Consider Some Current Issues Within the Context of Globalization

I read an article called “What the World Thinks: Barack Obama,” which had excerpts from foreign news all around the world on different country’s reactions to the election of Barack Obama. I was elated to see that nearly every country had an extremely positive reaction to Obama’s election in the U.S., and many completely changed their views of America because of our decision to elect him. It really opened my eyes to see how much other countries are depending on Obama’s decisions to change things worldwide. I thought that the Croatian article really brought everyone’s expectations of the U.S. president into plain view: 

“I am afraid that we Europeans tend to attribute too much personal power to the president of the United States. We might as well be Martians for all that we demand of the new president. We would like him… to: stop the war in Iraq, divert funding from the military industrial complex and use it to improve the lives of the poor, introduce national health insurance, sit down with Putin and discuss how best to bring peace to the world, persuade China and India to restrict dangerous gas emissions, get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, make a deal with Iran, sign the Kyoto Protocol, catch Osama bin Laden and, finally, bring peace to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Of course, all of this should be accomplished in close collaboration with European governments -- and all in the first year, possibly in the first days of his presidency.”

The expectations put on the U.S. president show how much power the U.S. really has globally and how much other countries are affected by the decisions we in the U.S. make.