Unipolar moment

Extracted Attributes

• Term Coined By

  Charles Krauthammer

• Associated Theory

  End of History (theory)

• Associated Concept

  New World Order (politics)

• Contrasting Theory

  Clash of Civilizations (theory)

• Key US Foreign Policy

  Promotion of globalization

• Defining Characteristic

  US economic, military superiority, and political influence

Timeline

• Charles Krauthammer introduces the term "Unipolar Moment" to describe the emerging period of American dominance. (Source: web_search_results)

  1990

• The collapse of the Soviet Union marks the beginning of the Unipolar Moment, with the United States emerging as the undisputed global leader. (Source: web_search_results)

  1991

• The Gulf War is regarded as the first major test of the new world order associated with the Unipolar Moment. (Source: summary, wikipedia)

  1991

• The United States exerts its influence globally, promoting democracy, free markets, and liberal internationalism, including the expansion of NATO and intervention in the Balkan wars. (Source: web_search_results)

  1990s-early 2000s

• The September 11 terrorist attacks mark a turning point and are widely considered the end of the Unipolar Moment. (Source: web_search_results)

  2001-09-11

• The War on Terror and subsequent US military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq strain US resources, inadvertently contributing to the ascent of other powers like Russia, China, and Iran. (Source: web_search_results)

  Post-2001-09-11

New world order (politics)

The term "new world order" refers to a new period of history evidencing dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power in international relations. Despite varied interpretations of this term, it is commonly associated with the notion of world governance. The phrase "new world order" or similar language was used in the period toward the end of the First World War in relation to Woodrow Wilson's vision for international peace; Wilson called for a League of Nations to prevent aggression and conflict. In some instances when Franklin D. Roosevelt used the phrase "new world order", or "new order in the world" it was to refer to Axis powers plans for world domination. Although Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman may have been hesitant to use the phrase, commentators have applied the term retroactively to the order put in place by the World War II victors including the United Nations and the Bretton Woods system as a "new world order." The most widely discussed application of the phrase of recent times came at the end of the Cold War. Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush used the term to try to define the nature of the post-Cold War era and the spirit of great power cooperation that they hoped might materialize. Gorbachev's initial formulation was wide-ranging and idealistic, but his ability to press for it was severely limited by the internal crisis of the Soviet system. In comparison, Bush's vision was not less circumscribed: "A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known". However, given the new unipolar status of the United States, Bush's vision was realistic in saying that "there is no substitute for American leadership". The Gulf War of 1991 was regarded as the first test of the new world order: "Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. ... The Gulf War put this new world to its first test".

Web Search Results

• The Impact of the “Unipolar Moment” on US Foreign Policies in the ...

  In short, the unipolar moment is the rise of the US to sole superpower of the world after the end of the Cold War. Economic, military superiority as well as political influence throughout the world was coined to be the unipolar moment of the United States in the world system since there was no other challenging superpower and according to Krauthammer in 1991 no other superpower was to emerge in the near future. It is of significance, however, that Krauthammer highlighted that the US will not be [...] All in all, Krauthammer’s ‘unipolar moment’ never existed. It was rather a US-led political order in an interconnected globalized world (Ikenberry 2004: p. 154). Therefore, it was not US unipolarity which impacted West Asia and North Africa but an interplay of the US, its allies and – in the contemporary world system – its opponents. References Bush, George W. (2003). “Address to the Nation.” Theguardian.com <> [date accessed: 18 February 2014] [...] out-coming unipolarity of the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Korany in Fawcett 2005: p. 60). However, in order to grasp the concept of this fear and its consequences one has to look at Krauthammer’s ‘The Unipolar Moment’ to determine the commonly accepted notion of singular US influence and power after the end of the Cold War. Thus, the unipolar moment of Krauthammer was rather an accepted ideology and therefore similar to Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ a

• The 'Unipolar Moment': America's Short-Lived Post-Cold War ...

  Charles Krauthammer, a prominent American political analyst, introduced the term “Unipolar Moment” in 1990 to describe this period of American dominance. The concept referred to a time when the U.S. was not just a global leader, but the \only\ global leader — both politically and economically. With the Soviet Union gone and China yet to assert itself as a global power, the U.S. appeared to have no real competition on the world stage. Krauthammer argued that this moment of unipolarity was a [...] The end of the Cold War marked a dramatic shift in global power dynamics. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the undisputed global leader, marking what political analyst Charles Krauthammer famously referred to as the “Unipolar Moment.” This period, characterized by American preeminence, sparked discussions about the nature of global order and the future of U.S. dominance. However, Krauthammer’s concept also warned that such unipolarity was unlikely to [...] In 1990, following the end of the Cold War, the global political landscape underwent a seismic transformation. For the first time in modern history, the world witnessed a unipolar order — a system where one country, the United States, stood as the unequivocal superpower. This shift, symbolizing the victory of liberal democracy over communism, gave the U.S. significant influence over the global political, economic, and military systems.

• Life and death of the Unipolar Moment - Hegemonic Project Games

  The collapse of the Soviet Union left the US as the unchallenged global hegemon, a position it capitalized on throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. This era, often referred to as the Unipolar Moment, saw the US exerting its influence across the globe, promoting democracy, free markets, and liberal internationalism, sometimes by force. The expansion of NATO, the intervention in the new Balkan wars, and the promotion of globalization were key aspects of US foreign policy during that period. [...] In the previous article, we explored how World Order gamifies the intricate dynamics of global geopolitics, transforming complex international relations into strategic gameplay. Now, we delve into a critical period in modern history—the Unipolar Moment—that World Order captures with realism and depth. But before examining how the game mirrors today’s geopolitical landscape, it’s crucial to understand why the Unipolar Moment ended. [...] However, even the unipolar moment was not without challenges. The 9/11 terrorist attacks marked a turning point, leading to the War on Terror and to a series of US military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. These wars, dubbed as the endless wars because of their unexpectedly long duration, strained US human and economic resources, with the result of inadvertently helping Russia, China, Iran and other powers ascend silently.

• The Debate over American Power in an Asymmetrical World

  In a 1991 article in Foreign Affairs,Charles Krauthammer described what he called ‘The Unipolar Moment’ of US power. Krauthammer took issue with three basic notions that many observers in the waning days of the Cold War believed would take hold. These assumptions were based upon the supposition that a new multipolar world would replace the old bipolar Cold War world. First, with the Soviet Union becoming defunct, Europe, Japan, and China would quickly rise in the new world order as major [...] While Krauthammer did not get it all right, he assuredly did not get it all wrong. By the end of the 1990s, the United States was in a definite unipolar moment, with Europe seeking relevancy, Japanese economic strength on the wane, and Russia wallowing in its own self-created political and economic mess. China advanced, but remained so far behind the United States that, at least it appeared at the end of the 1990s, it might take decades for China to catch up to the United States even if the [...] In some ways, what Bell suggests is more akin to Huntington. For the United States to avoid appearing unipolar it must use multilateral organisations and enlist the support of the major powers of the uni-multipolar system. Finally, for Bell, the policy of containment during the Cold War created the unipolar moment for the United States, which is unprecedented. This moment will in turn alter the international system over the next decades. And with no counterbalance to US hegemony on the horizon,

• The End of the Unipolar Moment: September 11 and the Future of ...

  The events of September 11 mark the end of a period in international relations, a period known as the unipolar moment, when the US was the sole superpower, and debate raged over what kind of world order and power structure would characterise and then emerge from this moment. Contrary to many of the main interpretations, the likely effects of the September 11 terrorist bombings will be to usher in an era where US foreign policy is more multilateral than before, an era that indicates both the [...] before: it was a unipolar moment, in which the US was the world’s only remaining superpower. According to this view, no one power or group of powers could challenge US hegemony for the foreseeable future. And, of course, there were those who saw some kind of self-interested combination of these two positions being the likely outcome, with the US pulling back from international commitments that were not seen as central to its interests while aggressively pursuing other interests through its