Before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in North America in 1492, the continent was inhabited by peoples thought to have been descended from nomadic Mongolian tribes who had traveled across the Barents Sea. The first wave of European settlers, mainly English, French and Dutch, crossed the Atlantic in the 17th century and colonized the Eastern Seaboard. The restrictions on political rights and the punitive taxation which the British government imposed on the American colonists led to the American War of Independence (1775–1783), with the Declaration of Independence being signed in 1776.
The outcome was a humiliating defeat for the English King, George III. The American Constitution born of this victory has been imitated by many other countries. A period of settlement, purchases from the French and Spanish, and annexation of Indian and Mexican lands followed.
By 1853, the boundaries of the United States were, with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, as they are today. Economic activity in the southern States centered on plantation agriculture dependent on slavery. Attempts by liberally inclined Republicans, led by Abraham Lincoln, to end slavery were fiercely opposed. The election of Lincoln to the presidency in 1861 precipitated a political crisis in which seven southern States (joined later by three others) seceded from the Union, leading to the American Civil War. The more powerful and better equipped Union forces prevailed over the rebel Confederacy after 4 years of fighting. After the war, the country entered a period of consolidation, building up an industrial economy and settling the vast interior region of America known as the Midwest.
The mid- and late-19th century also saw the development of an American foreign policy: formal diplomatic and trading links were established with the old colonial powers; and the USA sought to assert itself as the dominant power on the American continent– a policy espoused by the Monroe Doctrine (1822) which laid the basis for intervention in support of the USA’s ‘national interest’. The latter has been a constant feature of US policy ever since. Successful diplomatic and commercial overtures were also made to Japan, paving the way for the growth of US power in the Pacific. In Europe, US intervention in 1917 proved decisive for the Allies, and signalled the emergence of the USA as a global power.
Driven by free-market economic policies and innovative developments in technology and production methods – notably the growth of the motor industry – the USA had by this time undeniably become the world’s leading economy. The USA entered World War II following the Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbour, although its earlier neutrality had been decidedly favorable to the Allied Powers, especially Britain.
Domestic post-war politics have revolved around the struggle between the Republicans and Democrats, the only two parties of any significance. The Republican Party, often referred to as the GOP or Grand Old Party, picks up most corporate support and substantial backing from wealthy individuals; the Democrats are perceived as the party supported by particular interest groups, thus the ‘labor vote’, ‘black vote’, ‘Jewish vote’ and so on, and as having more liberal views on social and welfare policy.
The Democratic Party is, however, by no means left-wing and equally as keen as its GOP counterpart to attract the votes of ‘middle America’ – the mostly white, middle-income, middle-class folk who form the backbone of the US electorate (ie the quarter of the population who actually vote). Both Republican and Democratic candidates have been elected to the presidency with roughly equal frequency over the history of the nation, but Republicans have been more frequent in the White House since 1945 while the Democrats have dominated Congress.
World War II also saw the birth of nuclear weapons and the superpower conflict that has, until recently, dominated modern international relations. The essence of post-war US foreign policy was the struggle against the spread of communist influence. Despite the dangers of nuclear escalation, the USA has never eschewed military intervention, either directly, or by proxy. The Korean War of the 1950s (under UN auspices), the ill-fated Vietnam war and the Middle East have all seen US troops engaged while many other countries have experienced the effects of military forces financed and supported by discreet US backing.
The Reagan administration, which came to office in 1980, reinvigorated the ideological struggle against communism. However, relations between the USA and the former USSR improved greatly after 1985 owing, almost entirely, to the new Soviet foreign policy adopted by the Gorbachev government. In 1988, Reagan’s Vice-President George Bush (father of the current president) was elected to the White House. Bush presided over the collapse of the Soviet bloc and, to that extent, ‘won’ the Cold War. With its principal enemy vanquished, American foreign policy needed overhauling. Thus we have the ‘New World Order’, a loosely defined notion coined by Bush senior in early 1991. The enemy, so to speak, was best defined prophetically by one American official as a ‘swirling pot of poison made up of zealots, crazies, drug traffickers and terrorists’.
Under the aegis of the New World Order, Bush senior launched two major, largely successful military campaigns against Panama and Iraq. But his neglect of domestic matters, especially the economy, was exploited by his main political opponent. This was Bill Clinton, the relatively unknown Democratic Governor of Arkansas who went on to win the 1992 presidential election by a comfortable majority. After a shaky start, Clinton served two terms. His administrations’ principal legacy was a healthy economy, fuelled by 8 years of steady growth, and two key trade agreements which laid the foundations of what has come to be known as ‘globalization’: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); and the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) from which emerged the World Trade Organization.
Clinton’s foreign policy record was mixed. It started badly with the disastrous and humiliating US involvement (through the UN) in Somalia; Haiti almost went the same way although the position was later recovered. Thereafter, the Dayton accord that ended the Bosnian civil war was a success, favorably contrasting decisive US diplomatic and military action with the vacillations of the Europeans. In the Middle East, the 1994 Israeli–Palestinian accord was derailed by mutual suspicions while the ‘dual containment’ strategy designed to keep the twin pariahs, Iran and Iraq, in check had mixed results.
Clinton’s second term was dominated by his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Congress appointed a special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, to investigate dissembling by Clinton about Lewinsky and other dubious episodes in his business and personal lives. Despite accumulating a mass of evidence, Starr was unable to persuade Congress to impeach Clinton, but the episode seriously tainted his presidency.
The 2000 presidential election pitted Clinton’s Democratic Vice-president, Al Gore, against George W ‘Dubya’ Bush, governor of Texas and son of former President George Bush. The contest was ultimately decided in favor of Bush, in circumstances that are still bitterly disputed, by an extremely narrow margin in the state of Florida.
Bush arrived in Washington as an unknown quantity, but assembled a Cabinet of seasoned Washington hands such as Dick Cheney (Vice-President) and Colin Powell (Secretary of State); a number of others had served under his father. Many had close links with the oil industry so when the new administration, in one of its first major foreign policy decisions, pulled out of the Kyoto agreement on worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, there were strong protests but little surprise. Soon afterwards, the USA announced its intention to abrogate several arms control agreements. It has also embarked on a controversial research program to develop a defensive system against ballistic missile attack (known colloquially as ‘Son of Star Wars’) and a substantial increase in defense spending to fund it. In general, US foreign policy has now taken a more aggressive and nationalistic bent: the main enemy was defined as the ‘axis of evil’, a group of countries including Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea who were perceived as implacably opposed to the US and its policies. Then came ‘9-11’.
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, which claimed over 3000 lives, made for a defining moment in American history. The impact on the American people and its body politic was immense. The country demanded action, and Bush immediately dispatched a substantial force to tackle and destroy the perpetrators: the al-Qaeda movement headed by Osama bin laden and its hosts, the Taleban regime in Afghanistan. He also assembled a diplomatic coalition of some 40 countries including the Western allies, Russia and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, India and Pakistan to wage an International War Against Terrorism.
The Taleban were brought down within weeks (see
Afghanistan section). Some senior al-Qaeda personnel were captured, including Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged organizer of ‘9-11’, but others, including Bin Laden himself, eluded capture. The Bush administration now turned its sights upon the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. With support from Britain and others, the Americans sought to use Saddam’s possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ – a phrase encompassing nuclear, chemical and biological armaments – to justify an invasion of Iraq. This was completed in March 2003 after three weeks of fighting. However, no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ have been found, a fact which has since caused some political embarrassment for Bush and his allies.
The Iraq campaign was an undoubted military success. Most of the leading figures from Iraq’s brutal Ba’athist regime were captured, including Saddam Hussein himself, or killed. But American and allied forces have since been confronted by a dogged insurgency which, using paramilitary tactics, has claimed hundreds of soldiers’ lives and continues to destabilize efforts to rebuild Iraq according to the American blueprint.
Conditions in Iraq, and national security generally, will be a major issue for Bush junior, who recently secured a second term at the presidential election in November 2004. John Kerry, his democratic challenger, conceded defeat after a fiercely divisive and close presidential battle. However, this election bore none of the claimed controversies of the election in 2000. Indeed, the USA witnessed a record turnout of an estimated 121 million citizens come out to cast their vote. Bush junior was triumphant in seizing the popular vote as well the electoral vote, whilst the Republics tightened their grip on the Senate, kept control of the House of Representatives, and also presided over the possibility of further changes in the Supreme Court. It seems that Americans were keen to preserve stability in the White House whilst their nation remained in the midst of its 'War on Terror'. It remains to be seen how Bush junior will act in such a 'War' while in his final term as President - and, also, how the President will respond to domestic affairs and criticism of his persistent snubbing of environmental concerns, which culminated in him refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse emissions.
GovernmentThe USA is a Federal Republic with 50 States and the District of Columbia (as in ‘Washington, DC’), which lies between Maryland and Virginia. In addition, the USA has close associations with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands and exercises trusteeship on behalf of the UN over several Pacific Island groups. The Constitution (the final arbiters of which are the members of the Supreme Court) ensures that the powers of the executive, legislature, judiciary, presidency and the individual states are balanced by constitutional procedures. The President is elected by an electoral college system, based on universal adult suffrage, every 4 years. No president may be elected to serve more than two full terms of office. The current President is George W Bush, with Dick Cheney as Vice-President. The legislature is bicameral; the Senate has two members from each state while the larger House of Representatives allocates seats on the basis of population. Collectively these two bodies are known as Congress. Each state enjoys a fairly high degree of self-government.
EconomyThe US economy is the world’s largest, most powerful and most diverse. The roots of this lie in the physical expansion and development of the country during the 19th century. As a result, the USA benefited from a unique combination of mass immigration, technological and marketing innovations, exploitation of natural resources, the expansion of international trade, historical fortune (hugely destructive wars that caused immense damage to other world powers but left the USA virtually untouched) and the fostering of a political and economic system well designed to exploit them.
The enormous influence of US-based multinational companies in the world economy has not only afforded unique global influence to the US government but also allowed its currency to acquire unique international status.
Large areas of the USA, particularly in the Midwest, are under cultivation and produce a wide range of commodities: the most important of these are cotton, cereals and tobacco, all of which are exported on a large scale. The principal mining operations produce oil and gas, coal, copper, iron, uranium and silver. The US manufacturing industry is a world leader in many fields including steel, vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, chemicals, electronics and consumer goods.
Since the late 1970s, however, the biggest employer has been the service sector, particularly finance (including banking, insurance and equities), leisure and tourism. Services now account for three quarters of output and employment. New computer-based industries associated with the Internet, which began revolutionising lifestyles and commerce during the late 1990s, rose quickly, burned brightly and died suddenly.
Toward the close of 2000, many of these ‘dot-com’ industries plunged into bankruptcy. The USA’s technology sector went into decline and the country found itself in recession. Annual growth averaged around 4 to 5% during the late 1990s, but slipped to 2.2% as the economy slowed down. The events of September 2001 added to the pessimistic outlook for the economy, as several industries (notably civil aviation and tourism) suffered a sudden fall in demand. In addition to important IT and telecommunications industries, traditional manufacturing industries, such as steel, were also depressed.
In late 2003, a BSE scare caused a major upheaval in the USA’s meat industry, particularly affecting its exports (mainly to Japan). The internationally controversial war on Iraq has also threatened many trade friendships and lowered the value of the US Dollar (US$1 in 1990 had the same buying power as US$1.42 in 2003), although the USA’s economic might has been maintained.
The USA’s most important trade relationship is with Canada (which accounts for approximately 20% of all US trade). The two countries concluded a free trade agreement in 1989: this accord formed the basis for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to which Mexico became a signatory in 1992. (NAFTA is of similar proportions to the EU in terms of population and economic output.)
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