This piece is talking about that if America continued on its full decline, would the world still look and act like it does today? He first talks about how intellectuals believe it would, since America has spent years upon years spreading democracy and creating nations to help us if we fall. However, he believes that even though we did set up democratic nations and other fundamentals worldwide, they may not come to our rescue due to conflicting sides between countries (even those that are democratic) and the other immense world powers across the world with opposing views (like communism which is strictly against democracy). However, he also talks about how even though strong communist nations (that are seen as the top nations next to America) may actually be one of the poorer nations due to its constant isolationism of economics and trade. It is seen as a very independent country but he questions if these types of isolationists, who put all of their trust in the state, none in the majority and none in other nations of the world, can rule as a top world power. So, he then ends with saying that the world needs America, for “the U.S. [is] essential to keeping the present world order together and that the alternative to American power … [is] chaos and catastrophe”.
The author of this article is Robert Kagan. He is credible because he not only graduated from Yale University, a very prestigious university, but he also earned his MPP at Harvard, PhD at American University and is a professor at Georgetown University. He even worked in the State Department Policy Planning Staff of the government.
The context of this piece would be spacial because he had to refer back to even the early Roman times, during the fall of the roman empire, to connect to past citations of today to show how much America is needed as a world power (and what its fall would do).
The main purpose of this piece was a basic qualification cause and effect essay. It talked about some causes of the possibility of America’s fall from world power (by referring to previous falls of strong, elite nations IE the Roman Empire) and the effects of said fall (judging from current events and states of other global powers IE China’s world stage).
The audience would be the general public. I believe this because even though it is on the WSJ website, and the Wall Street Journal is known for its advance diction, topics and contexts, the general public (which I consider myself to be) that may not know as much on some subjects can still understand what this author talking about.
Some rhetorical elements used were qualification, enthymeme, and rhetorical questioning. First of all, I believe that this article was a qualification-cause-and-effect article. It would be a qualification article because it considered both sides (if America’s drop down from the world’s largest power would have negative or positive effects on the world stage). It would also be a cause-and-effect article because it did speak of how America would fall and the effects (-/+) it would have on the world.
Enthymeme was also shown all throughout the piece to carry along the readers. One enthymeme would be:
Major: America is a very influential world power (like the Roman Empire)
Minor: World powers can fall sometimes which may lead to an overall world stage (either negative of positive, it is still a major change of living for all).
Claim: Therefore, the world needs America to avoid this negative and/or positive change that could alter the world immensely.
They also used rhetorical questioning to carry on the article and its qualifications. One such example would be “Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences?” and “What about the economic order of free markets and free trade?” These questions absolutely led the reader from one topic into the next. This was a fabulous rhetorical decision because it helped readers follow the author’s logic and want to keep reading. This also improved the author’s ethos because he didn’t favor one side or the other – he allowed the reader to consider both and choose themselves.
Yes, this author accomplished their purpose. They did because they were able to get across the main point of their article which was that the world needs America as a world power, no matter if it led to positive or negative effects, because it’s still major change which the world may not be able to adjust to. They were able to do this with qualification examples that showed both negative and positive results of America’s downfall.
GOOD CITATIONS TO REMEMEBER:
President Bill Clinton left office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage."
Americans certainly like to believe that our preferred order survives because it is right and just—not only for us but for everyone. We assume that the triumph of democracy is the triumph of a better idea, and the victory of market capitalism is the victory of a better system, and that both are irreversible.
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