9.6: Challenges of the 21st Century
9.6: Explain the causes and effects of the domestic and international challenges the United States has faced in the 21st century.
And here, at last, we’ve gotten to the last set of notes for AP United States History. And now, with that, we’re finally fully in the 21st century and now, let’s talk about some of the challenges!
Presidency of George W. Bush
In the Election of 2000, Al Gore, 42nd President Bill Clinton’s vice president, was nominated by the Democrats and George W. Bush, the son of 41st President George H. W. Bush, was nominated by the Republicans. The election was so close that when Bush won Florida with only a few hundred votes more, it mandated a recount and required the Supreme Court to decide the election. In the end, the court ruled in favor of Bush, and he became the 43rd President.
9/11
But one of the biggest events of Bush’s presidency was the 9/11 attacks on September 11, 2001, in which al Qaeda, a terrorist organization resentful of the United States for their support of Israel and what they had done in the Middle East, drove planes into the Twin Towers and killed thousands of people. In response, Congress approved the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which combined over 20 federal agencies together in order to protect the United States’ security and combat terrorism.
The Patriot Act
The Patriot Act was also passed after 9/11, giving the U.S. government the power to tap phones, expanding the surveillance capabilities of the government, and expanding what crimes counted as terrorism. But as a result of this act, the government began collecting records of cell phone calls and emails and began using military tribunals to try suspects suspected of terrorism. Suspects were imprisoned indefinitely in a prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. This prison was used because due to the fact that it was not on U.S. soil, they could be classified as enemy combatants instead of criminals or prisoners of war.
The War on Terror
After 9/11, Bush also declared a “War on Terror” and launched the Bush Doctrine, which declared that the U.S. had the right to do “pre-emptive strikes” against enemies before they attacked the U.S. This led to a war in Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, who was using Afghanistan as a base for attacks. While the U.S. was able to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the U.S. failed to capture bin Laden until 2011 and Afghanistan became very unstable as a country.
Iraq
While the War on Terror worked, it led to a lot of criticisms against the government and in 2014, the U.S. began withdrawing from Afghanistan and changed their focus to training the Afghan military there instead of occupying them.
Also as part of the War on Terror, Bush also accused Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction. But even after the UN Security Council failed to find evidence of these weapons in 2003, the U.S. launched an invasion of Iraq from Kuwait anyways in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Within two weeks, Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, was captured but again, no evidence of these weapons were found and many began criticizing the war, especially after pictures of the U.S. abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib were revealed. By 2011, all U.S. forces in Iraq were withdrawn.
The Great Recession
Also under Bush’s presidency was the Great Recession of 2008, during which the housing market collapsed and many banks failed. This led to a credit crisis because banks couldn’t make loans and so the economy slowed down. The stock market lost half its value, gas prices rose, and unemployment spread. As a result, the federal government started taking over a few critical financial institutions and also sent out a stimulus package for the people. After a Wall Street bank went bankrupt, the Economic Stabilization Act was passed in 2008 which created the Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing mortgages and assets from banks.
Obama and Energy
Then, after Obama was elected president after the Election of 2008, he passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to promote economic recovery. This provided tax cuts to encourage spending and also provided money to state and local governments to fund construction projects, education, health care, and renewable energy.
Speaking of renewable energy, environmental concerns also became prevalent during the 21st century. In the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, many countries agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but the United States did not ratify this treaty. Later, in the Paris Climate Accords in 2015, the United States did agree to keep the rise in mean global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.
In addition, the US was very dependent on foreign oil so they began to seek alternative sources of energy. While nuclear power plants had always been an option, many were concerned about their safety after the Three Mile Incident and Chernobyl. Another solution they turned to was fracking, in which they fractured bedrock with pressurized liquid to get more oil. As for solar power, the Obama administration made this more affordable through tax breaks.
And with that, the AP United States History curriculum is done.