America In The 20th Century

Few argued when the 20th Century was dubbed the "American Century", a term first coined in the early 1940s when the country was still overcoming its isolationist instincts. Over the past 15 years, America's fortunes have changed with dizzying speed. First came the tremors: the dot-com bust and a disputed presidential election in 2000. few acts of terrorism that the Islamic State has carried out in the Gulf Arab States were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait. Moreover, al Qaeda Central is only a small band of Arab militants whose strength is numbered in several hundreds, while Islamic State is a mass insurgency whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, especially in Syria and Iraq. Then …show more content…
Among the young, this trend line has fallen sharply. Only 15% of 18-29-year-olds believe that America is the "greatest country in the world", according to Pew, down from 27% in 2011. Tellingly, however, there has been no great public outcry. No longer is there much appetite for America playing its long-standing role of global policeman, even in the face of the rise of the group calling itself Islamic State. The cost, human and financial, is considered too great. Americans increasingly think that other countries should share the burden. Obama, while continuing to trumpet "American exceptionalism", regularly prefaces remarks on foreign affairs by acknowledging the limits of US power, again with little public outcry. Assad's flouting of American warnings is especially noteworthy. In killing so many civilians with chemical weapons, he flagrantly crossed the "red line" imposed by Obama, but escaped punishment. The president was unwilling to carry through on an explicit threat, in what was the biggest foreign policy climb down of his presidency and also one of the most significant in the past 50