American Exceptionalism - Essay Example

Throughout the history, American political leaders have been "relatively autonomous" from political pressures and are able to use their autonomy to solve problems confronting the state. During the Cold War, the international policy challenged Truman administration and national security planners. In the early Cold War period was the problematic nature of life in the "atomic age," which explicitly connected public with national security policy. The battle against the Soviet Union and communism marked a new period in American political agenda.

In contrast to other states, the USA followed exceptionalist policies based on the idea of the American way of life and liberty. During this period of time, America joined anti-internationalist streak and opposed participation in international institutions. These international relations led to changes on the national level. Parliamentary systems of government abound elsewhere in the world and can be divided into various categories; no other advanced industrialized democracy has emulated the American system.

American institutions are exceptional. The battle against communism and anti-internationalist streak caused new worldviews help by most Americans. . Americans expect less of government in services, particularly in the provision of social welfare, than do citizens of zither democracies; they strongly support civil liberties such as freedom of the press; and they are of course strongly in favor of a democratic form of government. Chief among the political traditions that have been strong elsewhere but almost absent from American politics has been social democracy.

The United States is unique among industrialized democracies in never having had a social democratic movement with a strong popular following.After the Cold war, Americans continued their international expansion and were involved in the Gild War. Nuclear weapons revolutionized how the U.S. military was actually used, in, for example, Korea, Vietnam, or the Gulf War (Spanos 89).The argument here is first an existential claim that nuclear weapons changed the way Americans understood its place in a world.

Truman administration planners charged with managing postwar national security policy did conceive of nuclear weapons as revolutionary in the sense that they believed doctrinal changes tied to the integration of nuclear weapons into the armed forces did have consequences for the state and society. The Vietnam War and the Gulf war changed national values and traditions of the nation. Exceptionalism was codified in the Weinberger Doctrine (1984) and the Powell Doctrine (1990=1991). A new period in international politics was marked by new international policies introduced by Bill Clinton.

The politics of exceptionalism was embodied in Clinton's politics of enlargement and engagement, his vision of Iraqi leader and nuclear weapon (Ignatieff 94). Both Congress and the media (the presidency much less so) have