Threats and Dangers in the Twenty-First Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Fettweis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century

Security is relative. No state is ever fully safe, just as no individual is ever completely free from danger. However, when U.S. security is considered next to that of any other state, it is hard to reach the conclusion that Washington faces much serious danger. The United States is simultaneously the safest and most fearful of all the great powers of the twenty-first century. This chapter discusses some of the structural and psychological factors that led to the overestimation of danger so common among U.S. analysts and policymakers. Why is it that many serious observers continue to believe that the current era is so dangerous, and even look to the past with a sense of nostalgia? Why do we fear so much?

Hospital evacuations due to disasters in the United States in the twenty-first century

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
Sharon E. Mace, MD, FACEP, FAAP ◽  
Aishwarya Sharma, BS
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Common Reason ◽  
Hospital Administrators ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Bomb Threats

Hospitals, which care for some of the most vulnerable individuals, have been impacted by disasters in the past and are likely to be affected by future disasters. Yet data on hospital evacuations are infrequent and outdated, at best. This goal of this study was to determine the characteristics and frequency of disasters in the United States that have resulted in hospital evacuations by an appraisal of the literature from 2000 to 2017. There were 158 hospital evacuations in the United States over 18 years. The states with the highest number of evacuations were Florida (N = 39), California (N = 30), and. Texas (N = 15). The reason for the evacuation was “natural” in 114 (72.2 percent), made-man “intentional” 14 (8.9 percent), and man-made “unintentional” or technological related to internal hospital infrastructure 30 (19 percent).The most common natural threats were hurricanes (N = 65) (57 percent), wildfires (N = 21) (18.4 percent), floods (N = 10) (8.8 percent), and storms (N = 8) (7 percent). Bombs/ bomb threats were the most common reason (N = 8) (57.1 percent) for a hospital evacuation resulting from a manmade intentional disaster, followed by armed gunman (N = 4) (28.6 percent). The most frequent infrastructure problems included hospital fires/smoke (N = 9) (30 percent), and chemical fumes (N = 7) (23.3 percent). Of those that reported the duration and number of evacuees, 30 percent of evacuations lasted over 24 h and the number of evacuees was 100 in over half (55.2 percent) the evacuations. This information regarding hospital evacuations should allow hospital administrators, disaster planners, and others to better prepare for disasters that result in the need for hospital evacuation.

“Don’t Do Stupid Shit”

2020 ◽  
pp. 294-318
Author(s):  
Christopher Preble ◽  
William Ruger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
International Order ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
First Century ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter uses a quote by Barack Obama to outline how foreign relations in the twenty-first century, especially for great powers such as the United States, should be handled with deftness, caution, and prudence. It emphasizes the idea that people often take action without knowing the consequences. The authors highlight the need for wisdom, patience, and restraint in important political situations and argue that Obama’s diplomatic approach provides a good model when considering a new strategy to replace approaches that have proved ineffective, counterproductive, or disruptive to what remains of the international order Woodrow Wilson helped forge.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century: China's Rise and the Fate of America's Global Position

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Brooks ◽  
William C. Wohlforth
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
First Century ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
China’S Rise ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Level ◽  
China's Rise ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
New Framework

Unipolarity is arguably the most popular concept used to analyze the U.S. global position that emerged in 1991, but the concept is totally inadequate for assessing how that position has changed in the years since. A new framework that avoids unipolarity's conceptual pitfalls and provides a systematic approach to measuring how the distribution of capabilities is changing in twenty-first-century global politics demonstrates that the United States will long remain the only state with the capability to be a superpower. In addition, China is in a class by itself, one that the unipolarity concept cannot explain. To assess the speed with which China's rise might transform this into something other than a one-superpower system, analogies from past power transitions are misleading. Unlike past rising powers, China is at a much lower technological level than the leading state, and the gap separating Chinese and U.S. military capabilities is much larger than it was in the past. In addition, the very nature of power has changed: the greatly enhanced difficulty of converting economic capacity into military capacity makes the transition from a great power to a superpower much harder now than it was in the past. Still, China's rise is real and change is afoot.

Biosurveillance: A Modern Look

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lee Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Current State ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Security Operations

AbstractThe early part of the twenty-first century saw a revolution in the field of Homeland Security. The 9/11 attacks, shortly followed thereafter by the Anthrax Attacks, served as a wakeup call to the United States and showed the inadequacy of the current state of the nation’s Homeland Security operations. Biodefense, and as a direct result Biosurveillance, changed dramatically after these tragedies, planting the seeds of fear in the minds of Americans. They were shown that not only could the United States be attacked at any time, but the weapon could be an invisible disease-causing agent.

Conclusion: Sincerity Dreams

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen Rutten
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Cultural Paradigms ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Inclusive Analysis

This conclusion reflects on today's dreams of renewing or revitalizing sincerity and rejects the notion that they are outdated or do not deserve any of our attention. It cites the work of several scholars to show that sincerity is anything but obsolete in twenty-first-century popular culture. Indeed, today's strivings to renew sincerity have not been neglected by scholars such as R. Jay Magill Jr., Epstein, and Yurchak. The rhetoric on new sincerity has been addressed in thoughtful analyses of contemporary culture that have helped the author in crafting a comprehensive and geographically inclusive analysis of present-day sincerity rhetoric. In post-Communist Russia, debates on a shift to late or post-postmodern cultural paradigms are thriving with at least as much fervor as—and possibly more than—in Western Europe or the United States. This conclusion discusses the newly gained insights which the author's sincerity study offers.

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