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Is America A Declining Power Analysis

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America has been known as the prosperous place of freedom since the founding of the colonies. Much like any great nation, America has its downfalls. However failures are not what defines America, but rather how this nation has learned from their mistakes, improved, and continues to grow. In the article “Is the United States a Declining Power?” Andrew J. Bacevich claims yes, America is a declining power while Dr. Fareed Zakaria says no, America is not a declining power. Ramesh Ponnuru takes a conservative stance in his article “An exceptional Debate: The Obama Administration’s Assault on American Identity.” These articles discuss in detail where the authors feel the future of America is heading.
Bacevich focuses on America’s extensive military, …show more content…

His weakness in his argument comes from the failure to acknowledge how some of these instances have changed the world for the better, such as fighting for other countries to have freedom. Ponnuru covers many of the same points that Bacevich does, such as invasion of other countries and the economic status of American people, but instead sees them as a way to make America greater. He starts by explaining his point of view and the opposing political opinions and proceeds to make his argument by discussing the founding of America and how it came to be such a strong nation, then uses examples supporting the claim that Barack Obama is not in favor of American exceptionalism. He does an excellent job of giving details and examples including the 2003 Gallup survey and quotes from President Obama. Overall Ponnuru supports his opinion by using facts; however the article has a strong conservative bias, and should be interpreted as such. Zakaria organized his argument in a way that captured the reader’s attention, starting with statistics that do not favor the United States. He proceeds to pick apart this data and refute the idea that America is not advancing the way other countries are, but rather are advancing in its own ways. Each author had convincing and valid arguments for their points about the role of America in the world and what is to come, but it is important to take into consideration ones’ own knowledge about this issue and how each article supports and opposes the

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