there is no stopping China. They say that if we stopped the outsourcing China would do something such as cut off our trade with the rest of the world by threatening anyone who trades with us. In their opinion we should just sit back and let China take over the world.

However, other beliefs are that we may have a slim chance of stopping China from overtaking the world if we secretly sign petitions with other countries to stop outsourcing to countries like China. If we can stop or slow down the amazing rate of outsourcing our jobs over-seas, then we may have a better chance at keeping the title of world power a bit longer.

Is It Inevitable?

History shows the inevitability of a countries eventually fall from power, no matter how tight their grip on the rest of the planet. The might of the world has kept moving west, from China to Europe, to the east coast of America, to the west coast, and now back to China. However, America's reign as world power can be pro-longed if we just look back in history and see what brought down all those great civilizations before us. The answers are right there yet we continue to do stupid and wasteful things. Our countries wealth keeps depleting, we give our jobs away to South America, Asia, and Africa because they will work for less and we keep wasting our money on unnecessary wars. If we just look back we will realize these are the actions that brought down all those countries that were once powerful.

At a time when European countries where abandoning their colonialist expansion, nations like Germany became too greedy and started taking over countries that the industrialized world cared about and forcing Europe into two world wars. Had Germany kept to itself, Europe would still rule most of the world.

We must stop using up our nations money on wars that need not be fought. If Bush had waited just a bit longer, and listened to a few more people instead of his hawkish friends, we would have saved trillions of dollars, and the lives of hundreds of soldiers. If we keep making these mistakes and not listening to history, then it will be inevitable that we will fall from power.