The “Glory Days” of American History

Many Western international relations scholars assume that history is linear. Immanuel Kant wrote Toward Perpetual Peace, arguing that humanity was moving towards an international condition of non-conflict among countries. There a group of thinkers, however, that would argue for a non-linear history of the world. We see countries rise and fall, civilizations grow and collapse, militarization waxes and wanes, and so on. Most of these scholars' fundamental argument is that the international system is cyclical. No country can stay on top forever, no civilization will remain the moral foundation for the world. All things come and go. This opens a pandora's box of questions and problems, but there is only one that I address here and it can be summarized in the following question; has the U.S. already seen and past the pinnacle of its power and influence on the international stage?
I think there are more American war movies about World War II than any other war in the history of the world. When little boys play “war” they generally emulate WWII scenarios and heroes. There are more video games, toy guns, action figures and more that are based on WWII than any other war. Why is that?
It wasn't the only 'world war', so it's not unique in that way. It's not the most recent war in history either. Strategically, it wasn't the best fought war either, we lost hundreds of thousands of Americans and perhaps as many as 20 million people were killed in the warring countries between 1937 and 1946. So why is it so popular?
It is the most popular war because it is the one where America was the stoic, non-aggressive by-stander from the beginning. She vowed not to get involved in this foreign war. But, when the war came to her she didn't back down. America rode in like the good guy in a western movie, white battle ships and tanks, strong, eager young men ready to fight for their country and families and the tide of the war dramatically changed.
Many Americans have this idea that the U.S. was like the big brother of western Europe that, when the big mean bully axis powers started causing trouble, stepped in, picked him up by the front of his shirt and slapped him in the face until the axis couldn't do anything anymore. In a certain sense that's the way it happened too.
So why do talk so much about it? Because we can't do it anymore. Maybe we're still strong enough to pick somebody up by the front of the shirt and slap them around, but now we look more like the bully than the savior. Anti-American sentiment is not prevalent only among Islamic extremists. Ask Europeans, Asians, Slavs, or Latinos what they think of Americans; you probably won't like the answer. They like American styles and culture to a certain extent, but they don't like America.
The point is that we're on the way down. If you see world history as linear, Americanism is not looking like the end point. If you adhere to cyclical ideas, the U.S. is on the down side of its cycle. So what do we do? There are two models, the first is the Roman model, they tried to hold on for too long and eventually crashed and burned. The other is the British model, they eventually let go and, although she's not as powerful today as she was 200 years ago, she's comfortable. Americans have to let go of their egotistical world views. We're not going to be the superpower for much longer and the sooner we realize that, and stop alienating the rest of the world, the better off we'll be in the long run.