The US hegemony which has existed for more than half a century is showing new features at the turn of the century.
In the wake of the Cold War, the United States, flying in the face of the world trend which favors peace and development, has taken the road of military expansion, triggering a new round of tension as the world comes out from the dark cloud of the war.
Enhancing military strength and grabbing strategic superiority have become top choices for the United States when it maps out its global strategies for the new century.
Since the Cold War, the United States has increased military spending by a big margin to solidify the material foundation for its military hegemony. Its military expenditure growth is the fastest in the Western world.
In 1999, the US defense budget reached US$270.6 billion, 1.6 times the total military spending of Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and China. Last year, it recorded an increase of US$10.2 billion over the year before.
The Clinton administration approved a total increase of US$112 billion for military expenditure from 2000-05. In 2005, US military spending will reach at least US$320 billion, making up 35 percent of the world's total.
The world's first country to develop and use nuclear weapons, the United States owns the world largest nuclear arsenal. To further enhance its nuclear superiority, it plans to upgrade its strategic nuclear weapons and concentrate on developing and deploying a National Missile Defense (NMD) system. If realized, NMD will be a big blow to international efforts in arms control and disarmament.
Washington has also stepped up its efforts to cultivate a global security system led by the US by pushing ahead NATO's eastward expansion and buttressing US-Japan defense ties.
In recent years, the United States has strengthened its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Since 1998, it has launched more than seven joint military exercises with Southeast Asian countries every year.
As the only superpower left after the Cold War, the United States has openly implemented "gunboat diplomacy." Its military interference in regional conflicts and other countries' internal affairs has spread.
Yet US military expansion is not as simple as waging a war of aggression. The nation has acted in a hypocritical manner, putting its military expansion under pretexts such as safeguarding human rights or preventing ethnic conflict.
Spreading the US culture is one way for the US to "spread its message." The renowned US political commentator Samuel P. Huntington said in his book "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order" that world conflicts after the Cold War would be clashes of civilizations, posing a serious threat to the United States. The US should therefore make an effort to ensure the dominant position of American culture in the world.
"Americanization" is a basic goal in US global security strategies, which aims to assimilate the whole world with the country's own social system, values and ideology in order to establish a US-led world order.
Human rights have become a ready excuse and a starting point for the US to promote "Americanization" in the international arena. "Human rights diplomacy," which first emerged in the latter half of the 1970s, has become a pillar of US foreign policy after the Cold War and a centerpiece of the Clinton administration's foreign policy.
In June 1999, during his visit to Europe amid the US-led NATO air attacks against Yugoslavia, then US President Bill Clinton produced the notorious "Clintonism" which cloaked its naked aggression with humanity and human rights.
In fact, since the 1990s, the United States has set up special organizations in the State Department and Congress for the implementation of its "human rights diplomacy." The State Department concocts an annual human rights report which mounts unwarranted attacks on human rights conditions in many countries.
Every year, US Congress also spends considerable energy and time on organizing hearings about other countries' "human rights problems," often ending up with legislation which accuses them of having poor human rights.
The US has also seized every opportunity to internationalize hot issues such as the Kosovo crisis, the Chechnya rebellion and China's Tibet question, to spearhead its "human rights diplomacy." In the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the US has played an infamous role as the main troublemaker provoking confrontations. Since the 1990s, US-led Western countries have tried in vain to table anti-China resolutions.
The United States has also used economic measures to realize its goal of internationalizing the human rights issue. On the one hand, it attaches harsh human rights terms when extending economic aid to third world countries, which very often fall into the American sphere of influence. On the other hand, when wielding the stick of economic and political sanctions, it forces developing countries into acceptance of its own human rights standards. The "Helms-Burton Act" and the "D'Amato Bill" formulated to implement sanctions against Cuba and Iran/Libya are two ready examples.
Since the 1990s, economic globalization has become a basic feature and important trend of world economic development. The US has grabbed this "historical opportunity" to establish US-led regional economic organizations so that economic globalization will progress at the will of the Americans.
Using the advantage of the US dollar's special position, the US manipulates exchange rates and interest rates to push financial hegemony in the world. But as the wheel of globalization turns, the United States finds its ability falling short of its ambition.
To solve this dilemma, it has been advocating the establishment of an international mechanism in the Western world with itself playing the leading role. For example, the G-7 summit used to focus on economic issues only. Since the 1990s, the US has amplified its political function. The G-7 summits now discuss an increasingly broad range of world issues, placing itself even above the United Nations.
It is only natural that the world should see that the United States wants to become both rule maker and arbitrator of the game.
*The author is from Jinan Army Academy in east China's Shandong Province.
(China Daily 01/22/2001)
