American History

United States emerged as the worlds leading super power after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. As a super power, United States is able to influence most of the world affairs and enforce its own interests and ideologies on other world states, United States (US) is involved in one way or another in the issues affecting the world be it political, social or economic. During the civil war period, United States did not hold any special position over the rest of the nations. However, United States gradually evolved to become the powerful nation that it is today. It was not until the period after the civil war that the financial situation in United States began to improve.

There are several issues that helped United States maintain the position that it holds today. United States not only became a super power financially, but also had to become a leader to the rest of the world, good governance is key to prosperity in any nation, to the rest of the world United States is characterized by good governance. While giving his first inaugural speech in 1981, Ronald Reagan the then president talked about several issues that Americans had to keep in mind for them to continue prospering. On paragraph eight, Ronald Reagan (1981), dwelt on the American spirit of being able to overcome challenges in its quest to gain freedom from the economic struggles that they were facing as a nation, he talked of America having the capacity. There was need to focus on the people who contributed to the development of country but had earlier been neglected, these were the ordinary people in society who despite the much work they did, they never got any recognition for the work they did.

President Regan (1981) on paragraph twelve also said that there was need for creation of employment opportunities for all Americans, where they would earn a good living it would greatly improve their living conditions, it was necessary for all citizens to be able to live a good life. At the sixteenth and eighteenth paragraph he said that the reason why America had been able to achieve so much compared to other nations was because there was appropriate utilization of manpower and intellectual capabilities of its citizens and more so at that particular period.

In America, there was what Regan referred to as freedom and dignity of individuals which Americans had been granted and they therefore were able to reach their full potential. He also talked of Americans being patriotic to their nation and having a sense of pride concerning their country therefore they worked very hard and created opportunities for themselves. America at that point in time advocated for peace, but if a situation called for the citizens to defend their boundaries, they would gladly do so as a matter of national security, this was according to Regan (1981).

United States has had to make some choices as they face different challenges in the process of maintaining the position of  world super power, one of the events that has tested Americans resilience was the bombing of the World Trade Center twin towers on September 11, 2001, it was an event that shocked the entire world, the vulnerability of United States had been revealed and it left people with so many questions unanswered, according to commission members and staff (911 Commission Report), several minutes later, the Pentagon was hit while another airline crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, there were many casualties from the bombing and left many more people devastated.

The act had been committed by some young Arabic suicide bombers from Afghanistan ( 911 Commission Report) the government had been caught by surprise as the national intelligence had failed to detect that such a plan was being hatched by the bombers until it actually happened. There had been some threats earlier on Americans by Islamic extremists, they made claims on wanting to kill Americans in large numbers, these threats  led to several incidences of Americans being killed between 1993 and 1995.

Earlier on Osama bin Laden had only been viewed as a financer of terrorism and not a terrorist leader. In 1998, Osama bin Laden and four others sent a message claiming that Muslims were to kill Americans, by Gods decree, because America had occupied Islamic holy places and aggression against the Muslims. (p. 2).

The success of the al Qaeda to hit America and have such an impact was partly driven by the fact that action officers were not able to draw on all the knowledge they had on al Qaeda, and share information and duties with the other agencies and security departments. The government was not able to gather intelligence and use it to guide the division of duties among the different departments which were involved in providing internal security. Between the years 1997 and 2001, United States government had tried to use diplomatic pressure on the Taliban not to be so lenient with al Qaeda and for Osama bin Laden to face justice, but it was all in vain as it did not work (p.11). Pressure and incentives on Pakistan to cut ties with the Taliban also did not work.

The United States has in the past fought hard to maintain the power that it has over other nations and over world matters, and for the rest of the world to feel its impact when it comes to decisions affecting the world. The pressure on the United States to prove that it still deserves to hold the position of the world super power is under threat from some emerging countries like China which has the fastest growing economy at the moment there are also some countries in the European Union.