 |
| Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images |
Since the birth of our great nation, the naysayers and pundits have always claimed that the fall of the United States is just around the corner. The media and social elite have always identified an opponent and defined the world with an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Black vs. White, Democracy vs. Communism, East vs. West, Good vs. Evil; sound familiar? Throughout American history there has always been someone that was supposed to have toppled us, an ideology that was destined to one day replace our own. And historians and scholars have provided countless zombie theories speculating about the fall of the United States, always pointing for evidence to the great Empires of old like Rome and Han China. Yet with the rise of each new boogieman, America has always also arisen to meet the challenge. And just like waking from a bad dream, when Americans blink the sleep from their eyes and set to the task at hand, the great threat that once seemed to linger just beyond the horizon dissolves into nothing more than a faint, distant memory. Recently the website The Daily Beast published a review of the book, Why the West Rules – For Now. The author concludes that it is impossible to reverse the trend of America’s decline and the eventual rise of China as the world's super power. His reasoning, in a word is geography. Yet his concept of geography seems to lack a modern vantage point, thoroughly under appreciating the interconnectedness of the entire world. While It is true that the era of the singular super power has ended, it is also true that the age of coalitions and transgovernmentalism has only just begun. America may no longer be the sole super power, but it still has the strongest international coalition through which it will still take the lead in world governance.
