Leader of the Free World
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
No issues specified. Please specify issues, or remove this template. |
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for neologisms. (October 2011) |
An editor has nominated this article for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion, which will decide whether or not to retain it. |
The Leader of the Free World is a colloquialism, originally used during the Cold War, to describe either the United States or the President of the United States. The term implies that the U.S. is the principal democratic superpower of the time, and its president is, by extension, the leader of all of the world's democratic states, i.e. the "Free World".[citation needed] This notion began between 1947 and 1950 and became stronger from 1950. It was heavily used in U.S. foreign policy until the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[1]
During World War II the United States viewed itself as the de facto leader of the Allies. After the war the U.S. Cold War conception of the Free World implicitly viewed only capitalist, particularly anti-communist nations as free. People in nations with no formal alliance with the United States viewed the claim of leadership as grandiose and illegitimate.[2]
Since 1991, the United States of America emerged as the sole superpower in the world thus the phrase 'leader of the free world' now implies that the President of the United States is the unofficial President of the world because the economic, military & diplomatic power of the US enables the President to exercise globally effective foreign policy.[citation needed] Although the Cold War has long ended, the phrase is still used regularly in the United States to describe the U.S. President.[3] The phrase is also used by those who do not approve of America's foreign policy, specifically as a critique of American imperialism [citation needed].
See also
References
- ^ John Fousek (2000). To lead the free world. UNC Press Books. p. 130. ISBN 0807825255.
- ^ Wills, Garry (March–April 1999). "Bully of the free world". Foreign Affairs. 78 (2): 50–59.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date format (link) - ^ "It's time". The Economist. 2008-10-30. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
 | This United States-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |