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You wasted your chance as a hyper-power. The Soviet Union had fallen and the world was essentially yours but you did nothing with it. Now India and China are rising powers and you are going back to being a regular super-power.
I mean...what did you want us to do? Invade Europe?
As an American, I can think of a few things we shouldn't have done. The whole debacle in Iraq comes to mind. A few trillion dollars pissed away. Thousands of American lives lost. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead. All for Iraq just to end up a puppet state of Iran. We've also destabilized the international system, particularly the trade system, that we built up in the first place. We've repeatedly violated our own trade agreements so many times it's not even funny anymore. How could we have used this unique historical opportunity for the betterment of the world? Here's one idea.
In an ideal world, the US would have used its hyperpower status to truly advance democracy around the world. We would have taken this opportunity to once and for all finally drive the last nail in the coffin of global authoritarianism and dictatorship. In our timeline, we looked past the CCP's human rights abuses and let China into the global trade system. We did this because our corporations got greedy and wanted to make bank in the Chinese market. We gave in to their greed at the expense of global human rights and our own long term national security. Now we've turned the government of China (which has morphed into some horrible amalgamation of communism and fascism) into the most capable manufacturing power on the planet. It didn't have to be this way. We could have told China, and everyone else. "Democracy first, then trade. We're only interested in trading with and enriching fellow free nations."
After the Cold War ended, the US was ascendant. The economic power of us and our allies was unmatched. The US, Europe, and allies dominated the world economically and militarily. Imagine in a different timeline if we had used that power to peacefully advance democracy worldwide. Imagine if after the Cold War, the US international policy became:
"We allied with dictatorships when necessary during the Cold War to contain the USSR. That is no longer needed. From now on, we're happy to open up markets and trade with anyone, as long as they are a liberal democracy. You want to join the global economy and get rich? Give your people freedom. Petty dictatorships can remain poor and undeveloped, thus limiting the amount of damage they can cause outside their borders. We'll give food and medical supplies to nations in crisis, even those ruled by dictators. But full economic integration will only be done with fellow democracies. We will not trade with tyrants."
That is the kind of visionary approach that a hyperpower like the US could have taken to really make the world better. You don't need to invade countries to have an influence on them. And this really does represent a lost opportunity. The time immediately after the fall of the USSR was the moment when the free and democratic countries were at the absolute peak of their economic power. But since we allowed China into the WTO and opened up trade with them, we have created an industrial juggernaut that is ruled by an absolute dictatorship.
At the end of the Cold War, the democracies could have banded together and used their utter dominance of the global economy to push for further democratization around the world. There just wasn't anyone else to trade with for many advanced consumer and industrial goods. But now? That kind of strategy wouldn't work. If all the democracies tomorrow insisted on trading only with other democracies, the various dictatorships around the world can now just keep trading with China.
TL:DR: After the fall of the USSR, democracy as a global force was at the absolute historic peak of its power, both economically and militarily. If the US and allies had really brought their full economic and cultural power to bear, they could have attempted a last final push to ensure democracy reigned everywhere. Even without invading anyone, we could have used that immense economic power to at least attempt to throw down the last of the dictators and to bring democracy to every man, woman, and child on the planet. Instead, we tried to line our own pockets and ended up creating a monster by turning communist China into the workshop of the world.
I was thinking the haning chads and the spinelessness of dems did us in. If Al Gore would have won! But I guess the history goes deeper.
Why would the U.S. have started trying to expand democracy after the Cold War? They were willing to support anti-Democratic coups in Iran, Syria, Brazil, Iraq, Bolivia, and probably dozens of others I'm forgetting. America was promoting capitalism during the Cold War, not democracy.
Sure. You're correct, but irrelevant. That's why I said "in an ideal world." In an ideal world, what kind of actions could the US have taken immediately after the Cold War to make the world better for everyone? Obviously the Cold War was more about advancing capitalism than advancing democracy. Hence us forming alliances with dictators, as I mentioned. But in an ideal world, with capitalism triumphant around the globe, the US would have at least used its hyperpower status to push hard for democracy globally.
You're calling for the USA to brutally repress and dominate the world, that's not Democracy.
Its sad that I am old and cynical enough to think your entire TLDR paragraph is targically absurd. Of course we'd never do those things. I used to think such things could happen.
The USA could also have stopped China manipulating their currency exchange rates. This is artificially making their exports cheaper and boosting their economy. Simultaneously this is exporting their economic imbalances to the global economy and destablising other countries, typically manifesting as manufacturing declining and 'service' based sectors becoming more prominent than they should be.
Yes, there were a whole series of things that could have been done. But looking back, it seems obvious now that helping China to get rich was a poor decision. A wealthy and more industrialized country is simply a far more serious geopolitical threat than a poorer one. I'm glad that the Chinese population have been able to pull themselves up out of poverty. But in terms of our own national security and the security of democratic countries everywhere, enriching such a brutal dictatorship was a terrible mistake. Without its economic explosion, China wouldn't today be on the brink of potentially invading Taiwan, and they wouldn't be serving as the main economic backer for Russia's war in Ukraine. In our world, wealth is power, and power is wealth. And by trading with the CCP, we magnified their power many fold.
God, you Americans are so selfish
Typical American: "what we did wrong was not be even more brutally repressive to other countries".
Maybe France...
Casual French bashing
"Nobody ever says Italy"
They tried, even had some monopoly bills printed.
Edit, because it's apparently not a very well known story.
Avoid military action without the expressed endorsement of the UN Security Council, for example, bombing of Yugoslavia.
That's a great example of something they shouldn't have done, not some they should have done. Believe me, there's plenty of intervention that I wish the military and intelligence communities hadn't done, but the way the comment is framed, it seems like this person is implying we should have done more, not less.
It's about how it should be done. Whether there should be more or fewer interventions is moot. It's about building a world order where nations don't feel like usa is untrustworthy. Maybe through a rules based process like UN security council.
Good. Living in a super power seems to suck period, because super powers care about ideology and power, not people. Do we need "hyper?"
I think its just power. No one gives a crap what the peasants think. Why should they? Our elections are stage managed so we never have choice. We dont fund winning elections either-- corporations do. What do they have to fear from us?
American capitalists needs other countries to get rich too so we can sell them shit. If those countries stayed rural and backwards who would buy our wares.
NOT that I don't think you're mistaken, but at the same time, India & China are about as @(*&#-ed as it possibly comes when it comes to being considered 'super-powers.'
Well, I mean they are all fucked up super-powers now. My main point was that there was a period of like 20+ years where the USA literally ruled the world but didn't do anything with it.
Yeah, I get you...
One thing that totally kills me is how the US just *screwed* with so many other nations over the years, mainly for profit, etc.
Same as every super-power in existence ever. Maybe ...it's just a super-power thing?
In a general way, likely yes.
But in a specific way, for example when you look at Jeff Daniels' Newsroom speech to the college audience, there's a 'squeaky-clean,' treacly level of nonsense that's long been attributed to the US, that simply doesn't jibe with reality. It's got some parallels with the English Empire nonsense, but not necessarily so much with other super-powers. That's the difference.
I am curious on what you mean by 'didn’t do anything with it'. What should had the USA done in that time?
Reinforce the international order of economic cooperation guided by a rules-based system underpinned by the UN,
Instead there were just foreign adventures in the Middle East and a lot of navel-gazing internal politics about climate change/denialism. You could have set a template for all countries to follow instead of inventing "rolling coal".
Billionares, Hollywood, Reagansim, War on Drugs etc. Including the things you said it seems they did a lot actually.
They did plenty with it: they brutally repressed the globe to create unimaginable profit for their ruling class.
The main thing Americans need to hear but aren't ready for: you aren't better than India or China as super powers, in fact, you're worse than China.
What do you mean? The people who benefited the most from the collapse of the Soviet Union are the people still in power. I'd argue they did an excellent job setting up the Western hegemony to worship billionaires and empower themselves.
What, did you think the U.S. was going to do something good with that power?
Thank the stars for that! We don’t deserve it.
They made some billionaires and created the "tech" world as we know it. There are achievements, but they are lackluster and half assed... apart from the billionaires thing. They knocked that one out of the Park.