Is the USA a Hegemon?

[americanpride]

Global Dominance: The Principles of Hegemonic Governance
By Chris Davis (me )

There is much talk of the United States being the hegemonic power; indeed, the American Nation is vaunted as the inheritor of international hegemony from the last anglo-"superpower": Great Britain. But what are the qualifications to classify a power as "hegemonic"; and can these qualifications can be defined? Finally, if the answer to the previous questions is "yes", does the United States fit into these parameters?

In the broadest sense, there are three principles of total global superiority: 1) Flexible politics, 2) Independent Economics, and 3) Battlespace Dominance. Those that exercise of these three principles will demonstrate to an observor the power of the state or nation in question.

Read more here: nationallibertarianism.blogspot.com/2005/03/global-dominance-principles-of.html

[MARIO]

AmericanPride said:

Global Dominance: The Principles of Hegemonic Governance
By Chris Davis (me )

There is much talk of the United States being the hegemonic power; indeed, the American Nation is vaunted as the inheritor of international hegemony from the last anglo-"superpower": Great Britain. But what are the qualifications to classify a power as "hegemonic"; and can these qualifications can be defined? Finally, if the answer to the previous questions is "yes", does the United States fit into these parameters?

In the broadest sense, there are three principles of total global superiority: 1) Flexible politics, 2) Independent Economics, and 3) Battlespace Dominance. Those that exercise of these three principles will demonstrate to an observor the power of the state or nation in question.

Read more here: nationallibertarianism.blogspot.com/2005/03/global-dominance-principles-of.html

Chris, I'm reading two books in my Cold War/ US Foreign Policy seminar that you should really check out down the road. I have a feeling that you'd like them.

"A Primer in Power Politics" By Stanley Michalak

"The Use of Force: Military Power and Interational Politics" by Robert J. Art and Kenneth N. Waltz

[Remey688]

Hegemon could be a person or place's name. Hegemon is not in the complete dictionary. The noun is hegemony, and the adject is hegemonic.

[americanpride]

Remey688 said:

Hegemon could be a person or place's name. Hegemon is not in the complete dictionary. The noun is hegemony, and the adject is hegemonic.

It is a name. It's the name of a nation-state that exercises total global superiority.

[FightingFalcon]

DarkLordoftheChris said:

It is a name. It's the name of a nation-state that exercises total global superiority.

Which, as of right now, we are not doing.

[americanpride]

FightingFalcon said:

Which, as of right now, we are not doing.

I agree. Read my paper. ;D

[FightingFalcon]

DarkLordoftheChris said:

I agree. Read my paper. ;D

Just got it - I'll read it now

[cameron]

I have thought for some time that the United States is a Hegemony and has been since the end of WWII. When I say this, it is not meant in any way to be derogatory. I use the term in the way it was meant to be used according to it's classical Greek meaning. I think you might find these articles useful in developing your own ideas. You might also enjoy reading Niall Ferguson's book, Colossus: The Price of America's Empire. I know natural born Americans have an innate distaste for the idea of empire however as Ferguson points out Empire is not all bad. Any way I just read this thread and thought you might enjoy reading these articles. I have not yet read your paper, will let you know what I think in a couple of days.

www.techcentralstation.com/021405B.html
TCS: Tech Central Station - The Greeks Had a Word for It: Hegemony vs. Empire

The word is Greek: it means the leadership of a coalition or an alliance, and it was used in this sense by the Greek historian Herodotus and Thucydides. But since English has a number of perfectly good words to indicate leadership, such as chief, head, principal, boss, manager, organizer, general director, and so forth, few users of the English language felt any need to rescue this word from its moldy niche in the Greek lexicon until the mid 1840's when the English radical and banker George Grote began publishing his monumental History of Greece, a work of immense scholarship that is still wonderfully fascinating.

Curiously enough, in light of its current usage, the reason Grote decided to revive the Greek word hegemony was in order to distinguish it sharply from the Latin-derived word with which it has now become inextricably muddled, namely, the word empire.

www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/articles/fa03/walzer.htm
Dissent Magazine - Fall 2003

But perhaps there is a better way of thinking about contemporary global politics, drawing on the related idea of "hegemony." In common use today, "hegemonic" is simply a less vivid way of saying "imperialist," but it really points to something different: a looser form of rule, less authoritarian than empire is or was, more dependent on the agreement of others. Consider these words from Antonio Gramsci, the foremost theorist of hegemony-who wrote, however, in the context of domestic political struggles: "The fact of hegemony presupposes that one takes into account the interests and tendencies of the groups over which hegemony will be exercised, and it also presupposes a certain equilibrium, that is to say that the hegemonic groups will make some sacrifices of a corporate nature."* Hegemony rests in part on force, but it rests also, even more so, on ideas and ideologies. If a ruling class has to rely on force alone, it has reached a point of crisis in its rule. If it is to avoid that crisis, it has to be prepared for compromise.