Us Hegemony Analysis

United States has been the world hegemony since the end of the Second World War and has used its power to promote western values across the globe in many different ways. Some of the ways in which the US’s exerts its hegemonic power can be reflected on the way the world functions today. Its power is embedded in economic policies, environmental agreements, and its global institutions like the IMF and the World Bank “since the early 1990s, U.S. policymakers have embraced primacy and adopted an ambitious grand strategy of expanding the United States’ preponderant power” (Layne, 2006). America is regarded as the best country in the world with an idealistic liberal framework.

Since the US became the hegemony it has been preparing it’s military, …show more content…
Realist argue that these type of benevolent engagement is slowly decreasing US’s power causing it to “[tumble] from its dominant position and that a fundamental, system-altering power shift away from unipolarity is occurring” (Brooks, Wohlforth, 2016). In order for the US to “remain unipolar” it will have to continue to be the only state with the ability to have an accurate “global power projection capacity” (Brooks, Wohlforth, 2016). In a realist view the threat of China being a super power will not come with its economic growth and rise in GDP, but instead it will threaten the unipolarity system when it begins to invest in a “superpower military capability” (Brooks, Wohlforth, 2016).

The future of IR without American primacy would be insecure, unstable, and unlikely to have a benevolent hegemony like the US. Countries that bandwagon with the United States receive many benefits, most importantly they receive security, because the US has the strongest military. American primacy is liberal, which helps it be “stable and expansive” (Layne, 2006). In the US institutions are multilateral which means that it gives and receives mutual benefits for both the states and the institutions (Layne,