However, when Americans use this word, it has another meaning: "landmark. The polling data from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in shows that 42 percent of Americans feel that the US is less safe than it was before the terrorist attacks in , while almost 90 percent believe that terrorism is likely to be a part of life at least to some degree in the future. That's because the tragedies in occurred at a time when the world had entered the age of television and internet.
When Americans witnessed the landmarks of New York collapsed live in air, their hearts collapsed as well. At least 2, people lost their lives in the terrorist attacks, while the death toll at Pearl Harbor was 2, Some Americans believed the attacks were a war against American civilization, the American way of life, and American democracy. Fury obscured Americans' perception of the world and themselves following this.
Policy makers in the White House were lost in the pursuit of vengeance. Since then, counter-terrorism has become the most important foundation for a US president to rule. In the eyes of Washington, fighting terrorism, changing regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, and forcibly implementing American-styled democracy in the region are part of the transformation project.
They believed that reshaping the Middle East and Islamic civilization will guarantee the US absolute security. However, the US' defeat in Afghanistan proves that Washington's goal is a mission impossible.
As Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, recently wrote for the Economist on why the US failed in Afghanistan, "The military objectives have been too absolute and unattainable and the political ones too abstract and elusive.
For Europe, in particular, continued domination by the U. In London and Paris, however, there is an increasing acknowledgment that this cannot be the case—that there has been a fundamental and permanent shift. Those that I spoke with divided their concerns, implicitly or explicitly, into ones caused by Trump and ones exacerbated by him—between the specific problems of his presidency that, in their view, can be rectified, and those that are structural and much more difficult to solve.
Almost everyone I spoke with agreed that the Trump presidency has been a watershed not just for the U. Words once said cannot be unsaid; images that are seen are unable to be unseen. The immediate concern for many of those I interviewed was the apparent hollowing out of American capacity. Take the confusion over the coming G7 summit in September.
Trump sought to broaden the group, notably including Russia and India, with the aim, I was told, of building an anti-China concert of powers. But this was rejected by Britain and Canada, and Merkel refused to show up in person during the pandemic. Behind the scenes, France has been trying to mend fences—this is not how a superpower is supposed to be treated. Read: How did we get here? A European ambassador told me Trump himself is an expression of American decline. It is a sign of the United States following other great powers downward, something Biden—a septuagenarian who must be shielded from crowds because he is among the most vulnerable populations for the novel coronavirus—only illustrates further.
Today, they are a successful country, but they have simply lost their power. To some extent, the U. N ot everyone is convinced. Second, Blair argued that the United States remains extraordinarily resilient, whatever its current challenges, because of the strength of its economy and political system. A final caveat, according to the former British leader, is China itself, whose global omnipotence or respect should not be overstated.
Blair—a committed Americanophile—nevertheless stressed that the U. American financial and military might meant that even their combined power was irrelevant. Read: How China is planning to win back the world. The truth is that we live in an American world, and will continue to do so, even as its power slowly fades. At one level, the Europe that sent tens of thousands of people to listen to Obama speak at the Brandenburg Gate when he was not even yet president is the same one that packed tens of thousands into European capitals at the height of a global pandemic to call for justice for George Floyd: It is an international community obsessed with America, and dominated by it.
It is one that feels as if it had a stake in America, because it does, even if it is not constitutionally a party of it. If this is a uniquely humiliating moment for the U. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement.
Yet this is also a nation that is not Russia or China, as much as its own leader would have us all believe. In Moscow and Beijing, for starters, it would not be possible to protest in such numbers and with such vehemence.
From a European perspective, it is also striking to see the energy, the oratory, and the moral authority once again bubbling up from below—the beauty of America, not the ugliness. To listen to an Atlanta rapper address a press conference, or a Houston police chief speak to a crowd of protesters, is to watch a more accomplished, powerful, and eloquent public speaker than almost any European politician I can think of.
What is different today is that the same cannot be said of the president or the Democratic candidate who wants to replace him. Furthermore, as much as there is obvious racism in America, there remains subtle, deep, and pervasive prejudice in Europe that means its failures may be less obvious but are no less prevalent. Where, one might ask, are the opportunities for black and ethnic-minority success and advancement greatest, in Europe or America? A quick look at the makeup of the European Parliament —or almost any European media outlet, law firm, or company board—is sobering for anyone inclined to believe it is the former.
Like many countries that disapprove of U. Hezbollah, a militant group and political party deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, has operated out of Lebanon for several decades. Hezbollah subsequently claimed responsibility for the roadside bombing of an Israeli patrol along the Lebanese-Israeli border in retaliation.
The country is also strapped with debt. Relations with Pakistan have been tense since the September 11, , terrorist attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda. Shortly after the attacks, the U. Four of five Palestinians disapproved of American leadership, by far the worst perception of the United States globally. Hamas, the organization that has effectively governed the Gaza Strip territory since , is considered by the United States and European Union to be a terrorist organization.
Contact us at letters time. By Thomas C. Frohlich , Vince Calio and Alexander E. Related Stories. The 25 Defining Works of the Black Renaissance. Already a print subscriber?
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