Global Awareness
        
The United States has been considered a leader in the global world of
awareness since the beginning of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. It is the one
country that has influenced international economics, world politics. As a
college student, I have become aware that most of my classmates and
friends are not concerned about foreign affairs. Americans, especially
college students need to know what is going on around them. It is a vital
part of our promising future that we understand the importance of global
awareness. A rising controversial question that I have noticed as a student
is: why is the United States considered a leading global power when we
have so many problems of our own? How did we gain such a prestigious
title? This “world leader” title is inconsistent because people, especially
youths and college students don’t care about what is happening around the
world. That is the most horrific problem of all. Apathy is worse than hate
and ignorance because Americans don’t want to know and don’t care to
understand about foreign affairs.
        
There are many solutions to apathy and ignorance. The combination
of “realists” and “idealists” play a central role in giving democracy the
vitality and appeal it enjoys around the world today. The promotion of
democracy worldwide advances the national security of the United States.
It promotes national security by arguing that such policy makes for better
relations with other people Hence this satisfies realist demand that the
country thinks of its interests which are defined in terms of the international
organization of power (Smith 224).
        
Another solution dealing with apathy and ignorance is involving
students in the Global Awareness Program. This Program seeks to develop
among students, the ability and interest to learn more about the world and
its diverse peoples. This process also leads students to greater self-
awareness, self-motivation, and self-reliance. The program developed by
former Peace-Corps volunteers who focus on changing the lives of youths
to better understand that there is a world around them besides the United
States. Global Awareness was founded to contribute to the third goal of the
Peace Corps Act of 1961: To help promote a better understanding of other
peoples on the part of Americans. Moreover, it gives students a chance to
express their own opinions on some complex and emotionally charged
issues. This fosters interests in other cultures and promotes good citizenship
among college-age students. It also promotes tolerance and multicultural
understanding and lessen inter-group tensions. The Global Awareness
Program is designed to inspire students of a racial background to examine
their own experience and attitudes toward different groups of people and
each other. The students learn how to interact better with one another and
explore the cultural differences among themselves
(webmaster@globalawareness.com) .
        
Part of being aware of global politics is knowing the complicated
policies and theories what is happening around the world. The main theme
in recent foreign policies is “stability through détente.” Stability can be
achieved through a new structure of relations: presumably a multipolar
balance of power. A multipolar balance of power is potentially more stable
than bipolar balance this is because the number of interactions in a multiple
relationship among foreign nations is greater than in a bipolar
relationship.(More nations are working in conjunction with each other and
are focusing outside their hostility to solve world issues regarding a
particular country.) This reduces the dangers which come from mutually
reinforcing antagonisms typical of a bipolar dyadic relationship.
In a multipolar set of relationships there will not be a zero-sum game,
action by one will not require an equal offsetting response by the other.
Instead of the mutual reinforcement of hostility, which often comes from a
dyadic relationship, there may be the dissipation of hostility because the
number of interactions is greater. For instance, both the Soviet Union and
the United States are now diverting more attention toward Communist
China, an “emerging nuclear power.” Thus, the share of attention the
Soviets and the Americans devote to one another must of necessity
decrease.
        
A bipolar balance of power, according to Kenneth Waltz, is
preferable to multipolarity due to the fact that it is more apt to enhance
stability and inhibit the use of force. For instance, while both the Soviet
Union and the Untied States have conflicting world-wide interests, they are
more committed to maintaining some measure of stability through a “solid
and determinate balance (Hillam3-5).
        
Another solution to ignorance and apathy is simple; Americans must
learn about politics and understand what the policies and theories mean to
our future. (Developed states are putting aside military, political, and
territorial ambitions as they struggle, not for cultural dominance, but for a
greater share of world output.) Countries are not uniting as civilizations and
girding for a conflict with one another. Rather, they are downsizing—in
function if not in geographic form. “Today and for the foreseeable future,
the only international civilization worthy of the name is the governing
economic culture of the world market. The forces of globalization have
successfully resisted partitioning to cultural camps.” The virtual state—a
state that has downsized its territorially based production capability,—is the
logical consequence of the emancipation from the land. Firms have
discovered the advantages of locating their production facilities wherever it
is most profitable. Parts of a corporation are dispersed globally according
to their specialties. However the more important development is the
political one, the rise of the virtual state, the political counterpart of the
virtual corporation. The most advanced nations shifted their share from
controlling territory to augmenting their share of world trade. In that
period, goods were more mobile than capital or labor, and selling abroad
became the most profitable for entrepreneurs.
        
As capital has become increasingly mobile, advanced nations have
come to recognize that exporting is no longer the only means to economic
growth; one can instead produce overseas for the foreign market. The
virtual state determines overall strategy and invests in its people rather than
amassing expensive production capacity. It contracts out other functions to
states that specialize in or need them. The virtual state is very new to the
public. It opens and at the same time can control the trading passages.
Countries can be the most powerful and influential without owning a lot of
land. Imperial Great Britain may have been the model for the nineteenth
century, but Hong Kong will be the model for the twenty first century. The
virtual state is a country whose economy is reliant on mobile factors of
production. It encourages, stimulates, and to a degree even coordinates
such activities.
        
In formulating economic strategy, the virtual state recognizes that its
own production does not have to take place at home; equally, it may play
host to the capital and labor of other nations. The virtual state specializes
in modern technical and research services and derives its income not just
form high-value manufacturing but from product design, marketing, and
financing. The rationale for its economy is efficiency attained through
productive downsizing. Virtual nations hold the competitive key to greater
wealth in the twenty first century. They will likely supersede the continent-
sized and self-sufficient units that prevailed in the past. Productive
specialization will dominate internationally just as the reduced instruction
set computer chip has outmoded its more versatile but slower predecessors.
Rather than mass, land, capital, and labor, virtual states set strategy and
invest in people (Rosecrance 45-49).
        
I read and watch the news through mass media. Ultimately, I have
come to a conclusion and realized that redundant America does not
reciprocate the international attention it gets back to the countries who are
following it like sheep. I am a typical college freshmen with an open mind
and I am one with liberal views on world politics. However, I think that
America needs to look back to its “founding father days” and analyze how it
developed and advanced through the help and teachings of her supportive
countries. We, as U.S., citizens are the most influential people around the
world. Similar nations look up to us as a model for supporting, governing,
and entertaining for their lifestyles and cultures. To solve our socio-
economic problems, it is necessary that we look back at our following
countries and learn from them.
Bibliography
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