The US Department of State

The US Department of State, the face of the richest most powerful nation on the planet and responsible for setting and shaping global policy that affects all of our lives.

I doubt it can be argued that the 20th Century was not America's; successful in two World Wars, victor in the Cold War and undisputed industrial and economic power by the year 2000, where will America take us in the future ?

As we head deeper into the 21st Century what will the Pax Americana that has settled over the world bring us? A Pax Americana that shows signs of being at a crossroads, an historical fulcrum upon one side of which is an extension of American hegemony that may or may not be in communal global interests and on the other, a disintegration of influence, security and confidence.

The United States is a vast and diverse country that is young and vibrant, brash and arrogant, generous and welcoming, naive and innocent, violent and insensitive, and even the name "United States" can sometimes seem an oxymoron.

America is everything and nothing, but definitely something and here is where I will bring my thoughts on what this something is together with my perception, as a non-American, of the Department of State and the America she claims to represent.