Need to Know
R.I.P. The American Century
There is some debate about when the period of U.S. international leadership often described as “The American Century” began. Most frequently, people assert it commenced in the wake of the U.S.-led allied victory in World War II. Others, who see it as referring to the gradual rise to preeminence of U.S. power on the international stage might set the date earlier. Some might point America’s entry into World War I. Others might even suggest it began with the period of expansion that commenced near the turn of the century during the presidency of William McKinley and immediately afterwards that of his successor, Theodore Roosevelt.
There will likely be less disputing when the American Century died, however. While our decline began with ill-considered military debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan during the first two decades of this century (and with domestic policies that favored the rich, increased inequality and therefore division within our society, and the general sense of lazy entitlement that marked the checkered leadership tenure of the Baby Boom generation, our period of global leadership, the product of generations of great sacrifice, vision and commitment, was undoubtedly pronounced dead on February 28, 2025.
On that date, this past Friday, America’s worst president, a man who has already contributed enormously to the country’s decline, Donald Trump, effectively announced his government’s formal abandonment of the principles, values, allies and institutions that were essential to our global leadership role. While he had attacked those foundations of American leadership throughout his first term in office, seeking to withdraw into a gated community vision of America’s role, and while he has accelerated his assault on that leadership role since reassuming office in January (see below for more on this), his pre-meditated ambush of Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office was a public confirmation that America had renounced its role as leader of the free world. Instead, it was more clearly communicated than ever before that Trump had chosen for us—with the support of his administration acolytes and the MAGA colony of worms on Capitol Hill—a new role as a satellite nation of Russia and a vassal state of its dictator Vladimir Putin.
