15-мавзу: Modern American political system Plan

15-МАВЗУ: Modern American political system
Plan:
1. The role of modern America in the world policy
2. Modern American political system
3. Political parties and elections


The role of modern America in the world policy
Public opinion reports on Americans’ attitudes toward foreign policy sketch a picture of retrenchment, war-weariness, and skepticism toward global engagement, even as there is also a growing concern that the world is increasingly unstable and dangerous. Nothing about this picture is new or controversial. Some may worry about it more than others, but it is now commonly accepted that the US is downsizing its international role, and that the administration, the Congress, and the general public are more absorbed with domestic concerns than with foreign challenges or threats.
The first challenge—reaffirming the historic American commitment to freedom in the world—involves making it clear that we will do whatever we can to support people fighting for fundamental rights, even as we recognize that they must take responsibility for their own success or failure. For many reasons, democracy is seen to be on the defensive today. Authoritarian states are pushing back aggressively against groups working for greater democracy, the turmoil in the Middle East has destroyed the early promise of the Arab Spring, and China’s growing economic and military power has altered the balance of forces in the world at a time when the US and many European countries have entered a period of economic and political malaise.
Committing ourselves to preserving US leadership in the world is, therefore, the second major challenge for US policy. This is not an expression of American arrogance or a reckless form of overreaching. Rather, it is the recognition of a fundamental geopolitical reality. “A world without US primacy,” Samuel Huntington once wrote, “will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country in shaping global affairs.” The urgent challenge now is for the US to exercise leadership in a convincing manner so that the vacuum is not filled by hostile powers or by chaos and violence.
But continued US primacy is simply not possible unless we address a third critical challenge, which is to bring the spiraling US public debt under control. Over the last decade, the gross federal debt has nearly tripled to more than $17 trillion and now exceeds the total national GDP. While there are many reasons for the continuing surge in public debt, including the 2008 fiscal crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the principal factor has been the growth of entitlement spending, which has gone from less than one-third of the federal budget a half-century ago to more than two-thirds today. In the words of Robert J. Samuelson, “The welfare state is taking over government.” Other priorities are steadily being squeezed, from investment in infrastructure and human capital to international programs and even defense spending, which is expected to shrink by forty percent over the next decade. Richard Haass is thus entirely correct when he writes that “American profligacy at home threatens American power and security.” Unless we can summon the political will and bipartisan consensus to reverse our domestic decline, no amount of strategic vision will enable the United States to exercise the kind of leadership that the world so desperately needs.