Unilateralism v. Anything Else

I'm a bit confused here. Unilateralism is often used to negotiate terms of an issue i.e. nuclear arms proliferation (whether it be multilateral: many parties working on the same issue, or unilateral: one party).

Unipolar/Bipolar are terms in IR that describe the hegemonic state of the international political system.

If the issue at hand is debating whether a unipolar or multipolar international system is best, then I think that should be clearly stated. Which are we talking about?

anyways, I'll start something up.

Maybe I'm just bitter about the British still..but I think unipolarity is awful. Even a bipolar arena is dangerous. Look what happened in the cold war. Arms Race was tit-for-tat. I build, you build.


Although, in the 18th-early 20th century, there was a multipolar system in Europe. We all know what happened to the world then, don't we?

uh, I still need clarification. sorry.

-Abhijeet Namjoshi

Unipolarity is verifiably the best thing out there. The cold war proves how dangerous bipolarity can be, and United States adventurism is far too necessary to allow the United States to slip into isolationism.

What do you think?

Sure, acting the way you want is not even desirable. Realism dictates that we do whats in the best interest of the United States, whether that means we get to do what we want or not is irrelevent. The fact of the matter is, is that we will inevitably do what we need to do prevent a nuclear weapon from being detonated on our soil.

My apologies, I should have termed this debate Unipolarity versus multipolarity. Instead of Unilateralism v. Anything else.

I don't know how to change it but let that be known.

The question isn't whether the US has enough power to convince nations to look up to it, but rather a strategic combination of what Joseph Nye calls Sticky Power, Soft power and Hard power. Which incorporates economic strength, including sanctions and a strong economy. Hard power which requires military prowess to not only deter acts of aggression but signal the policy of MAD is one that the US is not ready to resort to, but rather conventional ass-beating is similarly devastating. And finally soft power, including diplomatic means of coercion which resolve any distrust and hatred towards the US.

These things are ultimately necessary, and can only exist, as I believe in a system of Unipolarity. Because any alternative would result in a chaotic apolar system.

I'm not really sure if it's even possible to have the type of unilateral power now for any state that was possesed by ancient societies, such as the Roman Empire, and the British Empire. The mere exsistence of nukes and the fact that so many nations have them makes it impopssible for any country to truely act in whatever way it wants. I will agree that the US needs to stay involved in international affiars and it should avoid going back into its cave of isolationism, however I doubt think that acting unilaterially is going to be a good thing in the internaitonal stage, I think that working with other nations is a positive thing and that the US should try and unite the world together so that we can make it a better place.
If you want to talk about the US simply having so much power that other nations look up to it and try and be like it while dominating the internation sphere, like what occured during the cold war, then I think that it would be better to have multiple nations that are like that. A bunch of the current terroist organizations seem to be fueled by a desire to kick out the American pop culture and such that has been forced down their thorats, and I think that by allowing a whole bunch of different types of ideas to go out into the marketplace we can avoid such problems and enable a better world on the whole.