The American Century - The 20th Century

In the February 1941 issue of Life Magazine Henry Luce, the co-founder and publisher of Time Inc. media publications, declared that the 20th Century would be the American Century (The American Century, Life Magazine, February 1941). As history unfolded over the next six decades with America defeating fascism in Europe and Asia the United States of America (U.S.) became the most powerful country on Earth, and indeed the 20th had become the American Century.

Henry Luce went on to write in his The American Century piece that America was uniquely positioned to help make the values of freedom, liberty, democracy, and free-marketing capitalism the defining characteristics of the 20th century, but only if we had the courage to act which in February 1941 meant the U.S. directly confronting the rising fascism in Germany and Japan.

America and Western democracies paid a tremendous price in treasure and wealth to both defeat the fascism of Germany and Japan in World War II, but also to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union. As the U.S. economy has roared ahead since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it has far too often been American leaders taking their eyes off the hard-won victories of the 20th century which has allowed authoritarianism to rise again in Europe and Asia.

Economic growth is vital to America remaining one of the most powerful countries in the world which will allow the U.S. to promote the Western ideas of Freedom - Liberty - Democracy - Self-Determination, but U.S. leaders must aggressively defend those ideas at home and champion them abroad. Russia’s attack on the 2016 U.S. election and China’s long-game to counter the fundamental underpinnings of the American Republic by keeping tight control of their people at home and pushing back against the West around the world are direct threats to those critical Western ideas. There is no guarantee that the world that Americans enjoy today, which allows them to worry little about world affairs, will continue forever just as no one could have imagined in 1900 the two World Wars in the 20th century which played a big role in creating the world we live in today.