waning us influence?

the united states have been the dominant world power for nearly 65 years now. not since the end of world war 2, which cemented the united states' status as a world leader, have they held as much influence and power. take popular culture for example, the general mindset of the average kid on the street would be to think being american is cool. speaking american lingo, speaking like an american, dressing up like one, all this simply goes to prove that the united states today resembles the rome of yesterday.

however, during the past several years, events have taken place which show cracks starting to appear in the all-american wall of power. the surge of japanese influence brought a whole new meaning to popular culture to the youth of asia. not to mention the korean kimchi wave almost right after that. even hollywood have started taking asian films and re-making them into hollywood blockbusters.

the us military have today spread itself thin bring the self-appointed world police body. american forces in iraq and afganistan are fighting a war that is being condemned by their own public. the us' closest ally, prime minister tony blair, is already in trouble supporting washington's war on terrorism. and the latest crack have come in the form of north korean. openly defying the international community (and by that, i especially mean the us) and going ahead with the nuclear weapons test despite protests and warnings from other nations.

would north korean have been so bold a couple of years back? why would they dare to carry out the tests when almost every nation, including their ally china, is against it? let's take a couple of years back to when pakistan decided to reveal to the world that they too want to join the nuclear club. the united states came along with their usual statements of protests, causing a flurry of speculation on what they would do only to simply drop everything and accept the fact that pakistan is now a member of the club. now the same thing is happening with north korea. except north korea is totally different from pakistan.

fact of the matter is, the mere truth that north korea has nuclear capabilities can de-stabilise the entire region. to paint just one of the scenarios that could possibly happen. imagine japan decides to break the treaty that allows them to only sustain a defensive force. they decide that they too need nuclear weapons because the north koreans would be using it as bargaining chips during diplomacy and japan simply would not accept that. japan then starts buying and acquiring weapons to bolster its' forces, with the help of the us of course. now this sends a chill down many countries in asia, especially to south korea, china, malaysia, singapore, because they are reminded of japan's militaristic past. what happens next is an arms race in asia where every nation would be acquiring weapons just to protect itself. tension mounts in the region and stability declines. economies would suffer as businesses feel less safe and hesitate to invest in asia. countries start getting poorer and poorer but they still invest heavily on defence because of the region's situation. now there might come to a point when one nation gets desperate enough and starts taking another nation's resources. world war 3?

that's a pretty extreme example i admit but it's a possibility. my point is that it seems to me that the united states' influence over world matters have been declining over the past few years. the us is just not the nation it once was. maybe it's the start for another rome to take over? because history have proven time and again that no empire lasts forever. maybe not. but whatever it is, the united states have to take decisive action soon if it wants to preserve its' influence. and they can start by doing something about north korea.

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i've been following the developments on this issue for a couple of days and thought i'd post my thoughts onto my blog for you guys to read. i didn't really know how to put my thoughts into words at the start but i guess things turned out pretty ok yeah? it's my first time writing at length on current affair issues so please do leave your comments and thoughts on the matter as well. i wana know what you think of the north korea issue!

and waddaya know, i kinda enjoyed writing these stuff. i think i might just write somemore when i have enough pent-up thoughts inside of me.

hope you enjoyed this one. =)