When we open a newspaper, news broadcast or any other news-related media channel, the chance of crossing a headline at the very beginning of that respective media channel or platform that directly refers to the United States of America (hereinafter: USA) is extremely high. Intuitive explanations would certainly point to the fact that the USA constitute the biggest economic entity. This assumption is partially correct in that it surely explains a small portion of the USA’s presence in global media, but it is neither a sufficient nor the main account. There is no necessary link between economic might and presence in global media; the latter is not a necessary consequence of the former. However, the presence of the USA in every other nation’s media is a significant obstacle for the international state system, global economy and societal development. Here, the detrimental effects and their causes of the USA’s prominence in societal discourse are analysed. Further, one of the main hypotheses of this analysis is that the economic capacity of the USA mostly stems from the massive attention paid to it, creating a reinforcing effect of more attention. Lastly, and as always, we provide you with further added value by exploring how to counteract the discursive power of the North American nation, as well as insights into how we integrate those aspects into our approach.
Economic and Diplomatic Power
As stated above, we intuitively link economic power to diplomatic power. “The more economic capacity a state has, the more active it is in world affairs”, that is the constructed commonsense. To understand this link, we first need to understand that there is no logical tie between those two elements. A state can be very affluent due to good management of state affairs, a productive population, innovative policies, smart production systems and, most importantly, an advanced education system. Developing those policy fields holds enough potential for a state to gain absolute power. Absolute power is the measure of the capability of how well a state can organise societal life within its borders. However, when a state is able to maximise the development of said policy fields, it can also achieve high relative power; that is, the measure of how well a state can organise societal life compared to other states. Absolute power is more valuable than relative power because it measures the quality of a nation according to normative values, whereas relative power only indicates whether one nation’s quality is better than another. In a comparison, one nation could be much better than another nation (high relative power), but when both nations have raging civil wars, they are both low in absolute power.
So, there is a hierarchy in the desired forms of power. Further, the two forms of power are also different in their sources. Achieving absolute power only has one source: internally driven development. Contemporary Japan is a good example in this case. It is an inward-looking nation that has space and population limits due to being an island. Japan does not entertain hostile or coercive diplomatic relations with other nations. Its only source of power is domestic development, which is sufficient for it to remain among the biggest economies in the world while preserving a quality of societal life. Relative power, on the other hand, has two sources of power: internally driven development and externally oriented aggression. This second source of power is a logical consequence of the comparative nature of relative power. “It is not important to be good if the next is worse”, could be a summarising theme of this power source. Therefore, harming other nations is another way to achieve a relative power advantage against other nations – if that is what a state wants to achieve. Returning to the USA, this is the basis of this nation’s national and international policy strategy. While an examination of the reasons for this is out of the scope of this analysis, the nation’s history fully supports this finding. Policy actions in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary underline that the growth strategy of the USA is not only limited to national development, but is also heavily reliant on the exploitation of other nations. Further examples of this strategy can be found in various interventions in Sub-Anatolia and Asia; especially, in Iran, Iraq, Syria, but also in Afghanistan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Intervention in European affairs has also been a major source of power for the North American nation.
The USA were never forced to act in that specific way. Its geographical position and properties always allowed them to expand their absolute power vastly without interference in other nations’ affairs. However, the USA established a culture of developing themselves and exploiting other nations simultaneously. This is also the reason why this young nation has made massive economic progress in merely a little over one century. The combination of this dual approach has led to a major international power imbalance, as the USA’s relative power has grown at an amplified rate. Surely, the absolute power development rate has suffered under this approach since the outward-looking dimension of operations undermines the normativity of the political and societal system. Nonetheless, the power balance sheet remains positive for the North Americans. This state behaviour has been consolidated at a systemic level to such a degree that government changes did not disrupt this policy approach. Over the last century, aided by globalisation trends and the shift from military expansion to public diplomacy imperialism, the USA constructed a perceived normality around their presence in virtually every major international setting. Today, the USA appears in the most peripheral contexts as mediators, partners, actors or at least as commentators. Its economic power, paired with the willingness to coerce other states into compliance with national goals, is now viewed as a form of legitimacy for their omnipresence; not because that is a logical consequence, but because this nation chooses to develop itself while diminishing others. It is important to note that the USA also implemented structural mechanisms to uphold this position, such as providing a reserve currency, maintaining an expansive network of military bases around the world, and strategically acquiring financial markets abroad.
All of this is further reinforced by all the nations that accept this constructed situation. Every time the USA is proactively put into the spotlight of a national media outlet, it reinforces the structural position of the North Americans through discursive means. Needless to say, involving this nation in negotiations far away from their own territory only worsens the situation. Every time this happens, a nation positions itself below the USA without having to do so. In light of the two forms of power, the argument that the threat of North American aggression forces nations to follow suit, it needs to be said that being in such a situation was only possible through active cooperation by the targeted nation in the first place. To solve this dependency problem, nations need to focus exclusively on the development of their absolute power capabilities – something that is explored later.
Effects on the International State System
From a systems perspective, a unipolar global political order is always detrimental to global development. The hegemon has the structural power to maintain its desired power distance relative to other states. Due to the many perceived benefits of being a hegemonic power, hegemonic states tend to use their structural power to uphold unipolarity at the international level. The British Empire serves as a historic example to underline this point. Today, one of those structural power elements is the use of media. The USA’s media presence is an important part of constantly emphasising the relative power of this nation. Here, two dynamics mutually reinforce each other: i. promotion of national music, movies, politics and news; and ii. reactive, self-undermining behaviour of other states. Regarding the first point, it is not that the USA controls each and every news outlet in the world. Rather, it promotes its music, movies, politics and news through strengthening the national platforms on which those pieces of information and art are published. Then, the second dynamic sets in. Because the North Americans constructed the perception that they are omnipresent, and allegedly deserve to be so (see Manifest Destiny), other nations willingly promote everything that comes from North America, as they now attach a false prestige to it; regardless of whether it is political developments, places, lifestyles, products, arts, music or language.
For the international state system, this means that the same things and developments from other nations are perceived as less relevant, as there is less demand for them. While the nickname of the Defence Ministry of the USA, nearly all of their provinces and the name of its President are globally known, there is no such vastly proliferated knowledge on the same aspects of other nations, not even the second or third biggest economies in the world. This demonstrates how dominant the USA and its socio-politics are in the world. Everything else is accepted to be of second nature by many other societies. The biggest danger in this situation lies in the incremental effect that this perception is also carried onto the normative level. In other words, as everything around the North American, including the North American as a human being, is elevated to such heights, the implication is that others are worth less. Since similar developments, products and everything else in the world do not receive the same attention as those in the USA, this is almost an explicit statement on the importance attached to other nations. Through the maturity of this thought, which all the societies that think that way are fully responsible for, the USA’s position is also strengthened in the political arena. Eventually, since we know about the exploitative nature of this nation, the relative power gained through the voluntary submission of other states is used to further increase the power discrepancy.
Effects on the Global Economy
Another detrimental aspect of North American presence in every aspect of global life is the global economy. The national currency of the USA is accepted as a global reserve currency. Other states are not bound to accept this, but they do so because of the economic capabilities of the USA. The paradoxical situation here is that the USA gained their economic power through exploitation, which became somewhat semi-accepted, and now this economic power is being resorted to lend and seek capital that deepens dependencies. Simultaneously, the North Americans reduce their transaction costs and exchange rate risks. Also, they can influence the monetary policies of states that have tied their currency to the North American currency and exercise pricing power over commodities. If states decided to resort to other reserve currencies, or ideally insist on economic conduct in their national currency, the global economic power balance would quickly improve. Unfortunately, most attempts to do so resulted in the large-scale destruction of either the economic or political system by North Americans, such as in Libya or Iraq.
Next, the omnipresence of the USA has also led to a significant pull effect in financial markets. The North American stock exchanges attract disproportionate amounts of capital from all over the world, predominantly based on the perception of superiority by other nations. Similar or better companies elsewhere struggle to attract fractions of the capital that flows into highly speculative and often unprofitable North American companies. Again, this amplifies and reinforces the USA’s economic development massively. The attraction has expanded to such a degree that companies from very different regions in the world decide to issue their shares at stock exchanges in the USA, strengthening the USA’s relative power.
Effects on Societal Development
In the domain of lifestyle and related aspects of societal life, the infiltration of the USA might seem to be the least threatening, while being the exact opposite. North American movies, books, music, fashion, language, food and other cultural trends have become so popular that they, in some cases, are even more popular than national culture. The so-called Americanisation of societies is a major issue that undermines the diversity and scope of societal life. Especially, considering the age of this young nation, the loss in the cultural development rate in other, much older and mature, societies amounts to a global loss of cultural experience and depth. Moreover, because the strategy to expand relative power informs the export of cultural aspects, we need to assume that there is also a strongly manipulative dimension to the proliferation of North American cultural trends. This exercise of soft power is dependent on the acceptance of the receiver. At the global level, we can see that various societies happily receive and accept North American culture; again, spurred by the perceived superiority of the USA, which emerged from its omnipresence in every aspect of life.
The more cultural goods are consumed, the more the receiving culture adapts to the North American one. Such a development inevitably leads to socio-political decay. As it is known from the devletist school of political thought, a nation can only develop successfully if its political systems and outputs are in accordance with the cultural core of its society. It is an alignment that produces unquantifiable advantages and reduces societal risks. When a nation starts to adopt a different culture, or is at least influenced by it, this alignment cannot take place. A mismatch between the core structure of the society and its capabilities and approaches emerges. Accordingly, the nation that moves away from its values, principles, traditions, language, art and mentality will first develop more slowly, reducing the quality of life. This triggers faster decay as confusion about the values emerges. Finally, a disconnect with the societal core might emerge, leading the society into dysfunctionality.
How to Deal with the “USA Curse”?
Nearly all of the USA’s power stems from one source: our attention. Therefore, the answer to how to bring balance to the global state system is very easy: do not pay attention to the USA. This does not mean that everything that comes from North America is outright bad. However, states must move away from including the USA in every aspect of politics. Since politicians are the mirror of the society, societies must move away from including the USA in every aspect of societal life. From talking about them in our private lives to finding national substitutes for products and services. One can eliminate English words in the use of the native language, or one could explicitly research general developments in other nations instead of letting the media tell us to, once again, follow what is going on in North America. The possibilities are endless, but are all based on one core: redirecting attention. This will inevitably expand our horizons and balance the power of societies in the long term.
We at Essydo Politics have followed this approach for a long time. We are keen to select our topics based on added value for our readers. This means carefully examining the political landscape and composing strategies to provide a fair and balanced selection from all regions in the world across all disciplines of political science. As we established here, the USA are omnipresent, which is why we seldom write about this state as explicitly and comprehensively as we did in this analysis. More importantly, our language is geared towards dismantling the North American hegemony. Their Defence Ministry, to us, is just a Defence Ministry and not worthy to be called by its popular nickname. The same holds true for its central bank and Parliament. We value attentiveness to detail, and such minor details have profound effects on the subconscious perception of things. With other expanded operations into the news sector, we are committed to upholding this quality standard, which is applied across all of our formats. In the end, our mission is to provide you with a reliable source and partner that is genuinely interested in increasing your absolute power in terms of political understanding.
