Thought I'd share, it's a one-page paper I wrote for an international relations class.

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Robert Paveza
POS160 – Akan Malici
Paper #5
Due 25-Mar-04[/right]

[center]The United States Sans Force is the United States Sans Power[/center]

Upon the fall of the Soviet Union, the world saw finally the return of a single superpower in the world -- the United States. The still-unique form of government and ideology of the United States has earned a largely successful position in the global body politic. The United States is indisputably the world's hegemon, and as other states appear to be hungry for the United States' power, the United States has the power of its economy, as well as its technological military might, to back up its stature in the world political arena.

The United States is clearly the world leader as an economic power, as the GDP of the United States is approximately the summation of all other nations in the world. However, where does all of this wealth come from? Examination of the amount of industry and size of corporations and bureaucracy indicates that the United States is a consumer economy. As corporations continue to outsource their work to workers in countries where they pay extremely less than they would in the United States, money is continually pouring out of the United States with little in return. The wealth created in the United States is through all of the middle-men and services consumed, not through direct production or labor, changing Locke’s labor theory of value – value is not added only during the creation of something tangible, but also in the provision of desired services. This economic interdependence puts the United States at a considerable threat: as most of the simple, and even many complex, products on the market are made in other countries, if they (the other countries) were to unite and cut off trade with the United States, it would put the United States at a considerably terrible position – not only would the U.S. be unable to get basic goods into the country, but nearly all underlying wealth would collapse.

However, the United States continues to strengthen its military, as long as realists remain in power. Many critics claimed that we went to Iraq to acquire her oil; while I personally don’t believe that the Iraqi war was for oil, I acknowledge that it quite simply could have been. The use of force is the United States’ ultimate defense against the rest of the world, preventing countries who would position themselves in this way from cutting of the United States from her interests. While such a threat of military action remains, the other countries will remain at bay.

Regardless, consumerism will continue simply because of the nature of the society in which we live. People don’t want to do the menial labor that comes so cheaply in third-world countries; while we must acknowledge that it is most certainly exploitation of those workers, there have as yet been no reasonable suggestions as to how to avoid a complete economic crash by paying foreign workers a wage similar to what they would make here. However, as long as every other country in the world desires power – to be the hegemon – they cannot be trusted, and military vigilance and strength must be maintained or increased in the coming years.