Ronald Steel: Temptations of a Superpower

The Cold contend is gone, alone the responsibilities for the United States remain from that era. The U.S., despite its wealth and office, cannot continue to ferment policeman to the world in every crisis which arises in this serene troubled post-Cold warfare world. However, the U.S. obviously sees itself as leader of the world, and it is withal seen by others as the leader of the world. The future will command the U.S. figuring out its fibre overall as well as in each crisis.

Steel points out that as the United St bes struggles to find its role in the world, other nations are surging forward. However, the economic strength of the United States is much stronger in 1999 than it was in 1994-95 when Steel completed his book and had it published (5). Still, as strong as the nation is economically, it cannot afford to play all savior or policeman to the world, spending far more than than other nations in the various crises since the fall of the Soviet married couple.

The " success" over the Soviet Union, says Steel, has been somewhat of a hollow victory. It is close to as if the united States had been addicted to Cold war exotic policy since the end

of World War II, and with the fall of the Soviet Union the United States was suddenly without its favorite drug--the hatred and fear of the Soviet Union.

Steel is effective in showing how the Cold War victory briefly enjoyed by the United States has not off-key out to be the clear blessing it was thought to be:

this is an ambiguous victory. Although our military power is unchallenged, it cannot easily be translated into the political goals we seek. We destroyed the Iraqi army in 1991, yet Saddam Hussein remained in power. We hunt down the hungry in Somalia, but retreated in roughness later interfering in the power struggle of tint clans. we deplored the ethnic violence in the designer Yugoslavia, but had no solution for a conflict rooted in superannuated enmities (7).

The scandals brewing around Clinton throughout his terms nurse distrait him, but not foreign policy, for the most part.

The engagement in Kosovo threatens to mire his final years in office in foreign policy, but in general Steel is not accurate when he argues that the 1990s have continued prior decades' focus on foreign policy.

Of course, Steel's point about the uncertainties of the post-Cold war world and the role of the United States in that world is underscored by looking at what is happening five years after Steel wrote those lines above. Although the United States is taking a leading role militarily and financially in that same crisis in the former Yugoslavia, the specific role of the U.S., the clarity and goal of its policy, and the outcome of that increase involvement are all in question today.

Applying Steel's obiter dictum to the world today, one finds that, indeed, we are deeply involved in another conflict in Europe, but the uncertainties abound. Is our national intimacy involved? Is NATO's integrity involved? Will the Balkans conflict cast over into greater war? These unanswered and, as yet, unanswerable questions show that Steel is at least focused on the right questions himself, even if he admittedly does not have the answers. In fact, nobody does have the answers.

When the nation is in concrete danger we spend what we must. But it is not now in danger. Thus the real question is how much defense we take on and against what. This cannot be answered until we figure out what our interests are. Only
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