Thanks to these budgetary and poor investment and agrievous spending patterns, the USA is now seen in Europe and elsewhere as the “Sick Man of the Global Economy”. The BBC has reported several times in recent weeks that “whenever the U.S. economy wheezes or sneezes, Europe and the rest of the globe catches a cold.”
This perception of America as a “Sick Man” is a dangerous precedent. Never before in world history has the USA had such an image.
Another global image of America being a “Sick Man” exists in the foreign police and in defense in security—despite the USA having spent trillions of dollars in the last years to improve defense and security.
Most of the world views the American armed forces as overextended and the foreign policy as being very nearsighted in general.
When George W. Bush came into office and began tearing up arms treaties right and left, many Americans failed to take notice or praised the gun-slinger theatrics. The rest of the planet was aghast.
e.g. Why should America put nuclear weapons and other weapons in space when they were banned years ago?
The answers from Washington D.C. have always been inadequate: “We are afraid sometime that someone else will do it first.”
The same thing was said of the ICBM treaty and the conventions on torture, on human rights, & on habeas corpus.
A slippery slope was begun in 2001 and now the U.S. has made such a big mess on the global stage, it will now take decades to rectify the failed attempt by a single USA administration to rewrite all the underlying rules for dozens of regimes, e.g. climate control regimes, nuclear proliferation treaty regimes, arms control regimes, human rights regimes.
The new White House administration must begin by apologizing for this mess and start over with a great focus on building up and not tearing down.
I am willing to do that.
How about Obama, Clinton, Huckabee or McCain? NOTES“Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President”, http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/17/opinion/edquestions.php
Mayer, Peter & Rittberger, Volke, REGIME THEORY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, http://www.questia.com/library/book/regime-theory-and-international-relations-by-peter-mayer-volker-rittberger.jsp
