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The New American Century:
Realism and the Democratic Ideal-


[
Updated: September 01, 2010]

The New World Order: 1991 to 2003

Ba'athist Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The Soviet Union, democratizing under reforms initiated by Mikhail
Gorbachev, eventually assented to the cause of the United States and its Allies during the 1991 Gulf
War. The United States and Allies stood triumphant over the U.S.S.R., whose concurrence with the West
signified the victory of democracy in the Cold War. The Soviet Union soon collapsed; its hold over its
diverse peoples weakened by reforms. Taliban Islamists took control of Afghanistan, a former Soviet
satellite. Throughout the 1990s, Al-Qaida, another Islamist group, promoted terrorism to force the creation
of a worldwide Caliphate, ultimately destroying the New York City Twin Towers in 2001. The United States,
convinced Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, invaded Iraq in 2003. At the
beginning of the century, Ba'athism and Islamism, alongside moribund communist regimes, defined
the threats to the hard-won American Peace.

Pax Americana: The First American Peace

"American perfectionism combined both views of foreign policy, affirming principles of Wilsonian idealism,
while also containing expansionist movements..."

Totalitarianism: The Communist State

"The organizational structure and ideological drive of the communist state define its totalitarian nature.
State bureaucracies promote Leninist revolutionary ideology, which seeks to 'free' subjects from
self-interest mentalities..."

Totalitarianism: The Islamist [Terrorist] State

"Totalitarianism takes on another form in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranian Revolution set forth
a new social model for the Islamist state in its 1979 Constitution: 'The mission of the Constitution..."

Pax Americana: The Next American Peace

"The containment of Jihadism is a framework to win the war on terror, just as the containment of
communism proved a framework to win the Cold War..."

A Defense of the Allied Invasion of Iraq

"American and British leaders viewed the intentions of Saddam Hussein, in early 2003, on the
basis of his previous aggressions and resistance to disarmament provisions dictated to him at the
end of the First Gulf War..."

First Principles in American Global Strategy

Neoconservative Foreign Policy Theory- "This post summarizes ideas relevant to
America's leadership role in the world..."

The Social Democracy Pages
Democracy & the Pax Americana-
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Imagining the Pax Americana- 2003 [article]

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