Three Debates on America's Position in International Politics

The demise of the Soviet Union, the end of the cold war and collapse of bipolar international system left the U.S. as unrivaled world economic and military superpower. Despite this, the discussions about current international system and how to reshape the world order remain an ongoing process. Considering its only-superpower status, the US will play an important role in any new world order, irrespect of its configuration. Each on of the Triple debates of this article argues US role and intentions in international politics differently. The first debate that the US neo-conservatives are ascribed to uses a historical approach to justify a world order in which US posses the sole hegemonic status. The second perspective, still applying historical and colonial studies, criticizes US imperial adventurism in different parts of the world since 19th century. From this point of view, US intervention was aimed to impose its own values by promoting protestant Christianism, and raise its stakes in the world markets. The third takes a middle ground of thinking. While criticizing the current Bush and neo-conservative's unilateralism as counterproductive and harmful to the US national interest, it prescribes an approach using multilateral cooperation and international institutions to promote the US leadership in the world politics.