The U.S. has defended democracy and promoted its democratic system to the world for a long time. The evolution of its mentality must be studied clearly to understand the current behavior of the U.S. in executing its domestic and foreign policies in areas of diplomacy, military, economy, technology, and culture (via the media) The U.S. history is only 250 years long counting from its founding as an independent country up to the present. From the perspective of the nation and its people. Examining the evolution of its ‘national mentality’ is not very complicated and thus can be analyzed. But what is confusing and troubling is that the world academic, cultural, and media domains well controlled by the United States have formed a set of self-justifying arguments, after years of self-reinforcement. These arguments claim that the American democratic system is the best political model. Hence the U.S. has been promoting American democracy with a belief that she is helping other nations and doing the world a favor.
North America was originally a colony with immigrants of Anglo-Saxon and European whites. The population of the aborigines is small on the North American Continent; they were almost entirely wiped out by immigrants with violence. When North American Colony started the revolution against high taxes imposed by Great Britain, its rise was rapid not like other colonies, which all had suffered high-pressured long-term rule. Colonies in South America claimed independence at least half a century later than North American colonies. Many Asian and African colonies did not gain independence until after World War II (e.g. India, 1947). The United States became independent in 1776, she proposed the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, advocating that the Americas belong to the Americans and demanding that Europeans let go of their colonies. This is the first time that the U.S. has participated in international affairs with an attitude of helping others and helping the world. Regardless of its real or hidden motivation, the result of the Monroe Doctrine is very beneficial to the U.S., helping her later have a strong influence in South America. But the point must be made is that the U.S. did not rule colonies in South America as the British, French, Spanish or Portuguese did.
The so-called democracy and hegemony are incompatible, when analyzing from the perspective of managing the country and governing the people, conquering the territory and occupying the people. Influenced by democratic ideas, the U.S. after her independence pursued freedom and democracy. So, it was lucky that the U.S. produced a prototype of democracy and became a testbed of an autonomous democratic system. It was also fortunate that the U.S. was not subject to external interference, very different from the revolutionary independence movement of other major countries such as China and India. The history of US independence was unique and lucky. It had the opportunity to join forces with European powers to become a colonizer. However, although the U.S. had inherited the genes, blood and culture of Anglo-Saxons, she did not follow the European powers’ colonizer behavior of conquering the land and occupying the people in the process of her development. This is evidenced by the U.S. relations with her neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico after her independence, the handling of colonies won by the war, such as the Philippines and Puerto Rico, and even the occupation of Japan after World War II. Though the United States has the status of superpower today and always places its interests above others as its priority, the U.S. is not an ambitious territorial hegemon.
From World War I and II, the U.S. has obtained huge political, diplomatic and economic benefits as the victor of the war. Wisely, she engaged in the war in its late stage and avoided having battles on her own soil. The U.S. military industry did not disintegrate after World War II, but took time to transform into an industrial complex, Because of the rise of the Communist Soviet Union, confronting the Democratic Alliance led by the U.S., the world became bipolar, creating a Cold War with an arms race. Regardless of whether the U.S. has a hegemonic mindset to lead the world, the fact is that after World War II, the world is in disarray. It is undeniable that the U.S. proposed the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover and assisted Asia, including Japan, the defeated country to rebuild. Unfortunately, the world was split and driven by two ideologies: democracy and communism both have their followers and markets. This ideological struggle led to the Cold War which sustained an arms race supported by the military-industrial complexes of both sides. It can be said that the world has wasted too many resources and entered into a non-productive competitive path.
In 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated due to complex reasons, but based on the narrative of Western democracy, it blamed the collapse of the Soviet Union on its economic failure and pointed out that communism made the Soviet economy bankrupt. At the end of the 20th century, the U.S. became the world's most powerful country with no serious competitor. The U.S. also became the recognized leader in the world. But the changes in the world are not as simple as the above narrative. The biggest variable was the rise of China with its double-digit growth rate in GDP. China continued to grow in the 21st century and became the world's second largest economy in 2010. China's achievements must be attributed to Chinese-style communism. In addition, the U.S. has been attacked by Islamic terrorist organizations, resulting in changes in its foreign, military, and economic policies which led to the decline of its national strength. Since the 21st century, the U.S. has gradually developed a panic, fear-China syndrome. The U.S. has adopted a comprehensive anti-China strategy in terms of diplomacy, military, economy, technology and culture. However, this strategy is wrong. China’s rise was never through a hegemony strategy. Both the U.S. and China are anti-hegemons with no ambition of territorial expansion. The two countries are situated on two halves of the Earth separated by oceans. Barring military confrontation, there is no threat between the two nations other than the competition which may produce benefits to the human race, for example. In agriculture, climate change, energy, medicine, transportation, and space.
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